Collaboration in building partnerships between families and schools: The National Center for Early Development and Learning’s Kindergarten Transition Intervention☆

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Abstract

Received 4 October 1999; accepted 3 October 2000

This paper describes results of a collaboration among university researchers, preschool teachers and staff, elementary school staff, and parents to design, implement, and conduct research on an intervention to improve transitions to kindergarten. One hundred and ten families participated in this intervention along with a range of school and university staff. Descriptive results from preliminary analyses of data indicate that this collaborative effort is characterized by three themes: 1) that participants in the transition process differ in their views of transition practices; 2) that parents and teachers in the preschool year share mutually positive views of one another in relation to a range of activities and roles, and 3) that preschool staff increasingly are seen as an important and helpful source of support for parents. Narrative impressions from collaborators on the process of conducting this research confirm the importance of a shared mission, communication, and mutual respect, and highlight the value of collaboration for all involved.

Introduction

In almost no other area of educating young children does collaboration make more sense than the transition to kindergarten. This is a time of change for families, children, and schools in which new expectations, new relationships, and new competencies are formed that can have consequences for some time thereafter. For this reason, the National Center for Early Development and Learning (NCEDL) has devoted a great deal of effort to understanding the transition to kindergarten and finding ways to enhance transition outcomes for children, families, and schools. Two forms of collaboration have been essential in this approach. First, our intervention is designed through collaboration among NCEDL researchers and local schools, preschool and community agency personnel, along with families of young children. Second, our intervention focuses on enhancing collaboration among key participants in the transition process, in order to improve transition to kindergarten for all participants. Thus we focus on building partnerships as the key to conducting research and enhancing transition outcomes. In this paper we present information on both these aspects of our work. The goals of this paper are threefold. First, we describe the collaborative process of developing our intervention. Second, we describe the kinds of activities that preschool and kindergarten teachers used in implementing our transition intervention. Third, we characterize the changing roles and relationships among our teacher, family worker, and parent participants as they unfold during the final preschool year.

We started with a conceptual model of the transition process that is based on decades of research in early childhood and elementary education, as well as theories that emphasize and describe the ecology of child development using a systems theory lens Bronfenbrenner and Morris 1997, Pianta and Walsh 1996, Rimm-Kaufman and Pianta in press, Sameroff 1995. This approach moves beyond a focus on the child’s individual skills as the keys to transition success. Instead, it emphasizes relationships among an array of contexts and continuity (or discontinuity) in these relationships over time. In this view, children’s adjustment in the transition to school is a product of relationships among a wide array of contexts and persons, including the child, their family, schools and teachers, peers, preschools and preschool teachers, and the wider community. Interactions among these contexts and persons can be important sources of support that foster early school success, particularly for children for whom transition to school may be a challenge. These ideas and this approach are very similar to those used by other investigators interested in transition in the emphasis on interactions among settings over time and the view that readiness for school is not solely a function of a child’s skills Kagan and Neuman 1998, Meisels 1999, Ramey and Ramey 1999.

This conceptual model, emphasizing relationships among contexts and persons, also informed the approach we took in conducting our research. Clearly, if we were to understand transition for families, schools, and children, and if we were to facilitate interactions among participants in this process, then our success in this research endeavor was tied to forming relationships with these participants and building partnerships in inquiry, as stated in the introduction to this special issue.

Collaboration and partnerships between researchers and various constituencies have been described by several investigators (e.g., Groark and McCall 1996, Turnbull et al 1998). The advantages of such an approach are too numerous to list, but include how partnerships enable researchers to build support for the ecological validity of their models because integration of subjects’ perspectives are assured (Denner, Cooper, Lopez, and Dunbar, 1999). Furthermore, as researchers test ideas about improving outcomes through the application of intervention studies, partnerships are even more essential. In this regard, Denner, Cooper, Lopez, and Dunbar (1999) highlight the university-community partnership. Clearly, it is impossible for even the best-designed intervention models to be adequately tested in the complex ecology of communities and schools when investigators and constituents are not working integratively as partners. One of the more serious concerns about research on intervention in education has been the extremely poor record of generalizability for practices across different settings or situations (see Pianta and Walsh, 1996). Because ecologies are so complex, relying only on inferences drawn from intervention research based on experimental designs (such as is typically seen in clinical trials in medical research) may be a poor strategy for advancing the field’s knowledge base about processes of change. Instead, studies using random assignment to experimental and control groups (e.g., Ramey and Ramey, 1999) must be integrated with partnership-based inquiry on the processes of change in wide-ranging niches. Both research models yield different, but valuable, information.

