Obviously the children bring the home and the school together. In an attempt to help bridge the gap between the home and the school lots of different approaches have been taken. Currently there is no room in the school schedule for bridging the gap between home and school communication and sharing those special family stories. In an effort to help with this problem, many schools and organizations have written home and school newsletters and newspapers. This attempt has proven successful in many ways.

Your home school coordinator needs help putting together a school-wide program. She wants for you to come up with a format to help write up stories about families that can be shared in a monthly newspaper. For instance, children can submit stories about their family “treasures,” not just jewels or things with monetary value but things with priceless sentimental value. Aside from family treasures children can share stories that have been passed down in their families, stories from their parents’ childhood, their own stories, their family histories, family trees, information about cultural or native customs, family recipes, family gatherings and other special family stories. You will also devise a way for students to submit their stories and pictures for publication.

Meet with other members of the group and talk about the project. Go on the internet (see resources below) and look for examples of home and school partnerships with an emphasis on sharing family stories and special things in general about families of children at the school in the form of a newsletter.

1. Define and describe the problem https://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/worksheet1.doc
2. Gather the evidence https://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/worksheet2.doc
3. Identify the causes of the problem https://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/worksheet3.doc
4. Describe and evaluate existing policies https://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/worksheet4.doc
5. Develop several policy solutions https://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/solutionsex.html
6. Select the best policy https://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/worksheet6.doc

Once the committee has done the above two steps, then they will formulate a way that they want to gather information from the home. The committee will decide what kind of stories and special things will be submitted either from the student or from their parents and what format the newsletter will take. The newsletter will have to be divided into categories, for example, stories, treasures, recipes, culture, native customs, family histories, favorite family pastimes, family trees and any other category you might come up with. You will need to organize a presentation on your ideas for doing this to present to the home school coordinator.

Meet with the home school coordinator and present the ideas for creating the home school newsletter to accomplish the task above.

Make a final presentation to the Principal asking her to allow you to publish the monthly newsletter.

http://www.grandtimes.com/news.html

www.mflp.org/../newsletters.html

	A	B	C	D
Research	*Problem well identified and thoroughly researched *All six steps of the PPA are thoroughly addressed *Evidence of notes and action research	*Problem identified and reasonably well researched *All six steps of the PPA are addressed,	*Problem identified with limited research. *All steps of the PPA are addressed,	*Problem identified but research is lacking *Incomplete work
Written Newsletter	*Well organized, demonstrates logical sequencing and sentence structure *Thoroughly addresses each of the six different parts (see Task)	*Well organized, but demonstrates illogical sequencing or sentence structure. * Addresses each of the six different parts	*Well organized, but illogical sequencing and sentence structure. * Barely addresses each of the six different parts	*Weakly organized. *Does not address each of the six different parts
Presentation	*Social problem introduced with authority based on information *Utilizes clear and helpful visual aids *Generate and field questions and responses from audience around their topic of discussion. *Every member in group participates in presentation.	*Social problem introduced with some authority *Visual aids used *Generate questions and responses. *Most members of group participate.	*Students state the social problem *Students require prompts to generate questions *Limited participation within the group	*Teacher generates discussion
Group cooperation	*Group establishes and maintains an equal distribution of labor among all participants. *Differences are dealt with maturely and students exercise listening skills, leadership skills, and compromise skills	*Group makes attempts to maintain an equal distribution of labor among all participants. *Almost all differences are dealt with maturely and students exercise listening skills, leadership skills, and compromise skills	*Groups make unsuccessful attempts to maintain an equal distribution of labor among all participants. *Only some differences are dealt with maturely as students attempt to exercise listening skills, leadership skills, and compromise skills	*Group is unable to equally distribute work. *Differences are not dealt with maturely

This web quest focuses on the following English Language Arts Standards:

E1c Reads and comprehends information materials.

E3a Participate in one-to-one conference with the teacher.

E3b Participate in group meetings.

E4b Analyze and subsequently revise work to improve its clarity and effectiveness.

This web quest focuses on the following New York State Standards:

Standard 1: Language for Information and Understanding

Standard 3: Language for Critical Analysis and Evaluation

Standard 4: Language for Social Interaction

New York State PERFORMANCE STANDARDS SCIENCE

S6d Acquires information from multiple sources.

S7e Communicates in a form suited to the purpose and the audience

By completing this home and school partnership PPA Webquest, you will have come up with ideas to help your school publish a much needed home and school partnership newsletter. You will also have come up with a method for how students will submit their articles for publication. As a Public Policy Analyst, you have identified the causes of the problem, provided evidence, researched the current policies, and created a newsletter format. Congratulations!