What Is “I Care”?
- “I Care” is a system for getting and keeping parents involved with their children and youth at home.
- Our Pre-K through 12th Grade spiraled curriculum is built on the 12 Pillars of Character so that students are practicing different forms or traits of that Pillar each year.
- “I Care” recognizes parents as a missing link in character development programs previously available. Although teachers introduce and discuss the monthly character trait, five activities are sent home for parents to do with their children and youth each month.
- One of our goals is to facilitate a paradigm shift in the way parents and schools view each other and interact. “I Care” facilitates frequent positive interactions between home and school.
- “I Care” has been specifically designed to overcome the traditional barriers to parental involvement:
- Replaces negative perceptions with positive contacts
- Provides teachers with information they need to work successfully with parents
- Provides videos for training parents in the “I Care” methodology
- Provides tools to measure the impact of positive parent-child interactions
- The community involvement component enables members of the community to teach, reinforce, and model the same monthly character traits taught at home and at school.
Why Choose “I Care”?
- “I Care” is the only system/curriculum that defines and measures parental involvement at home.
- More than a set of activities, the “I Care” system includes critical success factors that yield results: participation, parents trained, positive teacher-parent contacts, etc.
- Monthly character development activities provide ideas that parents can adapt in initiating their own activities with their children.
- The books of the month and other activities reinforce the importance of reading.
- “I Care” is the only program that combines parental involvement and character development through a school, home, and community partnership. When used in that combination, it has the potential to impact the culture.
- Data show a strong correlation between implementing “I Care” and improved achievement test scores, increased school attendance, and fewer office referrals.
