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This resource contains multiple articles written by a diverse selection of educators and experts. They "describe specific practices, structural changes, and mindset shifts that school leaders and educators can use to better connect with, support, and learn from students' families." They focus, in particular, on how we can strengthen relationships with families from racial and socio-economic groups that have tended to be discounted in schools.

I appreciated the discussion of the need to create real, genuine partnerships rather than the more conventional one-sided conversation that most teacher-family 'partnerships' entail. Articles in this resource stress the need to co-construct reciprocal relationships with shared responsibility, which "may require greater humility and deeper forms of outreach on the part of educators." The underlying belief behind this mindset is that in order to best support our students, we must get to know their families, create a shared picture of student goals and needs, and collaboratively engage in activities such as problem solving. Our students are best supported when we, as educators, work as a team with families.

I also found a chart within the article "Co-Constructing Family Engagement" to be very helpful. The chart is titled "Shifting the Narrative for Better Family-Teacher Meetings." The goal of the chart is to help educators move beyond "time-held assumptions and biases and broaden their thinking." On one side of the chart, are five common assumptions and, on the other side, are five counter narratives. The chart also discusses the topic of true partnerships, saying that newsletters and other forms of "unidirectional communication can further marginalize groups of students. We must connect, build, and actively partner," which can be done through "brainstorming, problem solving, and joint solution building."

Overall, some very interesting articles. I would highly recommend this resource.

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We empower educators to reimagine and redesign learning through impactful pedagogy and meaningful technology use. We achieve this by offering transformative professional learning, fostering vibrant communities, and ensuring that digital tools and experiences are accessible and effective.

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We empower educators to reimagine and redesign learning through impactful pedagogy and meaningful technology use. We achieve this by offering transformative professional learning, fostering vibrant communities, and ensuring that digital tools and experiences are accessible and effective.

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I found this article to be really useful when learning about school and family partnership. It lists 6 components that play a role in enhancing successful school and family partnerships. It also explains the role as a teacher and the role as a parent to help enforce these relationships.

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6 pillars of successful school-family partnership

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Family engagement in children’s education leads to performance. Joyce Epstein presents 6 ways to involve the family in your child’s education.

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This resource focus on tips and strategies for teachers to develop strong and positive relationships with parents. I though this was very helpful and is something I will definitely use when I become a teacher. One specific strategy that stood out to me is to communicate often and in various forms. By reaching out on a regular basis, you are able to build a relationship with parents that centers around the positives their child is displaying, not just the negatives. It is also important to communicate over the phone or in person at times rather than only over email. Sometimes it is hard to gauge a persons tone over email, so speaking in person or on the phone eliminates these possible misunderstandings.

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20 Tips for Developing Positive Relationships With Parents

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Blogger Elena Aguilar shares 20 tips to help teachers better connect with parents.

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I thought this article was very eye-opening in that it pointed out the importance of the same messages being sent to kids at home and at school. If kids are always being held to the same expectations, they are more likely to succeed. This all starts with constant, quality communication between teachers and parents.

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As society has become more complex and demanding, though, these relationships have all too often fallen by the wayside. Neither educators nor parents have enough time to get to know one another and establish working relationships on behalf of children. In many communities, parents are discouraged from spending time in classrooms and educators are expected to consult with family members only when a child is in trouble. The result, in too many cases, is misunderstanding, mistrust, and a lack of respect, so that when a child falls behind, teachers blame the parents and parents blame the teachers.

At the same time, our society has created artificial distinctions about the roles that parents and teachers should play in a young person's development. We tend to think that schools should stick to teaching academics and that home is the place where children's moral and emotional development should take place.

Yet children don't stop learning about values and relationships when they enter a classroom, nor do they cease learning academics -- and attitudes about learning -- when they are at home or elsewhere in their community. They constantly observe how the significant adults in their lives treat one another, how decisions are made and executed, and how problems are solved.

