Improvements made under the Statewide Family Engagement Centers Amendment

The Parent Information and Resource Centers (PIRC) Program (Title V, Part D, Subpart 16 of ESEA),

authorizes grants to parent centers that provide technical assistance, outreach and coordination to

strengthen parental engagement in schools and school districts. The Statewide Family Engagement

Centers Amendment reauthorizes this program through a new and improved Statewide Family

Engagement Centers (SFEC) authority, authorized at such sums in FY 2016 and each of the 5

succeeding fiscal years. This updated authority makes several key improvements that will drive

better and more impactful parental engagement while leveraging and improving the work of States,

school districts and other entities in this area. This amendment is the exact text establishing the SFEC

program that was included in the House passed Student Success Act (H.R. 5), that chambers ESEA

reauthorization proposal. Below highlights the main areas of improvement to this authority in this

amendment:

1. More Defined and Achievable Purpose

The purpose of the existing PIRC program is wide and would require grantees to focus on a large

number of goals that are hard to achieve with the level of funding that was historically provided for

this program. This amendment narrows the purpose of the new SFEC program by focusing in on

training, technical assistance, and partnership development for States, school districts, schools and

educators and strengthening relationships between parents and schools to further academic and

developmental progress of children. This more narrow, but vital, set of purposes will ensure Centers

remain focused on areas where they can have an impact, without spreading resources to thinly.

2. Greater Leveraging and Improvement of Systemic Parental Engagement by States and

School Districts

While the existing PIRC authority focuses both on providing help to schools better engage with the

parents of their students AND direct services to parents, this dual emphasis often left States and

school districts without help and assistance to better foster parental engagement themselves. This

amendment would maintain the vital direct services to parents by SEFCs, but would also prioritize

training and technical assistance to States and school districts to better engage with parents. This will

ensure that that parental engagement is better ingrained in the overall work of States and school

districts rather than only having Centers engage with parents directly. This should drive a larger and

more effective effort at helping educators systemically engage with parents while Centers continue to

help individual and groups of parents better work with their schools.

3. Improved Focus on Evidence Based Outcomes

The amendment improves upon the existing PIRC program by insisting on a more evidence based

approach to parental engagement. Centers under the SFEC authority would be required to expend

funds to expand or establish technical assistance for evidence based approaches to parental

engagement. In addition, Centers would be required to ensure that these evidence based

approaches were targeted to schools with high concentrations of disadvantaged students.