In Mobile, Alabama, educators have resolved to build and sustain parental and community involvement --it's part of the district's strategic plan, Public Action Spells Success (PASS).

"Too often we communicate about schools in episodic spurts, through one-time announcements and press releases . . . By telling new public stories we can spark people to imagine possibilities for the future," write the authors of PASS.

The job of helping tell those new public stories rests, in large part, on parent program managers (PPM) and parent program organizers (PPO), says Paula Seldon, the district's Parent Specialist.

PPMs and PPOs have a whole list of duties, including to:

• Develop and distribute school-parent compacts
• Develop parental involvement policies with input and review from parents and stakeholders
• Develop and distribute a monthly newsletter
• Conduct monthly parent seminars
• Give presentations to school faculty so they know how to improve parental involvement

If the position requirements sound similar, it's because they are, Seldon explains. The biggest difference between the two positions is that those interested in becoming a program manager must have a 4-year college degree. Those interested in being hired as a program organizer must have a high school diploma. PPMs are considered classified employees and work the school day and calendar. PPOs are contract employees and are paid an hourly rate. The different structures help give schools flexibility in funding and staffing these all important positions, according to Seldon.

One of the key duties of the PPM and PPO is to gather data to provide baseline information that can then be used to gauge the effectiveness of the parental involvement effort," Seldon states. "We want parents in our schools,"she says. "And we want to use data to ensure that our programs are working."

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