Chris and i met yesterday afternoon to debrief about the GEAR UP Washington conference.  We did discuss the itinerary and most importantly she shared information regarding data/research to support the importance of family/parental involvement in program outcomes and impact.  We are on to something.  I found several research articles and a dissertation whose findings point to the critical role of family/parental involvement in outcomes for first generation college bound students.  I shared the revised framework with her based on our shared understanding of re-thinking reshaping evaluation.  As a result we posed three things for the to do list: 
1.  Develop a revised evaluation framework that reflects what services GEAR UP performs--we need to know what is everyone doing, are we all doing the same thing etc.  This can help us develop a uniform tracking system/documentation
2.  Visit each grantee
3.  Complete geomappimg
4.  Determine what key information should we gather to better understand family and community engagement.

Not discussed...my question --does GEAR UP have a strong partnership relationship with community college system? 

We agreed to meet again on Wed@ 10:30 to further continue this discussion.