• Mission and Philosophy
• 2000 Program Activities
• 2000 Highlights
• Major Contributors in 2000
• Program Goals for Calendar Year 2001
• Strengthening Management and the Operations of PIQE
• Summary of Financial Results for FY00
• Board of Directors
• Parent Institute for Quality Education Offices and Program Staff

Mission and Philosophy

Originated and headquartered in San Diego, California, the Parent Institute for Quality Education (PIQE) is a statewide, community-based organization aimed at educational reform by motivating parents, especially low-income immigrant parents, to become more involved in their children’s education.  PIQE defines its mission as “to help bring schools, parents and community together as partners in the education of every child.”  Guiding principles are that:

• All parents love their children and want the best for them.
• All parents are a valuable resource that must not be under-estimated in the education process.
• Parents can provide important information and assistance to schools to improve learning.
• Schools can give parents valuable suggestions on how to help their children learn.
• Parents and teachers need to work together to ensure every child’s academic success.
• Without parental involvement, the best educational reform will fall short of its goals.
• Education is the best anti-poverty program in the nation!

The need for PIQE is vital:

• By 2005, Latino youth are projected to represent 50% of the California public K-12 enrollment.
• Latino high school student drop-out rates are at 42% according to the California Department of Education.
• 56% of Latinos who have not completed high school did not progress past the ninth grade.
• African-Americans drop out at twice the numbers as White or Asian students.Standardized test scores of limited-English-speaking children are an average of 23 points below other scores.
• Only 12% of Latino students who graduate from high school will be fully eligible to attend a four-year university.

Research leaves no doubt that when parents become involved, students do better.  Henderson and Berla (1996) found in a review of 66 studies that:

• The family can make critical contributions to student achievement from pre-school through high school.
• Efforts to improve children’s outcomes are much more effective if families are involved.
• When parents are involved at school as well as at home, children do better and stay in school longer.
• When a critical mass of parents is involved, the whole school improves.

During PIQE’s nine-week course at a neighborhood school site, parents learn the importance of visiting their child’s classroom.  They are encouraged to ask teachers how their child is doing relative to other students in the class and to grade level expectations.  There are lessons on how to enhance their child’s reading skills, how to better communicate with their child, offering positive discipline techniques that enhance self-esteem, and how to help their child avoid drugs, violence, and gang involvement. 

2000 Program Activities

The following is a summary of 2000 program activities by office.

A total of 221,014 parents have now graduated from the program since the Parent Institute began in 1987.  This represents 2,161 schools from 132 school districts throughout the State of California. 

2000 Highlights

Follow-On Parent Coaching Component:

Building upon the successful follow-on pilot program in Los Angeles in 1999, the Parent Institute continued to expand its implementation in San Diego, San Jose, and Modesto.   

A concerted effort was made by PIQE to expand the number of graduating parent participants in the coaching component, with the goal of sustaining meaningful ongoing parental involvement beyond the nine-week period of the course.  In 2000 a cadre of 368 parents were trained as “coaches” (PIQE graduates) and served 128 target schools.  The coaches contacted and worked with 7,350 PIQE graduates by telephone on a monthly basis for four months. 

The participating parent graduates were encouraged by their coach throughout the four-month period to continue to pursue those activities critical to enhancing their children’s academic achievement.  Each parent was asked the following questions:

1. How is your child doing in school?
2. Have you had a chance to talk to your child’s teacher or counselor at the school in the last month?
3. How comfortable do you feel going to the school and asking questions about the programs and resources available?
4. What are the things that you do to let your child know that his/her education is important to you?
   • Monitor television
   • Promote readingVisit the library
   • Talk about college
   • Monitor homework
   • Promote after school activityAttend school functions
5. How motivated is your child to succeed in school?

Every school principal received a monthly compilation of the parents’ self reports.

“GEAR–UP” Federal Grant:

In the second year of funding, the GEAR-UP Grant (September 2000–August 30, 2001) was expanded to $1.02 million dollars to accommodate an additional 26 middle schools, bringing the second year total to 74 middle schools and projected service to 5,900 parents.  The service levels for Years 3, 4 and 5 will average 55 middle schools per year.  In order to accommodate the increase in schools and “reach” schools outside of the service areas, PIQE expanded the San Jose Office to include a satellite operation for Monterey-Santa Cruz counties, and the Modesto and Sacramento office added staff to serve new counties, including Fresno, Shasta, Sonoma, and Siskiyou.  

During Year 2, PIQE was invited to submit a supplemental proposal for funding from the Eishenhower Fund to design and pilot a three-unit college course to prepare GEAR-UP educators and school leaders to view families as partners in fostering school success. If funded, PIQE will collaborate with San Diego State University to pilot the 3-unit course with 10 GEAR-UP schools in San Diego County. 

PIQE—“Project Steps” GEAR-UP Evaluation: 

During Year 1, Project Steps GEAR-UP (Walter Reed Middle School) conducted an evaluation of the three components implemented to stimulate academic achievement and promote a college-going culture among the first-generation 7^th grade students and families in their GEAR-UP cohort.  The three interventions included 1) Parent Institute, 2) after-school tutoring, and 3) College Making It Happen (CMIH).  The evaluation reported a six-month period and the impact of the three interventions—separately and in combination—on the Stanford 9 Scores in reading, math, and language.

