Family Involvement was the topic of conversations and presentations at a three day summit sponsored by National PTA and The American Association of Colleges For Teacher Education held at George Washington University in Washington, DC on November 13-15, 2002.

CT PTA sent Susan Johnson, VP for Convention and Therese Duncan, VP for Legislation and a Building Successful Partnerships presenter. The summit focused on the need to include parent involvement components in the teacher preparation programs. Seven different colleges presented exciting examples of parent involvement practices that were infused into the curricula for teacher preparation. Several of the colleges are Metropolitan Life Foundation grantees.

In addition to college curricula presentations the summit participants heard from a panel of experts in the area of parent involvement research. Included in the five member panel were: Binta Colley, York College; Joyce Epstein, Johns Hopkins University; Diana Hiatt-Michael, Pepperdine University; Ann Henderson, Consultant; and Karen Mapp, Northeastern University. The panel spoke enthusiastically of the positive outcomes of effectively engaging parents and families and discussed strategies being used for professional development with in-service teachers.

Discussion on the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act was also a part of the summit. Speakers from the National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education, Family Involvement network of Educators, Harvard; National Association for Partners in Education, and Learning First Alliance were several of the speakers explaining the impact of the new law.

Two breakout sessions gave the participants an opportunity to exchange ideas and questions pertaining to our experience and to create action steps.

Last February, Western Connecticut State University contacted Therese Duncan to present a Building Successful Partnership Workshop to 125 pre-service teachers. The evaluation forms indicated the students appreciated the information presented during the workshop. Therese's goal is to present workshops to several of the teacher preparation colleges in Connecticut using the information obtained in during the Washington, DC summit.

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