Naviance Success Story

Stamford Public Schools

To learn more or to schedule a demo, call 800.927.8439 (toll-free) or +1.703.859.7300 (international). naviance.com

Studies show that parent involvement in a student’s education can be one of the biggest factors affecting success during and after high school. And while critically important, schools often struggle to get parents involved. Limited staff time, a lack of resources to provide parents, or uncertainty about how to engage families are just a few contribut-ing factors. One district in Connecticut, however, has seen success in fostering col-laboration and engaging parents using the college and career planning and scholarship search tools included in Naviance.

BOOSTING PTA ATTENDANCE WITH SCHOLARSHIP SEARCH TOOLSPaula Ward, Curriculum Associate for Technology at Stamford Public Schools in Connecticut, describes how one school engaged parents at a PTA meeting by fo-cusing on the Sallie Mae national schol-arship database and local scholarships re-sources available within Naviance. From talking with parents, Paula and her col-leagues Sue Rigano and Carolyn Conte from the Stamford Public Education Foundation knew that many parents, especially those with first generation college-going students, were intimidated by the cost of attending college. The Stamford school typically has 10-15 parents come to a PTA meeting, but that week they had 45 parents who came to learn how to help their children with the college planning process. Us-ing Naviance as a one-stop-shop collection of college planning tools, Stamford both increased parent engagement and helped de-mystify the costs of college education by providing access to greatly-needed scholarship resources to their students.

Increasing Parent Engagement in Stamford, Connecticut Stamford Public Schools was able to increase their PTA attendance from 10-15 parents

to 45 parents

by using Naviance scholarship search tools.

About Stamford Public Schools

Stamford Public Schools is a public school district in southern Connecticut consisting of 20 schools and nearly 16,000 students.

Paula Ward, Curriculum Associate for Technology, turned to Naviance to increase parent engagement and provide college and career planning tools.

Naviance Success Story

Stamford Public Schools

To learn more or to schedule a demo, call 800.927.8439 (toll-free) or +1.703.859.7300 (international). naviance.com

Naviance Family Connection Engagement Package Jumpstart your parent engagement with ready-to-use materials created by Hobsons, including:

Best practices, reference guides, and email templates for communicating with parents

Professional student and parent brochures to educate families about Naviance tools

Documentation provided in both English and Spanish

ENGAGING PARENTS AT COLLEGE NIGHTStamford also helped educate parents about the college process using Naviance dur-ing College Night, when colleges and universities visit local high schools. A Naviance booth was set up to display Family Connection, the Naviance portal for students and families. By staging a Naviance demonstration at an event that parents were interested in atttending, Paula was able to motivate parents to log in to Family Connection and stay up-to-date on their children’s rapidly changing college and career planning activi-ties. Paula suggests engaging parents at already scheduled events, such as College Night or parent teacher conferences as an excellent way to reach busy parents.

COMMUNICATING WITH PARENTS THROUGH NAVIANCETo increase parent engagement, Paula also suggests communicating with par-ents directly through Naviance. Mass emails and individual messages can be sent to any parent who has previously logged in to the portal. Not only does this increase parent communication, it also saves Stamford time and money by not printing out flyers and other materi-als to mail home.

But most importantly, Paula says Naviance is more than just a useful tool: it provides all students equal access to the same resources. She says, “It’s about equity, accessibility, and transparency. That’s what Naviance provides. It makes it a level playing field for all students.”