The Parent Institute is pleased to report that the “Bonhoff” evaluation found that two interventions—PIQE and CMIH—produced increases on the Stanford 9. When reported separately, the students of PIQE graduates improved an average of 4 points on their reading and language scores and 2 points on the math scores.  The students who participated in the CMIH improved their scores on an average of 7 to 11 points.  When these two interventions were layered, that is the parents graduated from the PIQE and the students participated in the CMIH, the increases were dramatic. 

Stanford Research Institute (SRI): “Strengthening and Evaluating Family-School Partnerships” Evaluation

In FY 2000, the Stuart Foundation in San Francisco awarded SRI a $656,000 grant to conduct a three-year refinement and evaluation of the Parent Institute for Quality Education (PIQE).  The intent of this assessment is to determine PIQE’s impact and to test new innovations in a formal collaboration between PIQE and SRI International described below.

SRI developed an inter-active process to identify education activities that further strengthen and refine the PIQE model.  PIQE received the recommendations that flowed from the findings of existing research and the formative evaluation conducted by SRI.  In 2001, PIQE will continue to refine the model and prepare for a summative evaluation in year three.

Teacher Workshop Pilot

As important as parent involvement is for student achievement, the role of teachers and schools is equally important.  Studies that correlate levels of parent involvement with student achievement find that the more extensive the involvement, the higher the student achievement.  In programs that are designed to be full family-school partnerships, educational achievement among low-income students not only improves, but it reaches levels that are standard for middle-class children, and the children who are the furthest behind make the greatest gains.

In 2000, under the leadership of Shari Golan, Ph.D., Senior Policy Analyst, SRI International, PIQE and SRI developed the “Teacher Workshop” design and conducted three full-day pilots in San Jose. Forty-five teachers participated in the pilots and in subsequent debriefings of the experience and materials.  The evaluation of the pilots resulted in subsequent adjustments that will be tested in two additional school-based pilots in Spring 2001.

The SRI three-year demonstration program targeting schools in San Jose, California, will provide parents, practitioners, and policy-makers much-needed evidence regarding what works in forming family-school partnerships. 

The evaluation plan designed and implemented by SRI will attempt to answer the following questions:

• What information and skill do teachers require in order to be more successful at leveraging parent involvement at school and at home?
• What school factors support effective teacher and parent collaboration?
• What types and amount of parent involvement are required for student performance to improve?
• How extensive do family school partnerships need to be to show improvements in student performance? 
• For example, how much parent outreach, parent-teacher conferencing and shared decision-making is necessary?

California Endowment Grant (Health Component):

In January 2000 the California Endowment provided PIQE a $250,000 grant to design and pilot the “Family Health Care Initiative.” This initiative’s goal is to provide parents with access to health information, connect them to health services care for families, and provide families with information on how to access insurance programs offered to poor and uninsured children in California. This was achieved by following a three-step model that provides: (1) health information in a class setting, (2) a three hour seminar that promotes healthy living and identifies resources in the community and (3) a follow-on “Coaches” program that contacts parents over a 4-6 month period to promote behavior changes that will enhance their students’ educational performance.

Grant Objective

The Parent Institute is on track to serve 3,000+ parents within the two-year funding period.  Currently, 283 parents have completed the three health modules, 669 parents are completing the third module of the pilot project and 1,360 parents are already in the first phase and will complete the three-component cycle by June, 2001.  All initial comments by parents and school personnel have been very positive and PIQE intends to demonstrate that this program can reach, inform, and improve the health behaviors and conditions of families.  

Major Contributors in 2000:

Program Goals for Calendar Year 2001

The following is a summary of PIQE nine-week program goals and estimated expenses:

 (*At $100 per graduate:  $50 from participating schools, $50 from private contributors.)

Strengthening Management and the Operations of PIQE

Mr. David Valladolid, President & CEO, continues to be responsible for program operations, design and evaluation; he serves as liaison with the Board of Directors, chief spokesperson, and provides to the organization many years of statewide experience in management and administration.  He has managed programs in both state government and private industry.  Mr. Valladolid was the Chief Operating Officer of PIQE for two years prior to becoming President.

Ms. Patricia Mayer, Vice President, Program Development, helps assure the program quality within each region.  Ms. Mayer taught elementary school for fourteen years prior to joining PIQE.  She has a Master’s Degree in Psychology and previously held the executive director position of the San Diego office since 1992.   Ms. Mayer is an extraordinary trainer and designer of class curriculums.

Ms. Emilia Alvarez, Training Director, is a psychologist who brings extensive public and private administration, professional development, and capacity building experience.  She served as a PIQE associate director for five years before being promoted to Training Director. 

Ms. Alejandra Guimil, Executive Assistant, coordinates the Presidents calendar, maintains the corporate office operations, and interacts extensively with corporations, foundations, and school districts.  In addition, she provides communication and support for the PIQE offices throughout the State of California.

Ms. Sara Gongora, Accounts Manager, has eight years of accounting experience prior to joining PIQE in 1998.  She provides financial management of all program operations, which include payroll for 50+ permanent staff, and close to 1,000 part-time contract staff.  She oversees PIQE’s program budget, financials, and monitors state and federal contracts.

Ms. Antonia Lopez, Statewide Director, “GEAR-UP” Federal Program:  Her training and background is in child development.  She brings 25+ years of senior management experience in program design, administration, and a strong training background. Ms. Lopez manages GEAR-UP training in 71 middle schools statewide, acts as liaison with the state and federal GEAR-UP program and the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) evaluation project.

Summary of Financial Results for FY00

Board of Directors

Parent Institute for Quality Education Offices and Program Staff

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