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Transcript of NTA Conference Call Presentation held on 4/21/98

How to Get Families Involved in School to Work

Presented by

Kris Schoeller
Family Transition Resource Coordinator, PACER Center

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  Shauna McDonald: Welcome to the National Transition Alliance teleconference call, How to Get Families Involved in School-to-Work. I'd like to introduce our speaker, Kris Schoeller, from the PACER Center (Parent Advocacy Coalition for Educational Rights). Kris is the Family Transition Resource Coordinator for PACER Center.

Kris Schoeller: Welcome. Just to give you a little bit of my background, I've worked as an advocate for families and as a parent representative for about seventeen years. I organized this presentation based on my experience as a parent and working with parents. I will also list some written resources at the end that are really good.

I thought I would start with a quote that I really like about families, and then go into a rationale of why we're even doing this call on the topic of parent involvement. Then I have seventeen strategies to share for involving families in school-to-work. Any of your comments are welcome. The quote I'd like to star with is this:

Because families see things through fresh eyes, they may see problems or inconsistencies to which professionals have become accustomed. They also often see solutions that may have eluded providers. As parents caring for children in the community, they are constantly required to adapt, to create solutions with few resources. Their resourcefulness can be of enormous benefit to this service system. Families are also tireless advocates. They have a vested interest in making things better, not only for their own families, but also for other children and families as well.

If the school-to-work initiative is truly a systemic, comprehensive and community-wide effort to change the way education is provided, then parental involvement and support is crucial. Much of the implementation, maintenance and sustainability will actually end up depending on the support from families.

I wanted to list – because I'm sure that everyone has heard bits and pieces here and there – the current misunderstandings or misconceptions that may have already become barriers. I've heard that parents and families have become a barrier to implementing school-to-work. I know in Minnesota, we're beginning to get resistance to some of the things here. I will list some of those resistances to illustrate why it is important to include parents at every level.

Probably not all states have developed strong graduation standards. In Minnesota, the testing component is in place and many performance packages have been developed, but there has already been some resistance. In the metro area of St. Paul/Minneapolis, we've had some schools where over 50% of the students are not passing the grad standards test. Because there hasn't been a lot of involvement from parents in the grad standards and in the school-to-work systems, parents are saying that the kids are failing the standards test because the schools aren't doing their jobs. In Minneapolis, groups of parents have been going to school board meetings and asking, “What do we need to do with out schools so that kids can pass the tests?”

As an advocate and as a parent, my fear is that we'll end up putting all the emphasis on kids passing tests, which will take away from school-to-work, life-work plan development, community-based education, service learning and other initiatives. And that the performance package will end up being standards driven. That's what I fear might happen if we don't involve parents in the whole process of the grad standards and school-to-work.

There's also a general belief among a good percentage of families that in order for their kids to be successful in the current economic world, they've got to go to a four-year college or beyond. And along with this idea, they believe that the school-to-work initiative is vocational tracking for their kids and that it will gear them away from a four-year college. So we need to get families understanding that vocational with a small “v” does not mean “away from college” and that college doesn't mean that you still don't need contextual learning.

Parents also were educated in the current system, so the lecture/paper/pencil structured curriculum is what they know, what they're comfortable with. They do not necessarily know all the terms that we're using in school-to-work. Contextual applied active learning; those aren't words used in everyday language. I'm not sure that there's a real understanding of what that is, and I think we need to get parents on board to understand the values of the pieces so that they can buy in.

Parents I've spoken with have also voiced safety issues when we talk about using the whole community as a learning environment, especially in communities like large metropolitan areas. They feel that the community is not safe for their children or young adults. There's a real concern among school-to-work folks that parents will say no and put up a real barrier to school-to-work as far as using the community as a place for education. They want their kids to be educated in the building. Creating those safety nets for families as they buy in, if we allowed them to help us build some of those safety nets, I think that would be really important for school-to-work to succeed.

My background is working with families that have kids with disabilities. The transition planning legislation of eleven years ago has some very similar components to school-to-work. For years, parents have been acknowledged as being the biggest challenge or barrier to doing good transition planning for kids with disabilities. So I use some of the thoughts here to say let's learn from that experience. The reason that parents are perceived as a barrier to good community-based education or career development in transition is that they felt that by looking at jobs, job training, moving out into the community, that people were giving up on their kids academically. I think that crosses over into general education and kids with and without disabilities. There's a fear that we're moving away from liberal arts and high academic standards to a vocational, career tracking base again. Bringing parents along is going to be real important for them to understand the multi-components of school-to-work.

