51140-51143
EDUCATION CODE
SECTION 51140-51143
51140. The Tom Hayden Community-Based Parent Involvement Grant Program is hereby established, whereby state funds appropriated for purposes of the program shall be directed to nonprofit community-based organizations through a grant program administered by the State Department of Education. The state funds shall be allocated to school districts for the purpose of contracting with nonprofit community-based organizations to offer training courses for parents and guardians of schoolage children to enhance parent and guardian involvement in the education of their children in the public schools. 51141. The State Department of Education shall select, through a competitive process, the school districts that shall be awarded training grants under this article. At least 70 percent of the available funding shall be granted to school districts that contract with nonprofit community-based organizations that demonstrate each of the following: (a) Ability to recruit and retain parent populations with traditionally low participation rates, including, but not limited to, immigrant and low-income parents. (b) Ability to conduct parent training in various languages to meet the specific cultural and linguistic needs of the school communities to be served. (c) Experience in collaborating with school districts, individual schools, local agencies, and community educational resources in implementing parent involvement programs. (d) Ability to retain a high percentage of parent participants in their training course. 51142. (a) A parent involvement training course offered pursuant to this article shall include training on school governance and how parents and guardians can effectively participate in the decisionmaking process at the school and school district level. In addition, the training course shall include at least six of the following subject areas: (1) Home-school collaboration, including educational compacts. (2) Child development. (3) Child motivational skills. (4) Developing study habits. (5) Parent-teacher conferencing. (6) Gang, violence, and drug prevention in the school. (7) College preparation. (8) Children's health and nutrition. (9) Parenting. (b) A school district that receives a grant pursuant to this article may provide ways to involve schoolage children in the training courses and may encourage parents to involve their schoolage children in the courses. (c) When developing a training course for a particular school community, a school district receiving a grant pursuant to this article shall solicit the input and participation of parents and guardians from that school community to ensure that the course offered for that school community is aligned to the needs of those parents and guardians. 51143. The amount of grant funding available pursuant to this article shall be determined by the State Department of Education but shall not exceed forty thousand dollars ($40,000) per schoolsite.