August 2023

Title I, Part A LEA-Level Parent and Family Engagement Policy

MPUSD Families,

The Monterey Peninsula Unified School District engages families annually in providing feedback on its Parent and Family Engagement Policy and the Local Control Accountability Plan. Specifically, the district engages educational partners who attend Title I schools about their involvement experience to support and inform our engagement policy for the 2023-2024 school year.

 

This policy describes the means for carrying out designated Title I, Part A, parent and family engagement requirements pursuant to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Section 1116(a).

The purpose of the policy is to notify and educate families about the feedback they provided in the survey, as well as the opportunities to engage with their schools, the school district, and their child’s teachers (and/or other educators at the school site level).

MPUSD encourages parents and family members to be involved in the development of this policy (ESSA sections 1116[a][2][A], and 1116[a][2][F]) by:

• Providing feedback annually when the district sends out its Parent Involvement Policy (via ParentSquare).
• Providing input during the District’s Advisory Committee, District English Learner Advisory Committee, and Local Control Accountability Plan meetings.
• The district’s annual parent engagement survey.
• During regularly scheduled Board of Education meetings, the Board Policy Committee meetings, and other meetings, committees, and councils.

As part of our engagement policy, parents and family members are invited to be involved in developing school improvement plans (ESSA Section 1116[a][2][A]) by:

• Attending their school’s Site Council meeting.
• Incorporate parent and family engagement in the district’s Local Control Accountability Plan that examines meaningful family engagement.

MPUSD provides the coordination, technical assistance, and other support necessary to assist and build the capacity of all of its participating schools in planning and implementing effective parent and family involvement activities to improve student academic achievement and school performance. We make a concerted effort to engage in meaningful consultation with employers, business leaders, and philanthropic organizations, or individuals with expertise in effectively engaging parents and family members in education (ESSA Section1116 [a][2][B]) by:

• The district partners with local organizations, such as the NAACP or LULAC, to increase and enhance parent engagement and involvement.
• The district partners with community partners, such as Harmony at Home, Community Partners for Youth, etc. (to name a few) to enhance parent engagement and involvement.
• The district works collaboratively with its school sites to offer parent workshops, Coffee with the Principals, other informal meet and greets at the school site (that are outlined in each school’s School Plan for Student Achievement and school-level parent involvement policy developed with School Site Councils).

MPUSD coordinates/integrates parent and family engagement strategies with other relevant federal, state, local laws, and programs (ESSA sections 1116[a][2][C], and 1116[e][4]) to the extent feasible and appropriate.

MPUSD conducts, with meaningful involvement of parents and family members, an annual evaluation of the content and effectiveness of this policy on improving academic quality of all schools served under Title I, Part A, and uses the findings to design evidence-based strategies (ESSA sections 1116[a][2][D], and 1116[a][2][E]) by annually gathering input through our Local Control Accountability Plan survey, meetings/forums, and School Site advisory committees.

MPUSD notes the following barriers to greater participation by parents in activities authorized by ESSA Section 1116. Please note with particular attention, parents and family members who are economically disadvantaged, are disabled, have limited English proficiency, have limited literacy, or are of any racial or ethnic minority background (ESSA Section 1116[a][2][D][i]). MPUSD’s last formal parent engagement and involvement survey in 2019 indicated the following barriers to engaging with their child’s school or the district:

• Time (as many parents indicated work or working multiple jobs).
• Day/time of meeting conflicting with work schedules.
• Child care (however, the district offers free childcare for most of its meetings).

The needs of MPUSD parents and family members to assist with the learning of their children, including engaging with school personnel and teachers (ESSA Section 1116[a][2][D][ii]) include: 

• Parent-Teacher Conferences
• Translations
• Connections with resources

The following strategies are used by MPUSD to support successful school and family interactions (ESSA Section 1116[a][2][D][iii]):

• Meetings that are convenient to parents’ schedules.
• Offering free child care to assist parents.
• Offering incentives for parents to attend.
• Implementing a new two-way parent engagement system to allow parents to access information in an easy, user-friendly format (this has received positive feedback to date).
• Upgrading our website system to translate information in multiple languages for families.
• Pushing out information in user-friendly formats, such as the MPUSD Minute video format that is easy to access and digest.

