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Teachers and Parents as Partners
Teachers & Parents as Partners

TAPP Online

TAPP Online brings the Teachers and Parents as Partners intervention to rural communities to support students and foster partnerships between families and schools.

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About TAPP Online

Overview

TAPP Online is a five-year study that aims to identify the most effective way to prepare school specialists to implement the Teachers and Parents as Partners (TAPP) intervention in rural communities, while creating family-school partnerships to improve student success.

Our research team is leveraging virtual professional development to bring TAPP to rural communities. Our goals are to support school specialists as they deliver TAPP and promote positive school outcomes for students they serve.

Teachers and parents enrolled in the study will be paid for their participation.

What is TAPP?

TAPP is a problem-solving approach that builds on student strengths and fosters collaboration among parents and teachers. It has been shown to enhance students’ academic, behavioral, and social outcomes, and strengthen parent-teacher relationships. Learn more about TAPP.

Why do we need TAPP Online?

When families and schools work together, students succeed. Family-school partnerships are effective at addressing social-behavioral and mental health challenges that get in the way of student learning. This study offers enhanced services and evidence-based training to specialists in rural schools where the need is high and resources may be scarce, particularly amid the ongoing pandemic.

Scope

TAPP Online involves collaboration with dozens of rural elementary schools in Nebraska and Colorado. Thirty school-based consultants will implement TAPP with 240 students in Pre-kindergarten through Grade 5, and their teachers and families.

Goals:
  • Promote academic, social and behavioral success of PreK-5 students who need extra help.
  • Support school specialists as they learn how to promote family-school partnerships.
  • Strengthen relationships between families and schools.
  • Gather information about typical services provided by the school.
About TAPP Online man taking training

What to Expect

Your involvement in TAPP can have a significant positive impact on a child’s success at school and in life. Here is what to expect as a study participant.

How it’s Conducted:
  • School specialists agree to participate in the study, and are randomly placed in one of two groups:
    • TAPP Services
    • Typical School Services
  • Specialists help identify PreK-5 teachers of students with learning or behavioral concerns. In collaboration with school personnel, research staff obtain parent permission to participate.
  • All participants complete some surveys assessing students’ behaviors, current practices, and home-school involvement.
  • Video classroom observations and parent interviews are conducted over approximately 8 weeks.
  • All specialists, teachers and parents will receive compensation for their participation.
During TAPP services:
  • School specialists are trained in TAPP using a virtual platform, and receive ongoing coaching and support from research staff.
    • Specialists meet with both the teacher and parents to problem-solve barriers and help develop plans and resources.
    • Specialists, teachers and parents co-create student behavior plans that are meaningful and feasible to provide extra help to students.
During typical school services:
  • Students, teachers and parents continue receiving support from specialists and other school staff.
  • Information about programs and practices delivered in schools and classrooms is collected.

Participation is voluntary and all information collected is kept confidential.

TAPP Online girl smiling

Handouts

Explore the handouts linked below for additional information about participating in the TAPP Online study, including compensation details:

Administrator Handout School Specialist Handout Teacher Handout

Parent Handout Parent Handout (Spanish)

Meet the Team

Sue Sherian

Susan Sheridan, Ph.D.

  • Principal Investigator

Founding Director, Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools; George Holmes University Professor of Educational Psychology
University of Nebraska–Lincoln

ssheridan2@unl.edu

Biography

Susan Sheridan

Susan Sheridan is the founding director of the Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools, known as CYFS, and the George Holmes University Professor of Educational Psychology. Sheridan joined the faculty at the UNL Department of Educational Psychology in 1998, after several years at the University of Utah.

Sheridan founded CYFS in 2004 — a UNL Program of Excellence that conducts, supports and shares high-quality research in the social, behavioral and educational sciences. For the past 20 years, Sheridan has led the center’s growth to more than 100 faculty, staff and students. Today, CYFS is a leading cross-campus interdisciplinary research center represented by significant productivity and impact. Since its inception, CYFS has housed more than 300 funded research grants, totaling more than $133 million.

During her career, Sheridan has received more than $73 million in grant funding and has authored more than 230 books, chapters and articles, including several award-winning papers. Much of her work aims to understand effective relationships and partnerships for children and youth. She is particularly interested in strengthening relationships between parents and teachers and identifying meaningful ways to establish home–school partnerships.