Some of the strategies that I'm listing here are strategies that I've used in the past with parents, some of them I've taken from written materials, and some of them I've looked through a lot of the school-to-work approaches that other states are taking. I have seventeen here, and some of them I can run through really quick and others might take a little bit of explanation. I think up-front some of them are real general and over-arching, and some of them are very specific to the indicators of school-to-work. I start out with general and work to specific:

1. Include parents in the outreach, education, training and evaluation components of your school-to-work plan.

2. Inform parents that their involvement and support is mutually beneficial.

3. Inform parents about school-to-work through multiple communications media.

4. Use language that can be easily understood by the general public.

5. Utilize town meetings or study circles already developed in communities to get information to parents.

6. Utilize existing parent-attended meetings and places to provide information.

7. Have parents represented on the governing board.

8. Translate written information into non-English languages found in the community.

9. Allow professionals to wear their parent hats.

10. Identify community liaison leaders within the minority communities.

11. Involve parents in the development of the life-work plan.

12. Include parents as part of the training team.

13. Include parents as teachers.

14. Involve parents in the resource identification process.

15. Include parents in the development of performance packages.

16. Invite, listen to, and follow through with parents' ideas.

17. Learn from others who have worked with families, i.e., special education and vocational education.

1. Include parents in the outreach, education, training and evaluation components of your school-to-work plan. Use a multi-level approach. When you're writing your school-to-work plan, when you're implementing the plan, if it's a truly living document when you're changing the plan, stop and look to see where parents are listed under roles and responsibilities. Make sure they are included in the outreach, education, and training and the process/policies/practices in the evaluation components all along the way. If you find that under roles and responsibilities you only have parents down under, say, `develop resource' and no place else, just scan through your plans again and see if there aren't other places that parents can be listed as having responsibilities and roles.

2. Inform parents that their involvement and support is mutually beneficial. Parents must believe that you will be providing a change that is beneficial for them and their children, and that what they have to offer is going to be beneficial to the partnership. So there has to be communication to understand, “What do I have that I can share with you and what do you have that will benefit my family?” So when you put together any kind of marketing or any kind of information, have it be reciprocal knowledge for the families. When we don't allow parents to see what's going to benefit their families, then we just tend to frustrate them with information that doesn't effect them or effects them negatively, or they get burnt out really quickly. That's why you'll see parents that might sit on a board for awhile and all of sudden we can't find another parent to replace them and they're gone.

3. Inform parents about school-to-work through multiple communications media. The school-to-work initiative should have a very strong up-front component of media outreach for the general population, using the multiple forms of media – newspapers, television, radio, community specific newspapers in native languages. I see this as crucial if we really want to inform parents. I think that's the best way to get information to them where they're naturally accessing information. So that would be a good way to communicate both the purpose and the benefits of school-to-work. It wouldn't have to be lengthy articles or anything; it can be a full range. The reason why I include all the media is because different people have varying learner styles and varying abilities in our communities. Producing audio, visual, and written materials would be really important and helpful. Parents will be a little bit reluctant to become involved with something that they are not familiar with, so the more we make those terms familiar, the less they're likely to react to change. Also that would be a good way to clarify some of the issues and questions that we've heard around the country that parents are already asking around school-to-work. We could provide a positive picture through media to families to get them informed.

4. Use language that can be easily understood by the general public. In the field that I work in, there are so many experts with their own language that I've learned to talk the different languages, but I'm always reminded from other parents how they didn't understand a word that was said. And terms that we use in the school-to-work I've become really comfortable with, but a lot of parents don't know what we're talking about. So when we do any kind of outreach information or training, we need to make sure to use language that anyone would understand. Check it out with people who are not in our field to make sure that we're using language that's user friendly for everybody.

5. Utilize town meetings or study circles already developed in communities to get information to parents. Not only do they provide parents with information, but I think that it is crucial to have people there who listen to concerns and fears and misconceptions. Time might be important. In the first year, parents may want to mull this over. They may want to make sure that it's going to work before they buy a hundred percent into it. So not tuning parents out of the whole loop if they don't buy in on day one would be really important, as well.