All the experiences children have, both in and out of school, help shape their sense that someone cares about them, their feelings of self-worth and competency, their understanding of the world around them, and their beliefs about where they fit into the scheme of things.

These days, it can take extraordinary efforts to build strong relationships between families and educators. Schools have to reach out to families, making them feel welcome as full partners in the educational process. Families, in turn, have to make a commitment of time and energy to support their children both at home and at school.

The effort involved in reestablishing these connections is well worth it, as many communities across the country -- including those we work with -- are discovering. Our experience is that significant and meaningful parent involvement is possible, desirable, and valuable in improving student growth and performance.

A Starting Point

The communities in which we are involved -- mostly inner city neighborhoods -- tend to start with relatively poor relationships between schools and families. Many of the parents experienced failure during their own school days and are reluctant to set foot inside their children's schools. Teachers commute to work and often know very little about the neighborhood outside the school. Before they can develop effective partnerships, educators and families in these communities first have to learn to trust and respect one another.

Although it is less obvious, the same is true in more affluent communities. The lack of trust and respect can be seen in the growing numbers of parents choosing to enroll their children in private schools or educate them at home, and in the growing reluctance of voters to approve school-bond issues. At the same time, relatively few schools have open-door policies allowing parents to visit at any time, and parents who insist on playing an active role in their children's education are often branded as troublemakers.

The starting point in any community is to create opportunities where parents and teachers can learn that they both have children's best interests at heart. We applaud the growing trend to decentralize decision making from central offices to individual schools because it creates opportunities for parents and educators to work together, making decisions about school policies and procedures. Some may see this arrangement as shifting power from school staff to parents, but it's not power shifting; it's power sharing. It is empowering all the adults who have a stake in children's development.

Participation on school-based planning and management teams gives parents a chance to learn about the professional side of schooling -- to understand the inner workings of curriculum and instruction. It also allows them to educate school staff about the community and demonstrate that parents have much to offer if provided the opportunities to do so.

Working together as full partners, parents, teachers, administrators, businesspeople, and other community members can create an educational program that meets unique local needs and reflects the diversity within a school without compromising high performance expectations and standards. They can foster a caring and sensitive school climate that respects and responds to students' differences as well as their similarities.

A Wide Variety of Roles

Besides participating in governance, parents can be involved in schools in many roles. There are the traditional ways: encouraging children to complete homework, attending parent-teacher conferences, and being active members of their school's parent-teacher organization. Other roles, however, require more commitment: serving as mentors, teacher aides, or lunchroom monitors, or providing assistance to schools and students in myriad other ways.

At a time when schools are adopting curricula based on real-world problems and information, families can make a valuable contribution by sharing first-hand information about work, hobbies, history, and other personal experiences, either in person or via a computer network. Perhaps most important, parents can simply take the time to go to their schools and observe, learning about what their children and their children's teachers are doing.

The hectic pace of modern life can make this kind of involvement seem out of reach for many parents. But there are positive signs that it is becoming more feasible. Employers, concerned about the quality of the future workforce, are starting to adopt policies that allow parents time off to participate on a school's planning and management team or volunteer time at regular intervals. And more schools are offering either day care or preschool, which makes it easier for parents with young children to spend time at an older child's school.

This level of parent involvement in schools allows parents and staff to work together in respectful and mutually supportive ways, creating an environment in which understanding, trust, and respect can flourish. At the same time, students get consistent messages from the important adults in their lives. When children observe that home and school are engaged in a respectful partnership for their benefit, they are likely to develop more positive attitudes about school and achieve more, compared to situations in which school and home are seen as being worlds apart.

Better Lines of Communication

Regardless of a parent's direct involvement in school activities, it is vital for parents and teachers to communicate effectively with one another. Each has a piece of the picture of a child's development, and each can be more effective when information is shared. Constant communication helps ensure that both schools and homes are responsive to students' unique needs and therefore support children's overall development.

