The Seattle School Board recognizes that parent and family engagement helps students participating in Title I programs to achieve academic standards. To promote parent and family engagement, the Board adopts the following policy, which describes how the district will engage parents and family members of Title I students in developing implementing the district’s Title I programs.

District-Wide Parent and Family Engagement

The district will do the following to promote parent and family engagement.

1. The district will engage parents and family members in jointly developing the district’s Title I plan.
1. An Annual meeting of parents, guardians of participating Title I students will be held to explain the goals and purposes of the Title I program. The district-wide meeting(s) location, date, and time will be communicated to principals in buildings who receive Title I supplemental funding for dissemination to parents and families. Information regarding this meeting(s) will be posted on the District’s Title I and Family Partnership website, included within the School Leadership Communicator, and through all other typical communication methods.
2. Parents, guardians and families will be given the opportunity to participate in the development, operation, and evaluation of the program at the annual Parent Action Committee meeting(s).
3. Parents, guardians and families will be encouraged to participate in planning activities, to offer suggestions, and to ask questions regarding policies and programs at the annual Parent Action Committee meeting(s).

2. The district will provide the coordination, technical assistance, and other support necessary to assist and build the capacity of all participating schools within the district in the planning and implementing of effective parent and family engagement activities to improve student academic achievement and school performance.
3. The district will conduct, with meaningful engagement of parents and family members, an annual evaluation of the content and effectiveness of this policy in improving academic quality of all Title I schools. At the meeting(s), the following will be identified:
1. Barriers to greater participation by parents and families in Title I Activities;
2. The needs of parents, guardians and family members to assist in the learning of their children, including engaging with school personnel and teachers, and;
3. Strategies to support successful school and family interactions. The district will use the findings from the annual evaluation to design evidence-based strategies for more effective parental engagement and to revise this policy if necessary.
   The district will facilitate removing barriers to parent, guardian and family engagement by doing the following:
1. Conducting joint parent, guardian and family meetings;
2. Hold meetings at various times of the day and evening; and
3. Facilitate parent/guardian attendance at meetings through the payment of transportation and childcare costs.

4. The district will engage parents(s)/guardian(s) of Title I students in decisions on how the Title I funds reserved for parent, guardian and family engagement are spent. The district must use Title I funds for parent, guardian and family engagement for at least one of the reasons specified in 20 U.S.C § 6318(a)(3)(D).
5. The district and each of the schools within the district providing Title I services will do the following to support and provide assistant through a partnership among schools, parent(s), guardian(s) and the community to improve student academic achievement by helping them to understand the following topics:
1. Washington’s challenging academic standards;
2. State and local academic assessments, including alternative assessments;
3. The requirements of Title I;
4. How to monitor their child’s progress; and
5. How to work with educators to improve the achievement of their children.

The district will provide materials and training to help parents, guardians and families to work with their children to improve their children’s academic achievement, such as literacy training, using technology, as appropriate, to foster care engagement;

1. Giving guidance as to how parents can assist at home in the education of their child;
2. Holding parent meetings at various times of the day to parents and guardians to participate;
3. Outlining Title I, Part A supports for students in foster care throughout the district; and
4. Provide opportunities for parents/guardians to meet with classroom and Title I, Part A teachers to discuss their child’s progress.

Educate teachers, specialized instructional support personnel, principals, and other school leaders, and other staff with assistance of parents and guardians, in the value of utility of contributions of parents and how to do the following;

1. Reach out, communicate with, and work with parents as equal partners;
2. Implement and coordinate parent programs; and
3. Build ties between parents and the school.

Coordinate and integrate parent, guardian and family engagement strategies, to the extent feasible and appropriate, with similar strategies used under other programs, such as:

1. Head Start;
2. Learning Assistance Program;
3. Special Education; and
4. City of Seattle funded preschool programs.

School-Based Parent, Guardian and Family Engagement Policies

Each school offering Title I, Part A services will have a separate parent, guardian and family engagement policy, which will be developed with parents, guardians and family members of Title I students. Parents, guardians and family members will receive notice of their schools’ parent, guardian and family engagement policy in an understandable and uniform format and, to extent practicable, in a language parents and guardians can understand.

Each School-Based Policy will describe how each school will do the following:

1. Convene and annual meeting at a convenient time, to which all parents and guardians of Title I students will be invited and encouraged to attend, to inform parents of their school’s participation under Title I, to explain the requirements of Title I, and to explain the rights that parents and guardians have under Title I;
2. Offer a flexible number of meetings, such as meetings in the morning or evening;
3. Engage parents and guardians, in an organized, ongoing, and timely way in the planning, reviewing, and improving of Title I programs; and
4. Provide parents and guardians of Title I students the following:
1. Timely information about Title I programs;
2. A description and explanation of the curriculum in use at the school, the forms of academic assessment used to measure student progress, and the achievement levels of the challenging state academic standards; and
3. If requested by parents or guardians, opportunities for regular meetings to formulate suggestions and to participate, as appropriate, in decisions relating to the education of their children, and respond to any suggestions as soon as practicably possible.

Each school-based policy will include a school-parent compact that outlines how parents, guardians, the entire school staff, and students will share responsibility for improved student academic achievement and the means by with the school and parents will build and develop a partnership to help children achieve state standards. The compact must do the following:

1. Describe the school’s responsibility to provide high-quality curriculum and instruction in a supportive and effective learning environment that enables Title I students to meet Washington’s challenging academic standards and describe the ways in which each parent or guardian will be responsible for supporting their child’s learning, volunteering in their child’s classroom, and participating, as appropriate, in decisions relating to the education of their child, including the positive use of extracurricular time; and
2. Address the importance of communication between teachers and parents/guardians in an ongoing basis through the following:
1. Annual parent/guardian-teacher conferences in elementary schools, during which the compact will be discussed as the compact relates to the individual child’s achievements;
2. Frequent reports to parents or guardians on their child’s progress;
3. Reasonable access to staff, opportunities to volunteer and participate in their child’s class, and observation of classroom activities; and
4. Ensuring regular two-way, meaningful communication between parents, guardians and family members and staff, and, to what extent practicable, in a language parents, guardians and family members can understand.