By EMILY SPARACINO / Staff Writer

COLUMBIANA – Christmas came early for a group of local parents who completed the Shelby County School District’s Family Engagement Academy this month.

Nearly 30 parents in the first cohort group to complete the FEA with perfect attendance and participation in a service learning project received electronic reader tablet devices at the first graduation for the initiative’s inaugural class on Dec. 15 at Elvin Hill Elementary School.

SCS School Improvement and Federal Programs Supervisor Dana Martin said the devices are intended to help parents continue family learning at home by downloading e-books, learning games and other educational tools they can implement with their children.

“We realize a lot of families don’t have a lot of books in their homes, plus we’re training them in learning games,” Martin said. “The devices are to help them continue family learning at home.”

The FEA is a new initiative Shelby County Schools has implemented “to provide families and teacher leaders with opportunities to develop their knowledge and abilities as leaders in order to support student achievement through strong family-school partnerships,” according to an SCS press release.

More than 40 parents enrolled in the first class, Martin said.

“We’ve had tremendous results,” she said. “We had meetings at all the different schools. They all participated in a service learning project to go back to their school.”

The first cohort held four two-hour meetings over the course of four months at Wilsonville Elementary School (Sept. 15), Vincent Elementary School (Oct. 20), Shelby Elementary School (Nov. 17) and Elvin Hill Elementary School, which served as the final meeting and graduation Dec. 15.

The meetings covered the following topics: How to help children be successful in school, family financial literacy, family and school partnerships and community partnership and engagement.

The second cohort starts in January and will include parents representing Calera Elementary, Calera Intermediate and Montevallo Elementary schools.

As part of the FEA, parents participated with students in service learning projects designed to increase their involvement with, and allow them to give back to, their children’s schools.

Teacher leaders at each school facilitated the projects.

“Teachers connected the project to CCRS standards for the students, making it a real-world learning opportunity for the kids,” Martin wrote in the release. “Our belief is we can create positive outcomes in our school communities by providing information, skills and tools that will assist in increasing the knowledge of families to support the academic achievement of students.”

Teacher leaders were: Kelly Stanton (Shelby Elementary), Jane Smith (Wilsonville Elementary), Lauren Ruston (Elvin Hill Elementary), Marlee Clifton (Vincent Elementary) and Jan Renfro (Inverness Elementary), who oversaw the teacher leaders.

“FEA provided a wonderful way to involve a small group of parents and give them an opportunity to engage more families in our four local schools,” Elvin Hill first grade teacher Lauren Ruston said. “We enjoyed getting to watch their ideas happen.”

Lauren Decker, the parent of a Wilsonville Elementary student, said the FEA provided her with more information about school operations and introduced her to more parents in the WES community.

“I felt like there were things I did not know I did not know,” Decker said. “Financial literacy hit home to me. It was wonderful to be exposed to so many avenues to be involved and to benefit the kids.”

Decker served on an advertising committee in charge of publicity and promotion of school functions, such as Math Night and a pancake dinner, for the FEA.

The project afforded Decker and her son an opportunity to make posters together.

“I think that if groups like this can exist to take away some uncertainty of what we’re doing at school … that families might be more likely to be engaged with what’s going on in class,” she said. “It’s been nice for me to meet more people from my own school.”

SCS Professional Development Supervisor Angela Walker and English Second Language Supervisor Leah Dobbs-Black, along with Martin, oversaw the first FEA class.

Martin said funding for the academy came from a partnership with the University of Montevallo In Service Center, which paid for class materials and substitute teachers for teacher leaders, and from Title I parent involvement money.

Walker said the FEA is seeking other funding opportunities for future classes.

The academy gave parents experiences involving technology to equip them to help their children with schoolwork and to promote reading at home. After receiving their devices, parents at the FEA graduation sat through a training session on how to use the devices.

“We don’t want their involvement to end,” Martin said of the parents. “The service projects are ongoing. We don’t want the value to end because the academy has ended.”