Some of this interaction should be face to face, either at the school, at home, at a parent's worksite, or at another convenient location. It must be considered an integral part of schooling, and adequate time must be provided during regular working hours for school staff to carry it out. At the same time, this communication must be recognized as a critical part of parenting, and parents must make the commitment to meet periodically with their children's teachers.

Technology can allow educators and parents to be linked into a sturdier web of mutual support than ever before. Schools and homes can be connected through computer networks that allow them to freely share information, via email and bulletin boards, twenty-four hours a day and year-round.

It's not hard to imagine a time in the near future when all parents will be able to quickly call up information such as a student's schedule for the week, current assignments, and suggestions from teachers about what they can do to support learning goals at home. They'll be able to review what the child has been doing by looking at actual samples of schoolwork that have been collected in an electronic portfolio.

To ensure that everyone, regardless of income or other circumstances, has equal access to such electronic tools, some schools work with businesses and other partners to create computer-lending programs for families. All schools should consider creating similar programs. The needed computers should also be available to parents at a variety of public settings such as schools, libraries, and government buildings, and there should be free or low-cost classes to teach educators and parents how to use them to foster learning.

The establishment of computer networks linking schools and homes fits neatly with another positive trend we've noticed: More and more schools are broadening their mission to provide educational services for their entire community.

Lifelong learning is rapidly becoming a requirement for success in the modern world. Parents and other community members can either attend classes at a school or study at home using distance learning technologies, with content supplied by their local school or by one far away. Through these networks, parents can not only advance their own education but also demonstrate for their children that adults need to keep working at learning, too.

But the biggest winners are the children. When we walk into a school and see parents and teachers working together, in all sorts of roles, it's a sure sign that the school challenges the very best in students and helps all, regardless of race, class, or culture, realize their fullest potential.

James P. Comer is Maurice Falk Professor at the Yale Child Study Center, associate dean of the Yale Medical School, and director of the university's School Development Program.

Norris M. Haynes is an associate professor at the Yale Child Study Center and Yale University's Department of Psychology and director of research for the university's School Development Program.

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The Home-School Team: An Emphasis on Parent Involvement

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Students thrive when their parents become part of the classroom.

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This resource is able to give us teachers ideas about family engagement. This is a good tool to use when we need to see how we should handle different situations. This source uses many different teachers that give ideas to each other to let everyone know what they should do. They give examples in Parent teacher conferences, parent teacher conversions, home routines and more. This is a good source to look at because it give many different ideas and thoughts about family and teacher engagement.

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There are numerous resources focused on how educators can work with parents but what supports are out there for parents wanting to connect with schools? How are parents supported in building relationships with teachers and administrators? And how can parents support learning at home? The articles I've written on parent-teacher communications have been among the most popularly viewed posts. Check out the related articles below, an assessment tool for parents who are examining new schools and a list of other organizations and sites that offer helpful resources for parents.

ARTICLES:

PARENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIPS
Parent-Teacher Conversations
Productive collaborations between family and school, therefore,
will demand that parents and teachers recognize the critical importance of each other's participation in the life of the child.
- Sara Lawrence Lightfoot

Teachers gain plenty of experience over time having difficult conversations about students with parents. However if you are parent, you may only experience difficult conversations with teachers a few times in your children's educational careers. It's conceivable that your child may come home with issues or concerns that merit your initiation of a conversation with a teacher. With only your child's words to inform you, you need more information and the help of her teacher to really understand the problem. "Will I sound like I am accusing the teacher or another student or parent?" "Will the teacher penalize my daughter or like her less because of our conversation?" and "Will my discussion with the teacher lead to tensions between our family and that teacher and possibly other teachers in the future?" These are all valid questions that are raised in the minds of parents before they proceed with a conversation. Last weekend as I attended a once a year lunch date with my college friends, mothers of children from preschool through high school, this common dilemma was a feature of our conversation. Read full article.
Parent-Teacher Conferences ...no school can work well for children if parents and teachers do not act in partnership on behalf of the children's best interests. Parents have every right to understand what is happening to their children at school, and teachers have the responsibility to share that information without prejudicial judgment.... Such communication, which can only be in a child's interest, is not possible without mutual trust between parent and teacher.
- Dorothy H. Cohen

