Tellin’ Stories: Connecting Parents, Schools and Communities

Latest News
Many parents across the country are very concerned about the quality of after school programs provided at their children’s elementary school and want more than babysitting between the hours of 3:15 -6:00 PM more>>

Doris Watkins, of Tellin' Stories, a program of Teaching for Change, wins the 2006 Linowes Leadership Award more>>

What is Tellin’ Stories
Tellin’ Our Story
Presentations
Recognition and Support
 

What Is Tellin’ Stories
Tellin’ Stories, a program of Teaching for Change, believes that for schools to provide the quality education our children deserve, families, schools and communities must be involved as purposeful partners in the education process. At the heart of Tellin’ Stories’ efforts to engage families and staff is the power of story to connect people from diverse backgrounds, to pass on valuable information and experiences and to organize collective action.

Tellin' Stories works with parents to create and implement action plans that affect the academic achievement and environment of neighborhood schools through relationship building (creating a story quilt), weekly meetings, workshops, trainings, and grassroots organizing. The most gratifying aspect of our work is that together Tellin' Stories, parents, educators, community members, and partner organizations are redefining the vision of school communities by helping those who are traditionally excluded from the decision-making process become a central part of it.


Tellin’ Our Story: How Tellin’ Stories works in Schools

Community Building: Tellin' Stories creates opportunities for families across race, class, language and cultural boundaries to connect to each other and to their school--often for the first time--through the power of story. In our Story Quilting series, each participant shares a story from his/her history and culture on a felt square. As the squares are sewn together, so too are the lives of those who made them.

Gathering Information And Developing Skills: Parents gain the tools they need during regular parent meetings to analyze the school climate, the facilities, and the quality of teaching and learning at their school.

Identifying And Prioritizing Concerns: By learning to ask the right questions, parents prioritize concerns and determine who has the power to address them most immediately and effectively. Tellin' Stories supports parents in voicing their concerns at teacher meetings, school board and city council hearings, and in sessions with district wide officials.

Taking Action: Parents determine what actions need to be taken to achieve desired results and collectively, with the support of Tellin' Stories, implement their plans. For example, a group of outraged parents organized a rally outside the 4th District Police Station to demand crossing guards at a busy intersection near their school. Since this visit, a police officer has been assigned to the post.

Collaborating: Tellin’ Stories facilitates collaboration among all members of the school, beginning the year with a parent-led community walk. Efforts such as these ensure a safe, healthy learning environment for the children.

Pass It On: Through cross-city parent leadership training and coaching, Tellin' Stories is helping to mobilize highly qualified and committed parent center coordinators and leaders who are eager to strengthen their own family-school programs.

Evaluating: Every aspect of Tellin' Stories' work involves action and reflection. In addition to an in depth action research project examining the meaningful role parents play in their children's schools, Tellin’ Stories involves all key stakeholders in assessing our work to increase our impact.


Workshops and Trainings

Tellin' Stories can be contacted to tailor one of the following programs for your school community. For more information contact ts@teachingforchange.org or call 202.588.7207 or 7219. 

Between Families and Schools: Creating Meaningful Relationships engages participants in rethinking parent involvement and traditional approaches to parent-school relationships, and offers more effective alternatives.

Affirming Cultural Identity Through Sharing Stories demonstrates strategies for using the power of story to connect families across cultural, linguistic and racial divides and then engaging them as storytellers in the classroom.

Parent Advocacy: Asking the Right Questions teaches a powerful self-advocacy technique to address educational, social or economic issues developed by the Right Question Project, Inc. in Massachusetts.

Strategies Mobilized Parents Use to Improve their Schools arms participants with tools used by parent leaders to improve school facilities and energize school culture.

Other Tellin’ Story’s programs include Story Quilting, Setting up your Parent Center, Planning an Effective Parent Teacher Conference, Conflict Resolution, Storytelling, Bookmaking and Diversity Training.

Special Project: Roving Readers
Grandparents, parents and friends of DC area schools have started the Roving Readers, a program offered by Tellin' Stories, where adults and teenagers bring the joy of reading to classrooms in their community. To learn more about the Roving Readers click here (PDF).
 

Recognition and Support

Current Donors and Funders

Annie E. Casey Foundation
Bruce Monroe Elementary School (DC Public Schools)
Capital One Service, Inc.
Columbus Foundation
Common Ground Fund
Commonweal Foundation
DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation
DC Learns
DC VOICE
Fannie Mae Foundation
Georgia Avenue/Rock Creek East Family Support Collaborative
Hattie M. Strong Foundation
Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation
Eugene and Agnes Meyer Foundation

Past Donors and Funders
Brimstone Fund
DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities
Edward W. Hazen Fund
Humanities Council of Washington, DC
Initiative to Strengthen Neighborhood Inter-group Assets
The Spencer Foundation
Threshold Foundation
United States Department of Education (USDE)

Featured in the Washington Post, November 2, 2003.

Tellin' Stories was featured on the PBS To the Contrary program in July, 2002. Click here to see view the program. (Requires Real Player.)



A parent activist with Tellin' Stories, Sandra Cruz, received the 2nd annual Edith Witt Internship Award.

Tellin' Stories was the 2001 MetLife Foundation Teacher-Parent Engagement Through Partnership Award winner.