Multicultural Community Service at the Josephine Butler Parks Center 2437 15th Street NW Washington, DC 20009 Web site: http://www.mcsdc.org Hours: 8:30 am - 6:00 pm, Monday - Friday, Multilingual Call Center Available From 8 am - 9 pm

Director: Ms. Lillian Perdomo Phone: 202-238-9385 Fax: 202-299-9207 Evaluator: Capstone Institute at Howard University, Washington, DC

State PIRC Board:

Darlene Allen, District of Columbia Congress of Parents and Teachers
Wade Boykin, Ph.D, Capstone Institute/ Howard University
Robert Gundling, Ph.D, DC Department of Parks and Recreation (Pre-K Education Services)
Jennifer Harmon, American Institute for Research
Kimberly Hood, LEA Grants Program, DC Public Schools
Barbara J. Hopkins, PhD, National Education Association
Clifford B. Janey, Ed.D, DCPS Superintendent and Chief State School Officer
Brenda H. Jones, Parklands Community Center
William Jordan, PTA President, Harriet Tubman Elementary School
Barbara Ferguson Kamara, DC Early Care Education Administration
Margaret McLeod, Office of Bilingual Education, DCPS
Patricia Pasqual, DC Public Library
Connie Spinner, District of Columbia State Education Agency
Russell R. Zint, Building Hope, A Charter School Facilities Fund

Special Advisory Committees:

The DC-PIRC Advisory Committee is comprised of parents, students, school personnel and community members in each of the eight geographic Ward subdivisions that comprise Washington, D.C.

The D.C. Parental Information Resource Center provides leadership, coordination and services that enable parents, educators, and the Washington, DC community at large to be partners and work collaboratively to improve student academic achievement and the quality of schools for all students through such partnerships. Our goal is to serve over 25,000 parents/families, parent trainers, child-care providers and community members in Washington, DC.

Parental Engagement Model
The DC-PIRC uses the “Parents as Partners K-12” (PAPs K-12) training, a nine-week training course that prepares parents to help their children succeed in school. A series of parent workshops are also available on helping children make the difficult transition from elementary to middle school. These trainings are supplemented with parent leadership training on the rights and responsibilities afforded under No Child Left Behind and Title I (Sections 1118, 1116 and 1111). Schools with a high incidence of poverty and a history of underachievement are our priority.

Early Childhood Model
The DC-PIRC’s PAP Pre-K Program trains early childhood teachers and facilitators to provide training to enable low-income parents, including immigrant parents, learn and act on knowledge, skills, changed attitudes, and new behaviors that they can apply to improve the developmental, social, and academic needs of their children. We emphasize out-of-school time literacy strategies, referrals to family support services and shared responsibility and transition from pre-K to kindergarten.

Major Activities
We collaborate with the Early Care and Education/Head Start program to promote parental involvement beginning with admission to the early care center through transition to kindergarten.

Alignment of Work to Statewide PIRC Efforts
The DC-PIRC Work Plan is based on the results of a needs assessments conducted by DCPS, and the Institute for Responsive Education, as well as our own work at the Multicultural Community Service with the Parents as Partners Curriculum to determine the most pressing parental involvement needs and priorities to ensure and encourage partnerships with schools to raise student achievement and comply with the requirements of Titles I and V of NCLB. We also collaborate with the state and local education agencies to expand professional development across all leadership domains on how to reach, communicate with and work with parents as equal partners.

Unique Characteristics

• Supporting parents and professionals to better understand their roles and responsibilities concerning the parental involvement requirements of No Child Left Behind Legislation (NCLB)
• Direct intervention to support family-school collaborations and connections to resources
• Unprecedented support from the public and private sector organizations for working with the DC-PIRC to promote shared responsibility for high student academic achievement and quality schools
• Consultation and services to state and local education agencies, parents, and schools on compliance with Title I and effective parental involvement strategies

• Providing leadership and coordination in connecting constituencies.
• Providing training that prepares parents to help their children be successful from preschool thru grade 12 and beyond.
• Providing information and resources to families in understanding and successfully navigating the educational and service systems for their children.
• Building community by facilitating dialogue, conflict transformation, and celebrating diversity.
• Providing programs and promoting policies that support educators in engaging parents as partners in the education of children.
• Fostering coordination of service delivery that is responsive to the needs of the school community.
• Evaluating outcomes of the DC-PIRC core program components
• Ensuring that communication with parents is always in a language and format the parents can understand
• Using evaluation results to help inform effective policies, programs, and activities designed to improve parental involvement and students’ academic performance
• Using evaluation results to help inform public policy, school quality efforts, and build capacity for family-school-community partnerships
• Disseminating information to parents of Title I-eligible children to inform parents choices in selecting high quality schools and programs
• Disseminating information to educators about barriers to parental involvement and best practices to improve parental involvement in student learning.