GreatSchools Dayton

Description

The Dayton School Chooser, a flagship product for GreatSchools Dayton, is an all-in-one print guide to public, private, and charter schools for parents living in Dayton, Ohio. The objective of the guide is to assist parents who have not yet overcome the digital divide with easy-to-read print information that is distributed via direct mail and community partners. To date, 62,000 guides have been distributed and 95% of schools serving Dayton students participated in the third edition of the guide (distributed January 2008). GreatSchools Dayton also recruits and trains parent volunteers for a program called the Parent Leadership Training Program. These Parent Leaders participate in GreatSchools Dayton programs by talking to parents in a peer-to-peer manner, strengthening word-of-mouth systems, participating in canvassing in low-income neighborhoods, and attending outreach events to access other low-income parents who need school selection information. GreatSchools Dayton also hosts an Online Parent Network, which provides Parent Leaders and selected other parent participants with free computers, Internet access and online K-12 resources. As part of this effort, we provide access to a Dayton Landing Page for www.greatschools.net and a list-serve. Nationally, GreatSchools Inc. hosts a Web site with information, ratings, and parent reviews of over 120,000 schools and more than 1,000 articles and free newsletters to assist parents to become more involved in their child's education. Recently, GreatSchools added an interactive community section to the Web site and acquired Schwab Learning, which provides information and support to parents of special needs children.