WI State Performance Plan (SPP), Indicator #8: Parent Involvement

Indicator 8: Percent of parents with a child receiving special education services who report that schools facilitated parent involvement as a means of improving services and results for children with disabilities. For more detailed information regarding this indicator, please review Indicator #8 of the State Performance Plan.

Directions for Data Collection, February through June, 2008

Your LEA received an e-mail in February 2008 from the Department if you are among the LEAs that are required to conduct the Parent Involvement survey for Indicator 8 this year. The e-mail includes an attachment of a password-protected Excel file. The Excel file contains data necessary to complete a mailing to parents of students with disabilities, requesting their participation in the survey. If you have questions about the e-mail, the attachment or your participation in the process, please see Frequently Asked Questions.

This page contains

• Electronic form letters in English, Spanish and Hmong that are formatted to merge with the e-mailed Excel file.
• Customized “eye-catching” letter in English

Generating a Mailing to Parents

1. Double-click on the Excel file in your e-mail. Enter your password. Your password is the same as the password you use to submit your Local Performance Plan. The Excel file contains part of the data needed to merge with the electronic form letter to parents:
   • List of student names in the random sample that you will use
   • Parent survey access code assignment for each student name in the electronic data source file
   • LEA number
   • Name of director of special education/pupil services
2. Fill in the remainder of the Excel file spreadsheet with
   • the date of the mailing
   • a parent name and address for each student listed
   • the telephone numbers that you wish to provide parents for assistance
   • the title of the person who will sign the letter (you may change the name if you wish).
3. If any families of students on the list have a native language other than English, cut and paste those rows into separate Spanish and Hmong Excel spreadsheets. Other languages must be dealt with individually.
4. Merge the English letter with the spreadsheet of English-speaking families. For directions on how to mail merge, open the Microsoft Word Help on the main menu bar and type in "mail merge". Print the letters on your school letterhead. It is possible to have more than one survey completed by a family if they have more than one child in the selected sample. Please note: Included above is a customized "eye-catching" letter that also includes a date on which district or CESA staff will contact the parent by telephone. This method was more successful at bringing in returns than the standard letter. You may wish to use this approach to maximize initial returns.
5. Repeat the process for any Spanish or Hmong letters.
6. Send the mailing on or near February 29, 2008.

Requests for Paper Surveys

1. If parents request a paper survey, you must ask them if the child identified on their letter was at least six years of age or older on September 1, 2007.
   • If yes, send them the Age 6-21 Parent Survey. See Technical Assistance Resources below.
   • If no, send them the Age 3-5 Parent Survey. See Technical Assistance Resources below.
2. Fill in the code box with the parent’s survey access code.
3. Record that you sent that parent a paper survey.
4. Include a return envelope addressed to:
   
   North Central Regional Resource Center
   5 Pattee Hall
   150 Pillsbury Dr. SE
   Minneapolis, MN 55455

Requests for Telephone or In-Person Assistance

If school staff or parent liaisons will assist a parent by reading or explaining the survey questions, please use the simplified script that you will find under Technical Assistance Resources. This was created to promote uniformity among LEAs and parent organization staff who assist parents. It is permissible to have parents come in as a group for assistance in hearing the survey items, but discussion of responses should be discouraged. To complete a survey online for a parent, please enter the survey at http://dpi.wi.gov/sped/parentsurvey.html.

Technical Assistance Resources

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Timeline
• Article to include in your parent newsletter
• WI Special Education Parent Survey--Paper
  

  English:	Age 3-5	Age 6-21
  Spanish:	Age 3-5	Age 6-21
  Hmong:	Age 3-5	Age 6-21

• Scripts: Age 3-5   Age 6-21
• Resources for Survey Assistance

For questions about this information, contact Patricia A. Bober (608) 266-5194

Last updated on 3/27/2008 8:31:06 AM