The Florida Department of Education in sponsorship with the Florida PTA has selected Lancaster Elementary School for a 2010 Parent Involvement Award. The award recognizes and promotes innovative school practices that increase family involvement. The Florida PTA will recognize Lancaster at a luncheon during their leadership conference in July.
The school started a program called Lancaster Caring Community. It is a school-wide service learning initiative that supports collaboration among the school, parents, and the community. The focus is to combine challenging academic instruction with engaging character education.
This year, with the help of the school’s community partners, Lancaster Caring Community expanded beyond classroom walls to include an outdoor Caring Community courtyard (pictured above). Staff, students, parents, and community members donated time, talent, and resources to build the courtyard. Students, parents and mentors can visit in the courtyard to read together, share time, or talk about making the right choices.
Each Lancaster Caring Community service learning project is designed to engage parents in active participation in the education of their child beyond the standard parent-teacher conference or doing homework together. When parents and children share common goals, the school sees an improvement in self esteem, accountability, responsibility, and the quality of academic performance among students. Children and their parents form a bond when they work together on a community project.
The Parent Involvement Award program evaluates schools on their impact on family involvement, ability to be replicated, relationship to the goal of the school, participation of parents/families in the planning and implementation, uniqueness and innovation, impact on school improvement, method of funding, and number of partnerships.