6. Utilize existing parent-attended meetings and places to provide information. That can include PTAs, conference nights in schools, or community education. Bring information about school-to-work to a full gamut of places that families already go to, instead of trying to bring families to something just on school-to-work because they probably don't know what it is and won't come.

7. Have parents represented on the governing board. It's always helpful to have more than one parent, so that they don't feel that they're the token parent. I think most of the governing boards have parent representatives, but look beyond just having one parent or two parents. And make sure that you look at the demographics of your community and have representation from the minority communities. The one I'm on in St. Paul has the largest Hmong population in the country and a fast growing Hispanic and African American population, and we do not have parent representatives from those communities. So that's one of my goals is to get more representation of parents on that board.

8. Translate written information into non-English languages found in the community. I think that it's something that twenty years ago we didn't think much of. I think in St. Paul alone there's probably twenty to thirty papers that are already established that are written in different languages. Getting information out to minority communities through existing community, non-profit organizations that serve those families and through their publications would be another good way to involve and include those families in the information.

9. Allow professionals to wear their parent hats. Many of the professionals involved in school-to-work – school administrators, teachers, employers, employees, labor, and community-based organizations – are also parents. When working as a board member, on a subcommittee, or individually, I recommend using a strategy that allows professionals to wear their parent hats. One of the things that I do when I chair committees is start a meeting by having people give their individual story related to their child or a student that they're working with. I ask them to illustrate how school-to-work will improve their child or student's life, how they think it will effect them. This gives them a chance to step out of what they view as their expertise and into being a human being out in the community, seeing from the parent perspective. I think it's important to give people almost permission to be able to take their professional hat off for a little bit when they're working with parents.

10. Identify community liaison leaders within the minority communities. What I mean by liaison is a professional who works with professionals and parents, who does home visits and outreach that helps parents find resources in their communities. It'll probably require that someone on the partnership spend some time informally talking to those liaison people about how school-to-work will be beneficial for all learners, and how it will include all learners from the community. Ask them how you can support their outreach and connect to parents. Think seriously about maybe even assigning a liaison role to some members of the school-to-work governing board. If possible, I think it's really only effective if the outreach is from persons who are of that culture. I know that in the past I've been asked to do some things and I'm white, German, Norwegian, blonde and I do not feel comfortable representing certain minority populations. So anytime that you can use people from the community that you're outreaching to would be very good.

11. Involve parents in the development of the life-work plan. If you've already developed it, see if you can get parents involved as you continue to revise it. The reason I think that it's really important to get parents involved in the development of the plan is because those who are going to write or implement this plan will have to go back and work with families. One thing that I've learned about in some of the other systems out there that involve parents is that if you've developed a tool or material and you have to use it with parents and they weren't involved in developing it, sometimes it feels real intrusive in their life. You're going to be doing a life-work plan with their kids and if they don't know much about it, they are going to wonder why you're asking them these questions and why you want their input. Yet in order for the life-work plan to be successful – in order to maintain it, evaluate it, and sustain it – I think parents are going to be a huge part in making sure that kids have opportunities out of the schools, as well as in the schools to implement that.

12. Include parents as part of the training team. When designing and implementing the training for key players involved in school-to-work, include parents not only as recipients of the training, but as part of the training team. I've done a lot of team training – parent, professional, and student – over the last six years and I've really found that approach to be the most effective in bringing all people together with the same vision. I recommend if you're working on your education training component that you look at parents as part of those who will do training and allow there to be a value placed on the parent perspective. Maybe the parents on your governing board or who want to be involved don't consider themselves to be an expert enough to speak on service learning or career development, but they feel very comfortable speaking from a parent perspective. When a parent is presenting their perspective to an audience of professionals, parents, and learners, it helps to bring the whole group to a different level of understanding.

Just to give an example of this, I spoke yesterday to seventy college students, all seniors, who were interviewing for positions as teachers. I gave a parent perspective and they said that in all their training they have never received a parent perspective and yet they are going to be working with kids and they really enjoyed it and appreciated it. Sometimes we think just talking about your kids and how the system feels and how you want to work with the system may not be valuable, but from my experience anyway, it's usually very valuable to everybody there. So when you design your training and education materials, involve parents in that training and also involve them as receivers of the training that you'll be doing.

When we say, “all means all,” how are we actually going to include learners and students with disabilities? If we include learners in our training and education as presenters – and I rarely present without a student – and we let them tell their story as part of school-to-work and how it affected them, it's more likely to bring the communities together to support school-to-work initiative and get parent's involved. If the kids are happy and they like it, parents will get involved.

