PHOENIX, AZ - Dec 01, 2006 Over 200 parents of students at Mitchell Elementary School and Mesa Junior High School will graduate from the Parent Institute for Quality Education (PIQE) in mid-December. They are part of an inaugural, nine-week parent involvement program implemented by the Arizona State University’s Center for Community Development and Civil Rights located at the Downtown Phoenix campus. Each parent will earn a certificate of completion and will be recognized for their commitment and work on behalf of their children’s education.

Graduation ceremonies are scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on December 12, 2006 at Mesa Junior High, 828 E. Broadway and on December 18, 2006 at Mitchell Elementary School, 1700 N 41st Avenue. Both graduations are open to the public. Graduations have been sponsored in part by State Farm Insurance.

When asked about PIQE’s impact on his family Indalecio Romero Perez said, “Before PIQE I just signed my child’s homework without looking at it. Now, I ask him questions about the assignment to make sure he’s doing it and understands it, and I make sure I give him lots of hugs and encouragement.”

Other positive program outcomes include increased parental involvement in schools, reduced absenteeism and improved retention and graduation rates of school-aged children. PIQE and the ASU Center for Community Development and Civil Rights will continue to work with parents offering a broad range of classes such as financial literacy and homebuyer education to parent graduates as well as working to connect parents and their families with the many community outreach programs offered throughout ASU. The Center will also track graduates and their families longitudinally to mark the success of these families in achieving college educations for their children. Program topics within the 9-week class include creating a nurturing home learning environment, working with teachers and school administration, identifying a child’s educational needs, and ensuring the child’s needs are being addressed at school.

Read the Arizona Republic article on PIQE...

PIQE is administered through the ASU Center for Community Development and Civil Rights, founded by Raul Yzaguirre, a national civil rights leader and professor of practice at ASU. The Center is dedicated to empowering all people by building bridges between the university and the community as catalysts for change. PIQE is one of The Center’s many programs and research projects that facilitate joint university-community initiatives to achieve major social impact which can be replicated regionally, nationally and internationally. The overarching goal is to make communities and societies more prosperous, equitable, and just.

About the Parent Institute for Quality Education

PIQE's mission "to bring schools, parents, and community together as equal partners in the education of every child to provide all students with the option and access of a postsecondary education," is achieved by working to create a community in which parents and teachers collaborate to transform each child's educational environment, both at home and at school, so that all children can achieve their greatest academic potential. During the past 19 years, PIQE has graduated more than 360,000 parents from the basic nine-week parent involvement program and impacted more than 1,000,000 students.