CP Blog Entry #6.5: What is your change project?

My change project is the use of Academic Parent-Teacher Teams, or APTT. 

         The APTT is a parent involvement program developed by Maria Paredes, the Director of Community Education at Creighton School District in Arizona, which increases the communication and interaction between parents and teachers to facilitate collaboration between school and family. This provides parent/teacher support for the academic success of the children.

 The Academic Parent–Teacher Teams (APTT) involve two main components. The first consists of three 75-minute classroom team meetings each year. These team meetings are initiated by a personal invitation to the parent by the teacher, and consist of the teacher, the entire class of parents, and a parent liaison. Each meeting includes a review of class and individual student academic performance data, parent–student academic goal-setting, teacher demonstration of skills to practice at home, parent practice, and networking opportunities with other parents.

Children in the district are tested informally on a weekly basis and then formally every quarter with a district-developed standards-based assessment in the areas of reading and math. The APTT meetings are timed to coincide with the release of the quarterly assessment scores. The second component consists of a 30-minute parent–teacher conference: Once a year, teachers meet individually with parents to review their child’s performance data and create action plans to optimize learning. Teachers schedule individual meetings to take place within the first four months of school, prior to the second APTT meeting, and hold additional meetings when parents request them.

Another benefit of APTT is to lessen the amount of time teachers spend conferencing with parents during the school year. Only low-achieving students will require individual parent-teacher conferences.



Paredes, Maria. "Academic Parent–Teacher Teams: Reorganizing Parent–Teacher Conferences Around Data." Harvard Family Research Project. Harvard Family Research Project, 1 Oct. 2010. Web. 30 July 2015. <http://www.hfrp.org/publications-resources/browse-our-publications/academic-parent-teacher-teams-reorganizing-parent-teacher-conferences-around-data>.