13. Include parents as teachers. This goes with the previous one, but I mean it even in a broader sense. Include them within say, the school buildings, on the job and in post-secondary. There are many ways to do this. Provide policies, practices and procedures that allow parents the opportunity to come into career explorations, service learning, and job skill classes on a regular basis to present their area of skill. It could be their own profession, it could be a hobby, it could be their own parenting skills, but to develop a way that actually has some ongoing, consistent way that parents come in and are part of teaching. In Minnesota, we have what's called Parents as Teachers with Physicians where parents talk with physicians, pediatric residents, on a regular basis about their personal experiences and what they know about in their area of expertise. When I lived in Massachusetts, for awhile they had one half day a week where parents and community members come in as teachers, and teachers used that time for planning. I think there is about two or three other states that also have this in their system. It's a good way to involve parents in education for them to see the need for contextual applied learning and for them to be part of helping with career development.

Using parents as teachers, in addition to helping with policies, practices and procedures, may also require having some physical space, a room that is for community members and parents to gather. One of the schools that I'm working in right now has a community room, and there we have resources for teachers, including someone from the Latino/Hispanic community, other community members, and myself as a parent and an advocate. Actually having that physical space really helps, because without that I would have to wander the halls. It's these things that we don't necessarily think of when we're doing policies and procedures, but it really works well to be within a building and get to know one another and see people eyeball to eyeball. Parents, once their kids hit seventh grade, and certainly into post-secondary, they're rarely part of school curriculum, so having that family room, and then designing some way for them to be teachers, I think will pull them into the whole school-to-work philosophy too.

Participant: Have you ever done anything where parents are co-teachers with the teacher in the classroom?

Kris Schoeller: I have. I'm doing that right now with the junior high, a teacher and I are doing it. I've seen it done with a friendship program that's a year-long curriculum in different schools, so that would also work well. As an anecdote, a lot of students, once they hit eleven, twelve years of age, they'll say they don't want their parents involved in their school. However, we went out and asked special education students who had exited from special education, “What made it work for you? What made you end up being really successful?” They listed about ten things, but one of the things up front was, “When my parents were involved and stayed involved even when I didn't want them to.” So even if they're saying they don't want their parents in school, I think that all the research and hands-on people will say that it does make a positive difference.

14. Involve parents in the resource identification process. I think that parents will be a rich source of information in identifying businesses, employers, employees, and culture-specific organizations that they already access and that educators may not be aware of, or that individual employers and employees may not be aware of. So I would strongly suggest that parents be listed as valuable members in developing whatever you're going to do, whether you're developing a list, guide, manual or a Web site. However you're going to get this resource information out to all the different players within school-to-work, have parents be part of that group.

15. Include parents in the development of performance packages. If we want parents to understand, support, and implement the graduation standards, include them in the development of the performance packages. I think in some places they've been really good about including parents. I know we have a strong student component in Minnesota developing performance packages, but as much as you can even increase it so that they can understand. I think that they would have some good insights and creative ways for their individual kids to meet standards that could be universal, and it would get parents more involved in understanding the rationale behind grad standards and school-to-work.

16. Invite, listen to, and follow through with parents' ideas. If parents haven't been involved a lot in your community or your specific plan, the more they become aware and the more you can involve them, the more ideas will come from them and you. It will be vital to the success of the school-to-work plan that we list and follow through with some of their ideas, especially when it involves a minority community who may have very different priorities for their kids then we anticipated.

17. Learn from others who have worked with families (i.e., special education and vocational education). They've been developing plans and working with parents for a very long time. They know a lot of the things that are difficult, that are barriers. If you have access to parents, teachers, community people, or employers who have worked with families, they may have some ideas and inputs also in the areas of parental involvement.

Before I open it up for questions, I would like to list a few good resources if you want to know more on how to recruit and involve families from all communities. “Essential Allies” and “Words of Advice, A Guidebook for Families Serving as Advisors” are two resources produced by the Institute for Family-centered Care in Bethesda, Maryland. You can order these by mail at 7900 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 405, Bethesda, Maryland 20814, by phone at (301) 652-0281, or by email at e-mailifcc@aol.com. The former is geared toward professionals; it's a rationale on how to recruit families, while the latter is for the families who have become advisors on how to sustain that role. They're both excellent.

