When a family is dealing with a crisis situation or struggling to get the bills paid, those hardships have an impact on kids’ learning. For this reason, one of the goals of the Family-School Partnership Initiative is to better equip BVSD staff with the information necessary to connect families with free or low-cost community services that will support them in times of need.
On October 12, BVSD hosted its first community services information event for BVSD staff, a joint effort between BVSD Family-School Partnerships, Early Childhood Education, Special Education and McKinney-Vento services. Our goal with the event was twofold: 1)… Read More
Friday, October 28, 2016
The English Language Development Department is very excited about implementing the World-class Instructional Design and Assessment: (WIDA) MODEL ASSESSMENT this fall. The assessment is a benchmark or a fall check in assessment to assess Language Development for the BVSD students who are learning English. This is a formative or check in assessment for English language development.
WIDA advances academic language development and academic achievement for linguistically diverse students, students who speak another language other than English. This is done through high quality standards, assessments, research, and professional development for educators. WIDA is a non-profit organization whose focus is the advancement of… Read More
Friday, June 24, 2016
The research is clear — when families and schools actively work together to support kids, students are more successful academically, are healthier, and are more likely to thrive (Epstein et al, 2009, Jeynes, 2011, Sheldon & Jung, 2015). At the same time, families and school staff alike are often stretched for time, juggling their many work and family responsibilities. Therefore, as BVSD schools enhance their efforts to welcome, communicate, engage and partner with families, we must avoid slipping into “random acts of family partnership.” When we are strategic and purposeful in our work with families, family partnership can be one… Read More
Friday, April 15, 2016