Advancing Parent-Professional Leadership in Education (A.P.P.L.E.)- A Model Demonstration Project*

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Advancing Parent-Professional Leadership in
Education (A.P.P.L.E.)- A Model Demonstration
Project

• Barbara Popper, Richard Robison, Marilyn
  Gutierrez-Wilson, Federation for Children with
  Special Needs
• and
• Heike Boeltzig, Matthew Kusminsky, Institute for
  Community Inclusion/UMass Boston
• Funded by the U.S.D.O.E., OSEP (H324C04Q145)

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• Structure of Presentation
• Part I - Background
• Part II - Preliminary Research Findings

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Part I. Background

• Purpose of the Project
• Special Education Parent Advisory Councils (PACs)
• About of the A.P.P.L.E. Institute
• District Team Action Plans

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Project Purpose

• To test and further develop a model of training
  to promote partnership between parents of
  children in special education and their schools

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Special Education Parent Advisory Councils (PACs)

• Required by MA State Law to exist in every school
  district.
• The purpose of PACs is to advise the special
  education program
• School districts are required to support PACs
• Perspectives on the functioning of PACs range
  from barely functional to active.

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About the A.P.P.L.E. Institute

• 3 day parent leadership development seminar
  intended to
• Improve parent-professional collaboration
• Build parent leadership skills
• Build functional capacity of PACs

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A.P.P.L.E. Institute (2)

• Teams, consisting of 1 special education (SPED)
  staff and 4-5 parents who are PACs members
• Faculty focus on diversity, reciprocal outreach,
  facilitation and communication methods, and
  personal leadership styles
• Districts have daily team planning time

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Participant comments about the A.P.P.L.E.
Institute

• It was a wonderful opportunity to agree on the
  true issues and develop a plan to move forward.
  Facilitators were very responsive to our team's
  unique needs. Thank you!
• 
  -Intervention Group Parent
  
• It was awesome! The trainers and facilitators
  were great and so was the research staff. A very
  useful, fun and motivating training. Thanks!
• 
  -Intervention Group
  Parent
• Thought it was exceptional. It didn't let us
  escape from the communication we needed to
  have.
• 
  -Intervention Group
  Parent

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Ashland 2006
Vision Build Trust, Increase Awareness of
Disabilities, Increased Diverse membership,
Increase Communication Collaborative Planning
Projects, Strengthen Parent Support of
Teachers Actions to Take Difficult Conversation
re Trust Membership Outreach Plan Host True
Colors, Institute Team Meeting, Outreach Plan for
Teachers
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Maynard 2006

• Vision
• Parents Are Involved with Their Childs
  Education,
• Guidelines for PAC Are Developed,
• Develop Workplan as a Team,
• Family-Focused Meetings,
• Provides Resources Information to Families
  Schools, Fundraiser
• Actions to Take
• Identify key leaders, Develop guidelines, Develop
  and implement guidelines
• Plan for PAC

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Cambridge 2006
Vision Planned meetings with SPED Dir.
Leadership Team (ADMIN), Involve PAC Membership,
Principles- Follows, guiding representation,
Target Set Met, Programs for
Families,  Awareness  Campaign
Actions to Take Enlarge PAC Structure,
Recruiting City Wide, Establishing Training
Programs for 2006-2007 School Year Beyond
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Framingham 2006
Vision Functional, Flexible framework, Focused
Working , Groups, Multicultural Outreach
Accessibility, Responsiveness to Parent Needs,
Actions to Take Get SPED directors buy in and
support Collect PAC information from 3 PAC
websites, Identify Needs through survey,
Organize a parent support group
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Everett 2006
Vision Cooperate Collaborate Develop for
Success Support Resource Actions to Take
Promote Participate Collaborate, Educate
Operate, Energize Activate,
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Part II. A.P.P.L.E. Project Preliminary
Research Findings

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Outline

• About the study
• Research design, sample, sampling
• Data collection methods
• Findings
• Methodological issues
• Conclusion future research

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About the study

• Study purpose objectives
• Research questions
• Does the A.P.P.L.E. Institute improve leadership
  skills of PAC parents?
• Do parents who participated in the A.P.P.L.E.
  Institute perceive a change in effectiveness of
  their PAC in working with the local school
  district?

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Research design

• Quasi-experimental design with an untreated
  control group
• Design components
• A.P.P.L.E. Institute Intervention
• Comparison of intervention with control groups
• Comparison of baseline with follow up data
• Time delay component

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Study sample

• Parent-professional teams
• Target sample of 50 parents per Institute
• 5 teams participate in the Institute
  (intervention group), the remaining 5 teams
  comprise the control group.
• The control group becomes the intervention group
  in the following year (time delay).