Participant: Regarding number sixteen, having parents involved as trainers. I realize the difficulties of this, but they should be compensated for that too if they are among a team, because everybody else is being compensated.

Kris Schoeller: Exactly, yes, and resources for childcare and transportation may also be needed for some families. You're right.

Participant: This is Barbara Palmer in Colorado. I really appreciated your comments regarding strategies that allow professionals to use their parent hats. I have a personal frustration in big groups of people meeting when we say, “Oh, we don't have any parents,” without looking around the table. It's like, “Well, what are we?” We gather parents off the streets and put them into this committee, instead of looking at those of us who are parents. What I've tried to do when I've wanted some parent representation, it's been more those people who work as a parent liaison, or a parent support person who is in contact with lots of families. So it's not tokenistic; it really is bringing an additional person who makes families and parent support their primary focus.

Kris Schoeller: Right, sometimes they'll bring parents with them and work as a role model for them to take over that role sometime, and they can step out, because that works really well.

Participant (Barbara Palmer – Colorado): Right, because I frequently see that there's this effort which is good and an intention to have parent involvement so they just plug in somebody and typically there's no reimbursement or any kind of stipend to that. It's like, “Who can we find who will come and do this as a volunteer? Well, I know a stay-at-home mom who can come and do this,” without looking at what's the expertise, what's the link back to larger groups of parents. And then there's no valuing of those of us who have made some of this work our life work, but are still raising children, to look at how does this impact us a family, as well.

Kris Schoeller: And I think one of the values of having a parent there without the professional hat is that they don't know the jargon. They're going to ask those questions that keep us explaining things so that the general population understands it. So they'll say, “What do you do it that way for?” One of the quotes that I like in this book is, “One of the best things working with parents and families for me has been that they expect things to get done just because they make sense.” I think if it's something that we as professionals have been involved with for a long time and we know the language, we might have to remind ourselves – I know I have to – to get back into being a parent, because we can get on a role with the professionalism.

Participant (Barbara Palmer – Colorado): I found some success in looking at how we get larger numbers of parents involved and get that feedback in a variety of ways, rather than just saying “We have one parent who sits on this group to cover that part.” In some instances, it may be beneficial to take the information out to groups of parents. I loved your idea about setting up some study groups or going out to PTA meetings and things like that where you get a group of people that this is going to be brand new for, but you're getting that perspective in an ongoing way. It seems much less tokenistic to me.

Shauna McDonald: Any other questions or comments or anything that people would like to share?

Participant: I'm from Santa Fe, New Mexico and I'd like to share something. I think that one of the things that maybe we need to address is the issue of poverty. Often we expect parents to come in without considering furnishings. By that I mean the elaborate clothing and the elaborate facilities and the distance, especially from rural communities. We tend to think that maybe parents aren't interested, when in fact they have other issues that are barriers and that deprive them from participating. That's one of the things that perhaps not a lot can be done about, but I think being sensitive to those things can be very important.

Kris Schoeller: Exactly, and creating some kind of comfort level with where we decide to have meetings and how we decide to do them with what kind of elaborateness.

Participant: Hi, my name is Theresa, I'm from Illinois and in conjunction with that, I think there's also an issue of culture. I work with Hispanic families and African American families, but specifically Hispanic families that I have worked with tend to feel that, “You are the professional, and you are supposed to know everything, so why are you inviting me?” They are very reluctant to speak out and share their ideas, because they have some issues with where they're at and how they feel about themselves and their self-awareness. Traditionally Hispanic parents haven't been seen as partners in a school setting or in any type of setting with their kids. That has been a barrier that we have been able to work through, but it has taken time.

Kris Schoeller: I worked with a gentleman on my project who is Hispanic and one who is Southeast Asian and the same issues that you were just talking about often come up. Both individuals work one-on-one with families to identify what they want and what their needs are individually, as well as culturally. But working it takes time because it's working more one on one than expecting to put together some kind of workshop or looking at pulling people into the governing board.

Participant (Theresa – Illinois): And building a relationship. The most success we've had is when after some time the families don't see us as a service, but as more of a friend.

