Challenge Success Newsletter - February 4, 2010

Welcome to the winter 2010 edition of the Challenge Success newsletter. We are excited to bring you up to date on our progress as we continue to create a movement to champion a broader vision of success for youth. In this issue: An update on our research activities Expanded parent education programs 2009 Fundraising report A link to purchase our DVDs and merchandise Upcoming  events School surveys expanded Challenge Success has expanded our research efforts and will be conducting surveys at five schools during the spring, which brings us to over 20 schools and almost 7000 students surveyed in the past few years. As part of our schools program, we frequently conduct in-depth surveys at middle schools and high schools before and after schools identify and implement changes in policies and practices. We are also working in collaboration with the John W. Gardner Center at Stanford to update our survey and to use the most current analytics to best serve our schools. With new information from these surveys, we will be able to publish important information about student health and well-being indicators, provide tailored feedback to each school regarding the impact of their change efforts, and refine our best practices database for school reform. Condensed version of parent education classes coming soon When we introduced our first parent education program last spring through Stanford University’s Continuing Studies Program, we anticipated strong demand, but we had no idea how many parents would be interested. The six week class at Stanford is underway, but in order to meet the need on a larger scale, we are developing a condensed version of the class that can be delivered in two 3-hour sessions. While not as intensive as the longer course, we are confident that parents will walk away from these sessions with a vision for family life and tools to make the changes they need to achieve better balance.  Check our events calendar on the website to learn when a condensed parent education class will be in your neighborhood. Fundraising remains strong in 2009 Thank you to our donors, large and small, who continued to support our efforts in an extraordinarily difficult financial climate. With your help we generated nearly $300,000 which will enable us to offer scholarships to schools wishing to attend the fall conference, conduct research on best practices, and develop new delivery models to meet the growing demand for our services. DVD and Challenge Success hats now available online DVD’s of the 2008 and 2009 fall conferences can be purchased through our website, www.challengesuccess.org.  Our first shipment of Challenge Success hats has arrived and they are available for sale. Be an early adopter and help spread the word while supporting our cause. Upcoming events We hope you will consider joining us for a special parent education event in San Francisco on Sunday, May 2, 2010 from 9:00am-12:00pm. Po Bronson, author of Culture Shock, and Challenge Success co-founders Denise Pope, Madeline Levine and Jim Lobdell will deliver an interactive workshop on parent education.   More information will be available on-line shortly. Tickets for the event are $120 per person or $200 per couple and can be purchased through our website, www.challengesuccess.org.   Be sure to mark your calendars for the Challenge Success fall conference at Stanford on October 15-16, 2010. We will have more information on speakers and program in our next installment of the enewsletter.     To be removed from the mailing list, simply reply to this message with the word "REMOVE" in the subject.     Challenge Success is located at     Stanford University School of Education     485 Lasuen Mall, MC 3096     Stanford, California 94305-3096