The Parental Involvement Program, one element of the Fort Hood 2000 education initiative, is a huge success. Designed to increase parents' participation and involvement in the learning process, the program initially required soldiers with children in local schools to attend all parent-teacher conferences as part of their military duty. After the program was piloted in 1994,the local district recorded great gains in student achievement. As a result, the local Chamber of Commerce endorsed a plan to expand the program beyond Army families. Today, employers throughout the local district give parents time off to attend regular, frequent parent-teacher conferences.
Organizations can also contribute in-kind donations to a program or a cause.
For example, a community homework hotline that helps children with homework might need donations of phones or voice mail. Or, business executives might offer to do pro-bono consulting on budgeting to schools. Efforts by companies to foster school improvement assume many forms. There can be direct partnerships between a company and a school in which the company's support could include assistance with curriculum development, support to teacher preparation and professional development, and technologically connecting schools to schools, teachers to teachers, students to students, and school to home. Companies can also provide long-term mentoring of students throughout their school career and scholarship assistance.