Superintendent Letter

DATE

SUPERINTENDENT

SCHOOL DISTRICT

Address

Address

Dear Superintendent,

I am writing to you because some children in your district are participating in the Follow Up to the Even Start Classroom Literacy Interventions and Outcomes (CLIO) study, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and conducted by Westat. This is an ongoing family literacy study in your community, involving children and families that participated in Even Start. These children are likely to be enrolled in kindergarten and first grade in your school(s), and we are asking for your assistance. CLIO is not a study of your schools or district. Parents have consented in writing to participation in the study and have identified for us which schools their children attend. We are following these children as they move to kindergarten and/or first grade, and expect that we will identify only a few of them in your school(s). A brief description of the background and study design follows.

Even Start is an education program for low-income families that is designed to improve the academic achievement of parents and their young children, especially in the area of reading. The program was first authorized in 1988 and now serves over 30,000 families across the U.S. The CLIO study is evaluating the relative effectiveness of two promising early childhood education and parenting education curricula in a sample of Even Start grantees for the purpose of strengthening the services provided to participating children and their parents. An important component of the study is the longitudinal follow up of children who participated in Even Start early childhood services after they enter kindergarten and first grade to assess the sustained effects of the curricula over time.

For the CLIO study children attending kindergarten and/or first grade in your school(s), we need your help. We will ask each CLIO child's kindergarten and/or first grade teacher to complete a short self-administered paper survey about the classroom environment, and a short rating form for each study child in the teacher’s class, focusing on the child’s development and behavior. We estimate it will take approximately 12 minutes per teacher.

Teachers will receive a monetary incentive for their completed survey and rating form(s). Teacher surveys and rating forms will be mailed directly to the study children’s teachers.

Should you have any questions or concerns regarding the study, please contact Katia Cruz at 1-800-937-8281 ext. 2792; or Babette Gutmann, CLIO Project Director, at 1-800-937-8281 x 3626. On behalf of the CLIO Study, I want to thank you in advance for your cooperation in conducting this very important study.

Sincerely,

Tracy Rimdzius, Federal Project Officer

U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences,

National Center for Education Evaluation