Sheridan’s primary grant work and research focus is a model of service delivery known as Teachers and Parents as Partners (also known as conjoint behavioral consultation), focused on bringing parents, teachers, and other care providers together to develop positive relationships and address concerns they share for children. Her work has also examined early childhood education and development, children’s social-emotional skills, rural education, and parental engagement.

Sheridan is the first UNL faculty member to be elected to the National Academy of Education, an organization of more than 300 U.S. and international researchers who seek to improve education policy and practice through research. She is also past editor of School Psychology Review, the research journal of the National Association of School Psychologists, and past president of the Society of the Study of School Psychology. She holds a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Andy Garbacz

Andy Garbacz

  • Co-Principal Investigator

Professor, School Psychology
University of Wisconsin-Madison

andy.garbacz@wisc.edu

Biography

Andy Garbacz

Andy is a Professor and Co-Chair of the School Psychology Program. He received a doctorate from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools and the Munroe-Meyer Institute at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Andy has experience in schools, community mental health, and medical settings. Andy is a licensed psychologist, licensed school psychologist, and Nationally Certified School Psychologist. Andy serves as Co-Director of the School Mental Health Collaborative, a center focused on conducting research that informs policy and practice to promote the social-emotional and behavioral success of all students. He is also Co-Director of the Family-School-Community Alliance, a national organization focused on advancing partnerships among families, schools, and communities to support family and professional wellness, and youth mental health.

Lorey Wheeler

Lorey Wheeler

  • Co-Principal Investigator

Director, MAP Academy; Research Associate Professor, Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools
University of Nebraska–Lincoln

lorey@unl.edu

Biography

Lorey Wheeler

Lorey Wheeler’s research interests broadly focus on the promotion of Latino youth adjustment, including outcomes related to interpersonal relationships, academic and career aspirations and attainment, externalizing and internalizing problems, and physical health. Grounded in cultural-ecological and developmental perspectives, her work addresses macro forces (e.g., gender and culture) and proximal contexts (e.g., families, workplaces, schools), and the mechanisms by which these are linked to youth adjustment. A second focus of her research pertains to statistical models used to answer questions about complex ecological, developmental and relational phenomena, and the translation of these methods into tools useful to developmental, family and preventive-intervention scientists.

Wheeler received her doctorate in family and human development from Arizona State University.

Amanda Witte

Amanda Witte

  • Co-Principal Investigator

Research Associate Professor, Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools
University of Nebraska–Lincoln

awitte2@unl.edu

Biography

Amanda Witte

Amanda Witte's research is focused on family-school partnerships, early learning and rural education. In addition to her role as research assistant professor, she serves as the project manager for Learning Frontiers: Pre-K to Grade 3, a study investigating factors that promote early learning and development as children develop from preschool through third grade.

Witte also serves as a family-school consultant, training supervisor and project manager for Teachers and Parents as Partners (TAPP). She delivers workshops and training in family-school partnerships to parents, educators and service providers throughout North America, and facilitates the ongoing coaching of TAPP consultants.

She has also served as the project coordinator for two federally funded family-school partnership studies. In this role, she managed collaborative teams of consultants, parents and teachers; maintained partnerships with school personnel; and developed working relationships with new schools and communities.

Witte has contributed to numerous research publications and publications relating to family-school partnership research. She received her master’s and doctoral degrees in educational psychology from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Laura Escobedo

Laura Escobedo

  • Project Manager

University of Nebraska–Lincoln

lescobedo2@unl.edu

Emma Brunke

Emma Brunke

  • Family-School Partnership Coach

University of Nebraska–Lincoln

emma.brunke@unl.edu

Robin Mills

Robin Mills

  • Family-School Partnership Coach

University of Nebraska–Lincoln

rmills8@unl.edu

Marianne Andersen

Marianne Andersen

  • Research Coordination Specialist

University of Nebraska–Lincoln

mandersen3@unl.edu

Nicole Adams

Nicole Adams

  • Data Collector

University of Nebraska–Lincoln

nadams4@unl.edu

Daniela Cubas

Daniela Cubas

  • Data Collector

University of Nebraska–Lincoln

dcubas2@unl.edu

Get Started

Hello, and thank you for your interest in TAPP Online! My name is Laura Escobedo and I’m the project manager for the study.

To get started, please contact me directly at laura.escobedo@unl.edu or complete the following form and a member of our team will contact you as soon as possible.

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Laura Escobedo

Laura Escobedo

Project Manager
TAPP Online
laura.escobedo@unl.edu