Engaging Parents In School…

Public School Insights is a blog about schools that I have praised a lot on my other blog. It’s sponsored by The Learning First Alliance, which is made-up of many national education organizations, including national associations of teachers, administrators, and school boards.

I was honored yesterday when Claus von Zastrow, LFA’s Director, praised our book on parent engagement.

Thanks, Claus!

The Sacramento City Unified School District declared this week to be “Parent Engagement Week.” Today, which is considered to be National Parent Involvement Day, our new Superintendent, Jonathan Raymond, held a news conference today highlighting parent engagement efforts in our district.

He was kind enough to recognize my book and have me speak at the press event.

Wordle is a free and easy web application that lets you paste text into it and then produces a “word cloud” illustrating the words that are used most with their size showing their frequency of use.

It’s pretty neat.

Here is the link to the Wordle for our book, “Building Parent Engagement In Schools.” I was having some difficulty resizing it to fit in this blog, which is why I’m just posting the link to it.

It certainly gives an accurate representation of what the book is all about.

In case you’re interested, Education World just published a short piece I wrote titled “A Parent Engagement Model That Works.”

It gives a brief overview of my book.

Smart Bean has just published an interview with me about our book Building Parent Engagement In Schools. They’ve titled the piece Engaging With Your Child’s School: Q&A with Larry Ferlazzo.

Here’s how Smart Bean describes itself:

SmartBean is a site for parents that aims to help parents make day to day decisions on practical aspects of parenting largely related to K-12 education and formal/informal learning. It aggregates and presents current education news, research and commentary relevant to parents and in a digestable form. It provides links to educational websites and other resources, and also highlights educational products, books, software and other products aimed at holistic development of children in a changing world. Although its primary focus is on empowering parents, several teachers and educators have found articles and links that are relevant to their work.

Building Parent Engagement In Schools, my first book (written with Lorie Hammond), was published earlier this month. You can learn how readers of this blog can get a discount by reading this.

You can read two “previews” of the book:

One is an article I wrote for Public School Insights in April titled Parent Involvement or Parent Engagement?

The other is one I wrote for the Library Media Connection. It was published last month and is titled Family Literacy, English Language Learners, and Parent Engagement.

You can read the first review of the book at The Tempered Radical by Educational Leadership columnist Bill Ferriter.

In September, Joyce Epstein and I were guests at Education Week’s “edchat” on engaging parents. If you’re interested, you can read the chat transcript.

I was interviewed on the Parents as Partners webcast a few weeks ago, and you can read about about the conversation at Irritate or agitate – what’s your parent engagement like? You can also listen to the webcast at the EdTechTalk site.

Bill Ferriter, teacher, blogger and columnist for Education Leadership — among many other things — has just written a review of my new book (written with Lorie Hammond).

Check-out what Bill thinks of “Building Parent Engagement In Schools.”

My book (written with Lorie Hammond) “Building Parent Engagement In Schools” was published a few days ago. I haven’t actually seen a copy yet, but I know review copies were sent out.

Amazon says they don’t have copies yet in stock yet, but you can order it directly from Linworth Publishing. They’ll also give you a twenty percent discount — if you’re willing to jump through a few hoops.

“Family Literacy, English Language Learners, and Parent Engagement” is a short excerpt from my book (written with Lorie Hammond) — Building Parent Engagment In Schools — that appeared in the Library Media Connection this month.

They don’t have the article online, and but gave me permission to post it on my website.

The book was published yesterday, though I haven’t seen a copy yet…

I had the pleasure and honor of being interviewed by Lorna Costantini, Matt Montagne, and Cindy Seibel on Parents as Partners last night.

These monthly Ed Tech Talk webcasts are very informative, and I’ve certainly listened to them in the past.

You can read Lorna’s post about the conversation, which she titled Irritate or agitate – what’s your parent engagement like?

You can listen to the webcast on her blog, or directly at the EdTechTalk site.

Parents As Partners hosts a regular webcast on issues related to parents and schools. This coming Monday, at 6:00 PM U.S. Pacific Time,  I’ll be a guest discussing my new book (to be published September 30th) “Building Parent Engagement Schools.”

That’s the cover of my new book, Building Parent Engagement In Schools. It will be available on September 30th, but you can pre-order it now if you want.

You can buy it through all the usual ways, including on Amazon. Since the list price is $35, Amazon lets you buy it without charging for postage and handling — if you choose that method (it just means you get a few days later). You can pre-order it at Amazon.

You can also order it directly from Linworth Publishing. They will give blog readers a twenty percent discount. The only catch is that you can’t order it from their website if you want the discount.

To get that discount, after September 30th (there doesn’t seem to a way to pre-order it from the publisher) you’ll be able to go here, print-out an order form and fax it to (888) 873-7017. Important — you have to put this special code on your order — 093BLA4 — and say it’s “Larry Ferlazzo’s blog discount.”

You can also call-in your order to (805) 880-6834.

The twenty percent discount also applies to ordering multiple copies.

Here’s a preview of the book.

Let me know if you have any difficulties with the ordering process.

Our book, Building Parent Engagement In Schools, is set to be published on September 30th. You can pre-order it on Amazon now.  I’m negotiating with the publisher for some way that readers of my blogs can get a discount, but I’m not sure it’s going to be a much more than what you can save by ordering it at Amazon using the “Super-Saver” option (which eliminates any shipping cost). Either way, you might want to check-out the blurb on Amazon.

For more of a preview of the book’s contents, you can read this article: Parent Involvement or Parent Engagement?

This blog will support a book that will be published in the fall of 2009 that  I (with Lorie Hammond, another veteran teacher) have written titled “Building Parent Engagement In Schools.”  It primarily focuses on ways schools can better connect with parents — particularly with those in urban areas and recent immigrants — though it’s certainly not limited to ELL parents.

It will highlight successful school efforts, including our school’s home computer family literacy project; school-connected community organizing efforts in Texas and Los Angeles: school community gardens, and parent teacher home visiting programs.  The book particularly highlights a difference between parent “engagement” and parent “involvement” using my background of nineteen years of community organizing experience.