Kansas Preschool Program:
Collaboration Scale completion
2015-16 response
Please respond from your perspective as a KPP Leadership Team Member. You
have many partners within the KPP Team—each partner should have a ‘line’ on
the collaboration scale. If you need to add a partner for your specific KPP site,
please do so. Make sure that ALL members of the KPP Leadership Team have the
same list!
The current form includes a list of possible partners: School Districts (State PreK; early childhood special education); Head Start; Community child care Center;
Community Preschool; Parents as Teachers. Your KPP site may have others.
Please add them to the list on your form.
Please complete a line for EACH of your partners. For example, if you are a Head
Start program and there are 2 school districts in your KPP, you would complete a
line (Collaboration scale) for EACH of the two USD’s. If there are two communitybased preschools/child care centers, complete a line for each of them.
KPP Sites include:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Wyandotte County (KCK)
Johnson County (Shawnee Mission)
Douglas County (Lawrence, Baldwin)
Geary County (Junction City)
Riley County (Manhattan-Ogden)
Crawford County (Pittsburg and surrounding communities)
Sedgwick County (Wichita, Maize, other partners)
The Opportunity Place (TOP—and please list the USD’s and other partners
with whom you contract to serve ‘their’ children)
9. SE Kansas Special Education Coop (Three counties—several districts and
community site)
10. Ford County (Dodge—please list your community partners whose children
you serve in your early childhood site)
11. Reno County (Hutchinson and surrounding communities)
12. Shawnee County (Topeka and Auburn-Washburn—please list your
community partners as well as all USD’s)
I know that you all have been working together for many years--2015-16 is the 10th
year for many of you! Let me know if you have questions and thank you for your
perseverance!
Gayle
Levels of Collaboration Scale: Form A
Collaboration is generally treated as meaning the cooperative way that two or more
entities work together towards a shared goal. The School Program Evaluation and
Research Team developed the Levels of Collaboration scale, based on the work of
other collaboration researchers (Hogue, 1993; Borden & Perkins, 1998, 1999) to
measure progress over the five stages of collaboration. The five stages are described
as:
1. Networking-Aware of organization
-Loosely defined roles
-Little communication
-All decisions are made independently
2. Cooperation-Provide information to each other
-Somewhat defined roles
-Formal communication
-All decisions are made independently
3. Coordination-Share information and resources
-Defined roles
-Frequent communication
-Some shared decision making
4. Coalition -Share ideas
-Share resources
-Frequent and prioritized communication
-All members have a vote in decision making
5. Collaboration-Members belong to one system
-Frequent communication is characterized by mutual trust
-Consensus is reached on all decisions
It is also possible that some partner groups have no interaction with other groups,
especially at baseline, and this possibility is reflected in the instrumentation by allowing
respondents to choose “0” to indicate no collaboration whatsoever.
Given the definitions of each level, during administration of the scale, respondents are
asked to what extent they collaborate with each other grant partner. Answer
options are on a 0 to 5 scale with 0 indicating “no interaction at all” and 5 indicating the
collaboration level using Hogue’s taxonomy.
Data collected with the Levels of Collaboration scale can be reported quantitatively
utilizing different formats and different summations depending on the interests of
evaluators, grant directors and stakeholders. Collaboration can be reported as the mean
level of perceived collaboration across all respondents for all partners, summarized in
other meaningful ways, or provided as raw data in a table. Because, by definition,
collaboration only exists when two or more parties interact with each other, situations
where two partners report different levels of collaboration with each other represent
areas for exploration and discussion between those partners. As the scale assesses
perceptions of collaboration, different perceptions by two collaborating partners may
both be valid responses.
KPP SITE ______________________________Name ________________________ Program___________________________ Date ________
Levels of Collaboration Scale
(From Frey, B.B., Lohmeier, J.H., Lee, S.W., & Tollefson, N. (2006). Measuring collaboration among grant partners. American Journal of Evaluation, 27, 3, 383-392.)
This form is designed for those who work in one of the organizations or programs that are partners in the __________. Please review these descriptions of different levels
of collaboration.
 On the response section at the bottom of the page, please circle the name of the organization or group with which you are associated.
 Using the scale provided, please indicate the extent to which you currently interact with each other partner. (Skip your own row.)
Relationship
Characteristics
Networking
1
-Aware of
organization
-Loosely defined
roles
-Little
communication
-All decisions are
made independently
Partners
(respond according to your perspectives of how well
your program is collaborating with your partner
programs)
USD—local school district (LEA)
Head Start
Early childhood Special Education (service center, USD)
Community Child Care center
Community Child Care Preschool
Parents as Teachers (home visiting program
Five Levels of Collaboration and Their Characteristics
Cooperation
Coordination
Coalition
2
3
4
-Provide information
-Share information
-Share ideas
to each other
and resources
-Share resources
- Somewhat defined
-Defined roles
-Frequent and prioritized
roles
-Frequent
communication
-Formal
communication
-All members have a vote
communication
-Some shared
in decision making
-All decisions are
decision making
made independently
Collaboration
5
-Members belong to one
system
-Frequent communication
is characterized by mutual
trust
-Consensus is reached on
all decisions
No
Interaction at
All
Networking
Cooperation
Coordination
Coalition
Collaboration
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
Program definitions:
1. LEA - local education agency: includes any classroom that is administered by an LEA and includes at least 50% or more
children who are typically developing (i.e. State Pre-K programs, district run preschool programs). This category does not
include early childhood special education classrooms or Head Start programs that are administered by an LEA.
2. Early Childhood Special Education: includes classrooms that are administered by a school district, coop or interlocal and
includes 50% or more students with disabilities.
3. Head Start: includes any classroom that is primarily funded through Head Start.
4. Community Child Care Center: includes private preschool classrooms located in a child care center or early learning
center. This category includes only classrooms not affiliated with a school district.
5. Community Child Care/Preschool: includes private (not affiliated with a school district or Head Start) preschool
classrooms that are not part of a child care center or early learning center.
6. Parents as Teachers (PAT): Parents as Teachers program for 3-5 year olds.