MPUSD provides coordination, technical assistance, and other support to assist schools in planning and implementing effective parent and family engagement activities. This may include consultation with employers, business leaders, philanthropic organizations, or individuals as defined by ESSA Section 1116[a][3][A]). This includes planning and implementing family/parenting engagement workshops, such as Coffee with the Principal, family nights, workshops, parent information nights, conferences. These activities for each site may be found in each school’s compact, School Plan for School Achievement, and policies.

MPUSD will reserve 1 percent of Title I, Part A funds to carry out parent and family engagement requirements (ESSA Section 1116[a][3][A][B]) through specific strategies outlined in each school site’s School Plan for Student Achievement and the district’s Local Control Accountability Plan. This includes planning and implementing family/parenting engagement workshops, such as Coffee with the Principal, family nights, workshops, parent information nights, conferences. These activities for each site may be found in each school’s compact, School Plan for School Achievement, and policies, as well as translation services.

MPUSD distributes 90 percent of the 1 percent reserve to schools (ESSA Section 1116[a][3][C]) school site’s School Plan for Student Achievement and the district’s Local Control Accountability Plan by schools based on a funding formula. Schools are ranked based on their count for free and reduced price meals. 

MPUSD provides assistance to parents and families in understanding the state academic standards, state and local academic assessments, Title I, Part A requirements, how to monitor their child’s progress, and how to work with educators to help all students succeed (ESSA Section 1116[e][1]) through:

• Parent-teacher conferences
• District/school portal to access grades
• Disseminating best practices for parent and family engagement
• Supporting sites through the School Site Council and English Language Advisory Committees
• Notifications to families about state and district assessment results - California Assessment for School Performance and Progress and the English Language Proficiency Assessments for California) 
• Developing Site Parent Involvement policies and disseminating School Compacts

MPUSD provides materials and training to help parents and families work with their children to improve their achievement, such as literary training and using technology (ESSA Section 1116[e][2]), during Back to School Nights, family nights and Open Houses, and even offering parent engagement workshops..

MPUSD educates teachers, instructional support staff, principals, and other school leaders and staff, with the assistance of parents and families, in the value and utility of contributions of parents and families, and reach out to, communicate with, and work with parents and families as equal partners, implementing and coordinating parent and family programs to build ties between parents and families, and the school (ESSA Section 1116[e][3][4])through our regular channels, such as Back to School Nights, Open Houses, family and parent engagement nights, and other scheduled meetings/forums/workshops for parents.

MPUSD ensures that information related to school and parent programs, meetings, and other activities are sent to the parents of participating children in a format, and to the extent practicable, in a language the parents and families can understand (ESSA Section 1116[e][5]) through use of:

• MPUSD’s ParentSquare Communication System
• MPUSD’s Website
• MPUSD’s Social Media Forums
• Principal communication
• Take-home documents and information
• MPUSD’s Annual Parent/Guardian and Student Handbook

MPUSD provides such other reasonable support for parental involvement activities under this section (ESSA Section 1116[e][14]) by events, such as:

• Back to School Nights
• Open House Nights
• Family Nights
• Coffee with the Principal

MPUSD ensures that the Parent and Family Engagement policy is in a format and language that is easy for parents and families to understand (ESSA Section 1116[f]). The policy may be found online on MPUSD’s website, and is referenced in the Annual Parent/Guardian and Student Handbook. Moreover, principals review the engagement policy with families at presentations at the beginning of each school year.

This policy was revised and adopted by the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District in December 2020 and will be in effect until the Board of Education makes any updates to the policy. This policy was posted in December 2020 on this web landing page.

This policy and accompanying administrative regulation is available on the district’s website under Parents and can be found via these links:

Board Policy (Adopted December 2020)

Administrative Regulation (Adopted December 2020)