Parent Academy/Connecting Parents to Educational Opportunities (CPEO)

Program Overview

CPEO is a free program designed for parents that brings schools, parents, and the community together as equal partners in education so that all students can achieve their greatest academic potential. CPEO helps parents understand children’s social and emotional development, develop skills for navigating the school system and collaborating with staff, create home learning environments and learn about post-secondary and college options. 

Program Specifics

The CPEO program is sponsored and supported by Minneapolis Public Schools' Office of Communications, Engagement, and External Relations. CPEO provides a framework for creating a community in which parents and teachers collaborate to transform each child's educational environment, both at home and at school, so that all children can achieve their greatest academic potential. CPEO is offered for parents with children in elementary, middle, and high schools. The program is taught in four languages (English, Spanish, Hmong, and Somali) and classes will be virtual as we start this school year.

Traditional Model

The program runs for a total of 5 weeks with classes occurring one evening each week. The curriculum for the program was adopted from the Parent Institute of Quality Education (PIQE). Topics in this model help parents with the following:

• Create home learning environments
• Develop skills for collaborating with school staff
• Support parents in understanding the emotional and social development of their child(ren)
• Help parents navigate the school system
• Provide parents with the necessary information for post-secondary and college options

We highly encourage the traditional model for high schools for the following reasons:

• During the fall months, students complete the bulk of applications for their post-secondary options (i.e. FAFSA, scholarships, college forms/tours, etc.)
• Students are at the beginning of their high school academic planning for the school year.
• Parents receive the basic information on the high school system to help them understand the importance of their active and effective participation in the education of their child(ren).