Turnbull, Friesen, and Ramirez (1998) advocate and apply a collaborative model in special education both in terms of family-school and family-researcher cooperation, similar to our approach. In their participatory action research, both university researchers and families (and teachers) play equal roles in the construction of research questions and in the design and interpretation of studies. Also in the special education realm, Hanline and Knowlton (1988) describe a collaborative effort between school and families in which support services are provided to families before, during, and after children’s transition from infant programs to preschools. This approach is consistent with our model’s collaborative relationships between the schools and families over time (Salisbury and Dunst, 1997).

The literature points to a number of key elements of the collaborative approach Denner et al 1999, Groark and McCall 1996, Carnine 1997, including theoretical and social relevance, and the need for explicit goals among all of the participants. These common goals are best developed in the context of articulating a shared mission that benefits the program, researchers and policy makers. The roles of the participants should be clearly defined, in terms of leadership and data collection, and relationships among collaborators developed with a sense of trust and mutual respect. For example, Groark and McCall (1996) found that employing a project coordinator who has a practitioner perspective can be beneficial. Finally, results and products pertaining to the research process should be accessible to all participants, both in terms of physical access as well as insuring that products communicate well to diverse audiences (Denner, Cooper, Lopez, and Dunbar, 1999).

The NCEDL effort on transition intervention, noted above, was developed from the beginning as a partnership with local schools. At the outset, we established a Collaborative Design Team (CDT) composed of preschool teachers, family workers, kindergarten teachers, principals and NCEDL staff. Before any intervention or data collection protocol was designed, members of the CDT met monthly to determine the needs of the community around transition to kindergarten, interact in data collection decisions, design the intervention, and oversee its implementation. These discussions used an ecological model to focus on existing practices, gaps in services, ideal practices and barriers to these practices. The results of a national survey of transition practices (Pianta, Cox, Taylor, and Early, 1999) and informal local parent surveys were also incorporated into these discussions, as well as results from a detailed study of parent-school contacts (Rimm-Kaufman and Pianta, 1999). The CDT then proposed programmatic changes to better serve children and their families.

The discussions in the CDT resulted in an approach to intervention that was partnership-based and in which building partnerships was viewed as the essential means of supporting good transition outcomes. A key aspect or conclusion of these discussions was the fact that every family’s needs are different and that a “one-size fits all” intervention program was bound to be a failure (interestingly, the failures of these types of interventions are often blamed on the constituencies and not on the researchers who design them). Instead, the CDT chose a different route, a route that challenged conventions of research design, but would, in the estimation of the CDT, yield a higher likelihood of success and a much richer descriptive database.

The CDT advocated a menu-based approach to implementing good transition practices. It directed the creation of an open-ended document that described a variety of practices designed to enhance relationships among children, peers, families and schools. These practices followed from the ecological conceptualization of transition that had been embraced by the CDT (Rimm-Kaufman and Pianta, in press). The practices focused on relationships among key contexts and persons, they emphasized the importance of continuity over time starting well before entry into kindergarten, and they embraced the principle that interactions had to be based upon mutual respect and support for the child.

This partnership-based approach to intervention resulted in a menu-based package of actions that targets sets of relationships in the transition ecology (Kraft-Sayre and Pianta, 1999). For example, some practices focus on peer relationships and recommend that preschool children interact with peers who attend their preschool and with whom they will attend kindergarten classes. Other practices focus on preschool children interacting with kindergarten children, visiting their new kindergarten classrooms, and meeting their new kindergarten teachers to help acclimate to the kindergarten environment. Still other practices concentrate on activities to connect families with one another through parent lunches, family nights, participation on field trips, and visits to their children’s kindergarten in the spring of the preschool year. Finally, a range of actions focus on linking kindergarten teachers, preschool teachers, child care providers, and community agencies to establish smooth and regular patterns of communication about policies and individual children.