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Sampling, screening, and recruitment

• At the school district level
• List of 300 school districts, selected 40 for
  recruitment
• Screening of districts by Federation staff using
  a set of predefined criteria
• Assignment to intervention or control in Year 1
• At the PAC parent level
• Outreach through the school districts and the
  Federation
• Screening of parents by researchers using a set
  of predefined criteria

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Data collection methods
Sample/ Data collection Intervention parents Control parents
Baseline Survey Survey
2-4 months after the Institute Survey Survey
6-8 months after the Institute Survey Survey
8 months after project enrolment Interview Interview
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Instrumentation

• Survey questionnaire (baseline, 2-4 and 6-8
  months later)
• Three modules
• 1) Child demographics (9 items)
• 2) Parent leadership and PAC effectiveness (14
  items)
• 3) Parent demographics (16 items)
• Interview protocol (parents)
• Questions (15) follow a semi-structured format
  and address two topic areas
• 1) Parent leadership
• 2) PAC effectiveness incl. PAC-school district
  collaboration

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Findings

• Year 1 and 2 aggregated data
• Participant demographics
• Survey findings
• Within-group comparison (intervention group)
• Cross group comparison (intervention control
  groups)
• Interview findings

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Participant demographics (1)

• A total of 59 parents participated in the project
  (baseline)
• PACs parents from 14 local school districts.
• Participants were predominantly white,
  non-Hispanic, and female, with an average age of
  44.
• Parents had a generally high level of education.
• Most parents had medium to high annual household
  incomes.

Group/Project Year Intervention parents Control parents
Year 1 14 23
Year 2 20 22
Total 34 45
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Participant demographics (2)

• The majority of children of participating parents
  were male.
• Children ranged in age from 6 to 16.
• The largest percent of children had developmental
  disabilities more than 1/3 had multiple
  disabilities.
• About 1/2 were in regular classrooms only a few
  children were in separate classrooms only.
• Most children were in grades 1 to 6.

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Survey findings Within-group comparison
Intervention parents (N26) Baseline (in ) 6-8 Months after the Institute (in )
Considered themselves to be active PAC members. 81 89
Reported feeling really part of their PAC. 54 73
Considered themselves as leaders. 56 73
Felt that as a parent leader they were making an impact at the school district level. 38 54
Felt that they were reaching out to non-PAC parents. 75 89
Felt proud to be a PAC member. 79 89
Thought their PAC was effective ineffective in getting important things accomplished in their school district. 54 19 54 31
Thought their PAC and the school district collaborated well poorly on important issues. 31 42 46 42
The findings are not statistically significant
at the 5 or 10 percent levels.
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Comments from intervention parents 6-8 months
after the A.P.P.L.E. Institute

• We are so much better organized since APPLE! It's
  my goal to recruit more members, build awareness
  and let folks know of all the support we have to
  offer.
• -Intervention Group Parent
• Our PAC is very committed to achieving the vision
  we found during our participation at the
  A.P.P.L.E. Project. The parents involved have
  tried to address what we feel is the biggest
  impediment toward collaboration and that is lack
  of trust.
• -Intervention Group Parent
• We have had both some steps forwards and some
  backwards re the trust issues with our school
  administration. There are varying degrees of
  desire to work on the trust issues as opposed to
  some of the other goals from the A.P.P.L.E.
  meeting.
• -Intervention Group Parent

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Survey findings Cross-group comparison
At baseline, parents (N79) Intervention parents (n34) (in ) Control parents (n45) (in )
Considered themselves to be active PAC members. 77 84
Reported feeling really part of their PAC. 53 67
Considered themselves as leaders. 56 61
Felt that as a parent leader they were making an impact at the school district level. 39 39
Felt that they were reaching out to non-PAC parents. 68 73
Felt proud to be a PAC member. 72 69
Thought their PAC was effective ineffective in getting important things accomplished in their school district. 59 18 49 24
Thought their PAC and the school district collaborated well poorly on important issues. 35 35 36 25
The findings are not statistically significant
at the 5 or 10 percent levels.
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Survey findings Cross-group comparison
6-8 months after the Institute, parents (N68) Intervention parents (n26) (in ) Control parents (n42) (in )
Considered themselves to be active PAC members. 89 81
Reported feeling really part of their PAC. 73 52
Considered themselves as leaders. 73 52
Felt that as a parent leader they were making an impact at the school district level. 54 41
Felt that they were reaching out to non-PAC parents. 89 67
Felt proud to be a PAC member. 89 64
Thought their PAC was effective ineffective in getting important things accomplished in their school district. 54 31 60 12
Thought their PAC and the school district collaborated well poorly on important issues. 46 42 50 24
The findings are statistically significant at
the 10 percent level.
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Interview findings