Participant: This is Alice Leader (phonetic) from Cedar Rapids, Iowa and I work for an education service agency here in Iowa. There is a resource, “Today's Youth, Tomorrow's Careers” which I think is published by Career Ware, and they provide software and other materials in regard to career development. Basically it is a program for parents delivered by a trained teacher or counselor at the middle school level. It includes information and materials to inform parents about the world of work as it's emerging, plus some resources that help them to be better career counselors for their children. Of course, the younger age-wise that we can do that, we believe that middle school is not too early to be working with kids in making some flexible career choices. So I just wanted to point that out.

Participant: This is Ralph Leader (phonetic) and “Today's Youth, Tomorrow's Careers” is a great resource that I think is of value regarding involving parents in the career development process. The other thing that you've eluded to earlier is that there are misconceptions that foster system breakdown, if nothing else, as what school-to-work is attempting to do. Unfortunately, that's really impacting the US Congress and their efforts to try to promote this.

Kris Schoeller: I know. Even though it goes along with things like Goals 2000 and all the other stuff. There has been some real resistance out there, based on misconceptions, you're right. That's why I put media stuff up front, because I just think it's so important to get a positive message about it out there where people are more comfortable. I've even heard that some Web sites are getting responses that this is anti-American.

Participant (Ralph Leader): Absolutely, this is just fresh on my mind because I was in a state conference yesterday where there was a legislative update and if you'll notice the US President's budget appropriate or request... wanted them then cut in half for school-to-work for the next fiscal year. Basically it is a result of a very effective conservation opposition and people in Congress apparently are afraid to even utter the words.

Kris Schoeller: We need to get back to them with positive information.

Participant (Ralph Leader): I don't know if you want to get into a lobbying effort here, but the congress people need to hear all their constituent's views. Apparently the Eagle Forum and others are very effective at flooding factors and phones with stifling messages on this, because of the fear that it's going to take kids away from choice and take flexibility away from their career planning.

Just another quick one here, you mention development of a life-work plan. I'd like to hear more about that. Is that something that's going on in Minnesota?

Kris Schoeller: We're just beginning to do that, I think we have one area that has already developed their life-work plan, but every student will have this and that it would be career focused (see attached).

Participant: Every student? Starting at what age, freshmen or?

Kris Schoeller: I don't know if that is determined at the state level. To my knowledge it's not so I think that individual school-to-work boards can determine that. I think they're planning to start them in elementary schools and run them through. I know one district that started this a couple of years ago before we got our school-to-work grant has drastically refocused and changed their current high school curriculum. They started with seventh graders, then they did four different main areas that kids could plug into, like science and math would be one, and the creative arts might be another. But it was their career life-work plan that drove that system to change, so I thought that it was kind of exciting. It opened the doors of the schools, the kids got out of the community more contextual learning, applied learning. We just got our school-to-work grant last year so we're all just finishing our planning grant time. I don't know if there is a lot of the individual tools developed, but I'm guessing it's going to be very simple.

Participant (Barbara Palmer – Colorado): How would you then address some people's real concerns that this is forcing kids to make choices way too early and tracking them into different areas? Has there been conversation around that and from the schools who have done this?

Kris Schoeller: I think at this point, it has been individuals responding to individuals. The All Means All School-to-Work Web site, a collaborative project of the Institute on Community Integration and the Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning here in Minnesota, (http://www.ici.umn.edu/all) has a parent component. I know that Pam Stenhjem, the project coordinator, has received some concerns from around the county via that site. She has received some conservative responses and I don't know if there's been any response other than on an individual-basis. I suggest you look at that Web site, because she lists both the questions people have and responses that Pam has collected from experts in the field. But that's why I suggested the study circles or some avenue to respond, because at this point I don't think there is anything ongoing, at least not in Minnesota, where people have a formal opportunity to get together and agree or disagree.

Participant: This is Charlotte Goodsen (phonetic) in Missouri and I do know that the American Vocation Association has put together a pamphlet at a reasonable cost. It's called, “Not My Child” and it has some of the legislative and rational reasons why this communistic plot to take over our children's mind is not there. The number there is (800) 826-9972. They have reprints of this and I've ordered multiple copies just to have them on hand so if I do have a parent with a concern, I'm able to immediately respond to it.

Shauna McDonald: Well folks we need to come to a close. We'll certainly look into doing a follow-up teleconference in the fall. There seems to be a lot of good discussion and a need to meet again.

I want to thank Kris very much for presenting and participants for contributing. If you would like to talk more with Kris, her number is 612-827-2966.

 

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URL: http://www.ici.umn.edu/ntn/tele/1998/apr.html
Posted October 29, 1998
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