Karren Dunkley

Karren Dunkley is a Chief Deputy for the School District of Philadelphia. She currently oversees the Office of Parent, Family, Community Engagement and Faith-based Partnerships. The department serves as a central structure which provides district and school-based services to improve the quality of family and community engagement and fosters student academic achievement. During the early years of her tenure as Deputy Chief, and under the leadership of superintendent Arlene Ackerman, the district expanded their services to parents and community members, created the Philadelphia Parent University and Parent Family resource centers. Although such programs and parent engagement models have been tested in many school districts, Philadelphia's is one of the leading school districts in bringing such programs to scale. The Philadelphia Tribune named Dunkley's one of the “Most Influentials under 40 Philadelphia of 2009” for her work in parental engagement and education.
Education
Ms. Karren Dunkley received her bachelor in 1997 and master degrees the following year in Politics and education from St. John’s University, Queens, New York. She earned her Masters in Politics and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, in 2006. She is currently pursuing her doctorate at Teachers College with a focus on Parental Engagement in Education.
Career
Karren Dunkley spend much of her career in education focusing on improving parent engagement in public schools. She start her teaching career as an adjunct instructor teaching Political Science courses at City University and subsequently St. John’s University, both in Queens, New York. During her eight years term as an adjunct instructor she concurrently worked with teachers at Elmont Memorial High school and Community School 21 to increase parent and public engagement. She also taught at New York Public schools. In 2000 she co-founded Uhuru Incorporated, a non-profit organization that focused on improving education and sponsored scholarships for at risk students. In 2007 she was awarded the New York State Assembly Teacher of the Year. She was appointed a deputy chief of the School District of Philadelphia in 2008 to oversee all of the parent and community engagement Component of the district. She also attempted to create systems to increase district's staffs accountability to parents and worked with ethnic organizations to increase cultural participation in the district.
Tenure as Deputy Chief
The School District of Philadelphia under the helm of Arlene Ackerman made major investment in improving lacklustered Parent and Community engagement. The office of Parent, Family, Community Engagement and Faith-based Partnerships directs all such services for the school district. Karren Dunkley directed the initiation of four major programs since 2008, and expanded the numbers of Parent Ombudsmen serving schools.
Parent University
Parent University was launched in 2009, and expanded using grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, to provide free education to parents. The goal of Parent University is to equip families with additional skills, knowledge and
resources. Currently Parent University offers 32 course, workshops, and programs. These programs are hosted in partnership with internal District departments, academic institutions, community and faith-based organizations. It is unclear, however, if Parent University has significant impacts on student achievement since no studies have been conducted to measure such impacts.
Parent University Courses are categorized into five groups. Special Courses/Initiatives, offer lessons on self-help and personal wellness. Parenting Skills courses are aimed at motivating and empowering parents to be active in their child's development. Student Achievement Core Curriculum courses provide parents with technical skills and information on how to support their child's academics. Personal Growth courses offer finance literacy and computer trainings. Finally Academic Core courses are directed at improve parent's math and literature literacy. Parent University claimed to have serviced over 12,000 parents since its launch in 2009.
Parent and Family Resource Centers
The Parent and Family Resource Centers were launched in the Fall of 2010 to improve the dissemination of district's resources to local communities and serve as customer service centers. There are eight resource centers dispersed throughout the city. The centers provide computer and literature for parents and serve as a liaison between parents and the district. The resource center along with the call center allow the district to garner feedback from parents on schools and school performances.
Parent Resource Centers scope of coordinated services:
:Referral and Case Management System
:Registration/Enrollment
:School and Program Placement
:Disciplinary Matters and Procedures
:Special Education Services
:ELL Services
:Early Childhood Services
:Re-engagement Services
Parent Ombudsmen
Parent Ombudsmen is a school based staff specialized in working with parents to solve concerns. According to the school district, "The ombudsmen will: advocate for parents and families; serve as liaisons between parents, community, central office and schools; and assist in building healthy community partnerships." Not all schools have parent ombudsmen. The number of ombudsmen increased from relatively few, to 128 in 2008-2009, and currently there are 173 ombudsmen staffed by the district at 173 different schools.
Multilingual Family Support
The school district multilingual family support office provides services to support family whose primary language is not English. The office also oversees Bilingual Counselor Assistants, school based bilingual support staff. Other services that are provided include, parent outreach and family support, information and network to services for immigrant, the welcome centers, where immigrant family can come to enroll their children into schools, and the Translation and Interpretation Center.
Translation and Interpretation Center
According to the School District, the translation center is responsible for servicing non-English speaking parents and family. The translation and interpretation center is a subdivision of the multilingual family support office. The district publishes all their translated document online. The center claims to service 8 different languages: Spanish, Albanian, Arabic, Chinese, French, Cambodian, Russian, and Vietnamese.
The department’s focuses include:
:Professional translation for District documents in eight major languages (Albanian, Arabic, Chinese, French, Khmer, Russian, Spanish and Vietnamese);
:Newly implemented interpretation services provided at School Reform Commission meetings;
:Approximately 100 bilingual counseling assistants assigned to schools to provide language support to parents and students;
:Telephonic interpretation services to provide instant interpretation for schools and central offices;
:Parent language hot lines, in the eight major languages mentioned above, which are staffed with bilingual personnel to respond to parents in their native languages;
:Immigrant parents' summer registration, a targeted outreach to parents of students new to the District.
Faith-Based Partnerships
The department also created a community engagement and faith-based partnerships branch that focus on, according to the district, "harnessing the collective vision, goals and energy of community members in planning, visioning, and communicating decisions impacting schools, families and communities." The 'Superintendent Faith-based Round-Table is a reoccurring meeting between district and faith leaders to discuss on issues of education. The branch also offers supports to family in needs and sponsor interfaith social changes movement and programs for the community, such as mentorship, tutoring, drama program, ant-drug and anti-violent consultation, business career exploration and emergency assistance.

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