The nature, number, and intensity of transition practices employed are based on the needs and strengths of that child, family, teacher, school and community. This approach also enables the transition intervention to be implemented in a variety of school settings, each with its own unique organizational structure and constraints. Because it was devised with the needs of the participating programs in mind, flexibility in implementation was essential. Thus, the intervention was applicable, not only to the schools involved in the Kindergarten Transition Intervention, but to other programs, as well.

In the initial phase, we worked exclusively with a set of preschools that fed into two local school divisions. Upon entrance into preschool, each child was assigned a family worker. The family worker was responsible for coordinating the transition intervention for the child and worked with the child’s preschool teacher and kindergarten teacher to foster relationships. To ensure continuity, an assigned family worker followed each family as the child entered kindergarten. The family worker also served the role as data collector. Family interviews were conducted for the dual purposes of clinical assessment and data collection.

Collaboration was evident throughout the intervention. Teachers, family workers, and researchers all played critical roles in the intervention implementation and data collection. For example, in developing the family interview, questions were carefully devised so that they were culturally relevant to the population being served, sensitive to families’ needs, and in line with research methodology standards.

To emphasize our commitment to collaboration, the transition intervention coordinator also worked as a family worker in the schools. This helped the coordinator to appreciate the resources available to families and schools and understand the challenges in implementation of the intervention. Preschool and kindergarten teachers and family workers, all of whom were employees of the local public schools, received wage and stipend support from the research grant funding this effort. This was done in contrast to hiring university employees as intervenors to insure that families would experience the intervention as an “invisible” part of their experience with these programs. This resource sharing also enhanced partnership and promoted shared goals.

One of the primary research goals of this effort was to gather information from the participants involved in the intervention concerning their perceptions of the transition activities being promoted and their perceptions of one another’s roles and activities in the transition process. There were numerous participants involved—parents (mostly mothers), children, teachers, family workers, and principals. How they each viewed the collaborative process and relationships with each other and the extent to which they found various transition practices useful or not were important perspectives to describe and integrate into our research on processes related to changing transition outcomes. Thus the focus of this paper is to describe participants’ reports of the value of transition activities as well as perceptions of mothers and school personnel of their relationship(s) with one another.

Section snippets

Methods

We began implementation of the transition intervention and data collection in fall 1998, as a cohort of children entered two preschool programs in two different school divisions. This study was not designed with random control groups. The intervention, as well as participation in the research component of the intervention, was offered to all families with children enrolled in the targeted preschool programs. This was a very clear directive of the CDT when discussing implementation issues.

Results

Results are presented below for 1) preschool and kindergarten teachers’ use of a range of transition activities and their perceptions of the usefulness of these activities, 2) preschool teachers’, family workers’, and mothers’ views of one another in relation to working together, and 3) mothers’ perceptions of preschool staff as a source of social support.

Discussion

The results of this study depict several facets of collaboration between home and school, and between preschools and kindergartens, concerning establishing partnerships that facilitate a child’s transition to school. Clearly the process is complex, and at times idiosyncratic. Yet the data reveal several themes: 1) that participants in the transition process differ in their use of transition activities; 2) that mothers and teachers in the preschool year share mutually positive views of one

Summary

These reflections suggest that when key participants in a complex process such as the transition intervention, embark on collaborative research related to that process, the importance of relationships, support, mutual respect, and a shared vision are key elements to the success of that endeavor (Groark and McCall, 1996). Like the descriptive findings also reported, these collaborators’ impressions indicate the positive perceptions among participants of each others’ role, when the efforts of

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The work reported herein was under the Educational Research and Development Centers Program, PR/Award Number R307A60004, as administered by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. However, the contents do not necessarily represent the positions or policies of the National Institute on Early Childhood Development and Education, the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, or the U.S. Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal government.

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