• 1. Parent leadership
• 2. Challenges to PAC leadership
• 3. PAC identity and functioning
• 4. Major barriers to PAC functioning and success

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1. Parent leadership

• Parent descriptions of an effective parent leader
• A leader is someone who is going to create an
  inclusionary group of people who are working
  together but who can combine strengths in
  different areas.
• - Intervention Group Parent
• Most parents had some leadership experience and
  felt that the acquired skills were transferable.
• Being a parent leader also required a
  new/different set of skills and confidence.

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2. Challenges to PAC leadership (1)

• Separating the personal from the public parents
  emotions as barriers to effective leadership
• I've also learned that you can let emotion get in
  the way, and that is always kind of the
  challenge. You contain that as much as possible.
  -Control Group Parent
• Confidentiality/self-identification issues
• And it's just really hard to have a group, and
  advocate for the group as a whole when you have
  all these people who are just not willing to
  reveal themselves, so it's hard to lead a group
  that doesn't want to be led, that doesn't want to
  be identified.
  -Control Group
  Parent

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Challenges (2)

• Negotiating boundaries with the SPED staff
• I don't know if she SPED staff is defensive, I
  think she wants to control more than she's
  allowed to control, and parents in the PAC don't
  want her to have control of our PAC and she
  really shouldn't have control of it, but she does
  offer a lot. So it's a fine line.
• -Control Group Parent
• The challenge of dealing with school bureaucracy
  and the politics of being a parent leader
• It's a lot of politics and I always said I would
  never be a politician and I'm dealing with
  politics every day now... So I think there's a
  chain of command and I think that everybody's
  hands are kind of tied, we're all talking about
  the same thing but nobody knows how to get it
  done. And that's what I need to do. I need to
  learn how to get things done.
  -Intervention Group Parent

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3. PAC identity and functioning

• Identification of PAC as parent support groups,
  or providers of info, resources and advocacy, or
  both.
• PACs used different formats for organizing the
  support group format, the advocacy group format,
  and the business group format.
• We handle that emotional issues outside of the
  PAC meeting. So were trying to make the PAC
  meeting a business-forum. And then we have other
  things we have a monthly support group thats
  really not associated with the PAC but we
  strongly feel - its like one of our PAC
  benefits - so we can channel people depending on
  their needs to other programs that we have.
  
  -Intervention Group Parent

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4. Barriers to PAC functioning and success (1)

• Misperceptions that PACs and the school districts
  have of each other
•  I think there's a fear from the administration,
  you know, the teachers and staff members,
• like they're going to walk into this den of lions
  if they come to a PAC meeting.
  
  -Control Group Parent
• Lack of mutual trust between PACs and school
  district staff
• Funding issues as a barrier to organizing PAC
  events and activities

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Barriers (2)

• A school philosophy that emphasizes academic
  excellence and where children with special needs
  are perceived as holding other children back
• The PAC not having a clear mission or a vision
• The PAC lacking a (formal) structure and
  consistency
• Issues with recruiting and retaining PAC members,
  and increasing PAC member diversity

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Methodological issues (1)

• Recruitment barriers concerning school districts
• ? Adoption of a more flexible research design
• Gate-keeping issues affecting access to and
  recruitment of PAC members
• ? Broadening outreach and recruitment activities
  
• Small group intervention imposed constraints on
  sample size and measurement of change at the
  individual level
• ? Integrated a time delay aspect into research
  design

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Methodological issues (2)

• Longstanding local relationships between the
  Federation and local school districts created
  challenges for randomization.
• ? Implications for recruitment for future
  research
• Different expectations about the focus of the
  research activities and the ability to measure
  parent leadership changes and school district
  collaboration.

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Conclusion and future research

• Sample size needed to measure change/make
  statistical inferences
• Participants recruitment
• Clarity of the design of the intervention and
  implications for measurement of intervention
  objectives
• Partnerships with parent organizations

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Contacts and resources

• Federation for Children with Special Needs
  www.fcsn.org, (voice) 617-236-7210
• Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI)/UMass
  Boston, www.communityinclusion.org
• (voice) 617-287-4300