California Association for Bilingual Education

Programs > California State Parent Information Resource Center 1 (PIRC 1)

California State PIRC 1 -- Parent Information Resource Center (PIRC) Project INSPIRE

Project INSPIRE (Innovations that Nurture Success and Parent Involvement to Reach Excellence) is a Parent Information Resource Center (PIRC) funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement and is the result of a partnership between the CABE, the San Bernardino County Superintendent of School (SBCSS), and Alameda County Office of Education (ACOE). Project INSPIRE has been funded since 2003 through 2011 (contingent upon available federal funding).

The overall goals of Project INSPIRE include:

Providing high quality parent education and leadership development to parents throughout California with an emphasis on services to parents of CA’s most disadvantaged students.
Building the capacity of schools and districts serving disadvantaged students to maintain high quality parent education and leadership programs.
Building the capacity of parent leaders to provide training to other parents and to effectively participate in local school reform efforts.

>>Download PIRC Brochure in English

>>Download PIRC Brochure in Spanish

Workshop Requests

If you are interested in having PIRC staff conduct a workshop/presentation on any of the modules listed below, please fill out the workshop request form fax it to (626) 814-4640, attn: CA State PIRC 1. Our staff will contact you to discuss logistics and planning. In an effort to maximize our services, we ask that your school/district targets outreach to an audience of 30-40 parents at each module presentation. Our staff will take care of presenting the module and handing out information during the presentation, however your contact person will be in charge of any other logistics (i.e. securing workshop space, child care, food, etc).

>>Download Workshop Request Form
>> Download Workshop Overview

California State PIRC -1 Quarterly Newsletter: Download it today and find out the latest information on parent efforts around the state. Available in Spanish and English.

>>Download Newsletter (English) NEW! posted on 5/16/2008
>>Download Newsletter (English)

>>Download Newsletter (Spanish) NEW! posted on 5/16/2008
>>Download Newsletter (Spanish)

Project INSPIRE News

October 2007

CABE was once again awarded a five year multifaceted grant to bring services to parents. California PIRC-1 Project INSPIRE has three goals: 1) To have parents knowledgeable about high quality schooling options for their children and with the leadership skills to take action steps to ensure their children have high quality educational opportunities; 2) To have schools and districts serving disadvantaged students maintain high quality parent education and leadership programs; and 3) To have parent leaders provide parent leadership development to other parents and to effectively participate in local school reform efforts.

A new feature of Project INSPIRE (2006-2011) is the randomized longitudinal study of the effectiveness of the parent education and leadership program in 18 Treatment and 18+ matched control sites from partnering districts throughout California. The hypothesis is that improved parental involvement will lead to improved student and school achievement; and create local capacity/resources to fully involve parents in the school program. The focus will be to assess if intensive training and on-going coaching significantly improves and increases the type, frequency, and quality of parental involvement and home-school-community collaboration and if this increase leads to increased student and school achievement.

As you can see the project is bringing many people and resources together to further the concept that parents are important in the education of their children and they can work with educators in schools to improve student achievement.