School Year: 2024-2025

School: Mulberry Elementary School

Date Submitted: August 15, 2024

The provided plan is specific to Mulberry Elementary School (MES) and its attainment of required WCS Policy 1310/4002. Here at Mulberry, we are committed to forming partnerships and designing instruction to help all learners reach their greatest potential. We understand that our families, school staff, and overall community must work together. The contents of this plan illustrate how we plan to accomplish this task throughout the 2024-2025 school year.

Policy Involvement

Describe your plan to involve parents in the development of this policy and how you intend to document their participation and feedback.

The Title 1 Parental Involvement Policy is developed based on feedback and support from stakeholders. At the start of the 2024-2025 school year, MES will conduct a meeting with its Parent Advisory team, PTO representatives, and any other interested stakeholders to discuss current events, Title 1 documentation, and PTO fundraisers. The meetings are documented with an agenda, sign-in sheets, and minutes.

During the MES Open House event, parents will be welcomed into the school to visit with their student's teacher. During this meeting, we will discuss our Title 1 school status, the rights of Title 1 parents, the Parent and Family Engagement Plan, our curriculum and academic standards, assessments, and grade level expectations. It will also be an opportunity for our faculty and staff to offer suggestions for how to be more engaged and provide opportunities to sign up to participate on the parent advisory team or simply volunteer within the school. It is important that parents and guardians also provide updated contact information and register for the Remind accounts. All information will be provided in a language and format understandable to our families. Interpreters can be available for support. Each classroom meeting will be documented with an agenda, sign-in sheets, and minutes.

Shared Responsibility for High Student Academic Achievement

Describe your plan to develop your school compact and gain meaningful collaboration with families.

The School-Parent Compact, Parent/Student Handbook, Parent and Family Engagement Plan, and other necessary documents are discussed and reviewed in the opening Parent Advisory Team meeting. The School-Parent Compact is a communication tool to support the achievement of parents, staff, and students. The compact is an agreement on how each component will support each other to ensure student success is obtained. Our school leadership team solicits feedback from parents, participates in discussions, and makes necessary revisions to the compact each year. A final draft is included in the Parent/Student Handbook. Also, Parent/Student Signature pages, student expectations, and a calendar of school events are provided in the Parent/Student Handbook.

MES values the participation of all parents and feels that it supports high academic achievement. Therefore, quarterly parent/student/teacher outreach and/or conferences will be held. These meeting opportunities will be posted on the school's social media platform and invitations will be provided by the classroom teachers. Conferences may also be requested by families at any time throughout the year. All invitation communication will be shared in formats that are accessible to all families.

Building Capacity for Involvement

Describe how your school will provide programs to assist parents in building capacity to be involved in their child's education.

We invite all parents to participate in events that occur on campus and interactive events that are designed for at-home facilitation. MES plans quarterly activities for parents to build capacity towards the involvement of their child's education. A portion of the activities will involve parents coming onto campus, and the others will be adapted for at-home participation. MES plans to participate in a school-wide Read Across America week. Various texts and activities will be offered for family participation. MES also plans to hold quarterly PTO nights that allow parents onto campus for teacher and faculty interaction. Each PTO event will be paired with grade-level presentations. MES is planning two large parent events. One will be held in December and the other in April. Both events are filled with learning opportunities and enjoyable activities. Aside from this, parent/student/teacher conferences will be held throughout the school year. Teachers will work with individual families to ensure a convenient time is provided. The conference may be virtual or in-person. Interpreters will be available for these meetings when needed.

Accessibility

Describe how you plan to make all of these programs accessible to all of the parents at your school.

Communication occurs with parents in a variety of ways. This includes weekly phone calls via School Messenger, online classroom updates, written invitations, digital invitations on the school website and/or social media, and Remind. Our Remind communication system allows for two-way communication via messaging. Each teacher has a Remind account and encourages all families to be connected at the beginning of school. Encore and other support staff have also been provided a Remind classroom to foster communication. All of our documentation will be distributed via students to parents. A handbook will be provided to every student's family. School teachers and faculty members will assist with the distribution and collection of essential forms that align with Title 1 documentation. Furthermore, MES has an interpreter that attends school meetings, makes phone calls, and has a weekly schedule. The interpreter is also available on days he/she is not scheduled to be at MES.

Funding

Describe how your Title I Parent and Family Engagement funds will be used to support these efforts.

MES uses Title 1 funds to provide every family with their own copy of the Parent/Student Handbook document and calendar. In addition, the funds go to provide a behavior facilitator, a teacher assistant, and tutors within the classroom setting. We also use Title 1 funds to enrich and enhance students; learning by securing instructional materials, purchasing software and supplies, purchasing computer equipment, and providing enhanced communication. In relation to safety, the Title 1 funds allow us to purchase the Identa-Kid cards for students and families.

This document was jointly developed with our Parent Advisory Council. Every meeting with our parents is documented with an agenda, sign-in sheet, and minutes of the meeting. For further clarification of any of the documentation mentioned in this plan, please contact Dr. Grant Tharpe at 336-667-4641.