Parent-teacher conferences are upon us. Though we go into them with great hope for a productive dialogue about how our child is doing in school, sometimes we come away feeling like we didn't get the information we wanted or don't know exactly what our next steps should be. Perhaps later we begin to worry about his learning challenges but missed the opportunity to ask more about it. The conference for my son next week is scheduled for ten minutes in length. That's enough time for a check in only. So I know that I am going to need to be in communication with his teacher at other times if I am really to understand how I can support his learning goals. With so little time together, it helps to enter the conversation in the right frame of mind. And also coming with a plan and questions at the ready can assist you in ensuring you are satisfied with the interchange. Read full article.
Setting Up for Homework Success
HOMEWORK
Homework Attitude - Promoting Autonomy and Competence to Inspire Hard Work
"I am not doing my homework. No way!" said E. If you have school-age children, certainly a similar refrain has been asserted in your household - possibly on numerous occasions and maybe even every night after school. Education Week recently highlighted a study by the National Center on Families Learning who found that 60% of American families surveyed struggled to help their children with their homework. Additionally, more than 25 percent admit the reason is that they are too busy, up from just over 20 percent in 2013. Parents also identified not understanding the subject matter (33.5 percent) and pushback from their kids (41 percent) as reasons for having trouble with homework help. Read the full article.

When it comes to homework, attitude can make all of the difference. Children can bring worries or beliefs to their homework that we, as parents, may or may not be aware of. "The other kids all know this already but I just don't understand it. How will I catch up?"
"I'm just not good at science." "What if I'll never be able to figure this out?" Anxiety in a child can fuel them to either walk away from a challenge, or to dig in and work harder to meet their struggles. And we can have a significant influence on how our children approach those challenges through our own words and attitudes. Read the full article.
Helping Your Child's School Create a Caring Community; Lessons from a Parent Volunteer
PARENT VOLUNTEERISM

This week I interviewed a regular reader and responder to Confident Parents, Confident Kids, Jeanne Osgood. Jeanne is someone who has significantly influenced her home school district as a parent over the past fourteen years and I've been eager to learn more about her story. Though her two children have graduated and moved on, she continues to educate and advocate for social and emotional learning in Community Consolidated District 181 in Hinsdale, Illinois, a K-8 district with 9 schools and nearly 4,000 students. Prior to having children, she worked for the Art Institute of Chicago as a Museum Educator. In addition to being a long-time volunteer with the schools, she wrote her own job description as a "Communications Consultant" and created systems for communicating with parents about the district's focus on social and emotional learning. As a result, the District moved from fragmented efforts in character education and a strong focus on academic achievement to a coordinated district-wide integration of social and emotional skill development. They did this as part of their academic curriculum with parents as partners in the process. They regularly communicate with parents through a website and newsletter along with periodic learning opportunities. Read full article.

HOME ROUTINES THAT CONTRIBUTE TO LEARNING
The Opportunity of Bedtime, Part One
Arguably, one of the most significant ways parents can contribute daily to school performance is by ensuring that children get enough sleep at night. Check out these supportive tips on a smooth bedtime routine.

"One of my happy thoughts was having peace and quiet in the house today to work," I said.
"Oh yeah. Mom, could you give me peace and quiet while I am going to sleep? I always hear you doing the dishes in the kitchen and it keeps me up," said E in earnest. "I'll try," I responded.
The Opportunity of Bedtime, Part Two - Troubleshooting Bedtime Challenges
Two hours after I whispered "Good night." I walked down the hallway and heard "Momma, I can't sleep." Who knows why? It could be thinking too much about worrisome thoughts, not getting enough fresh air or exercise during the day or an intent desire to stay up. Children's bedtime can present significant challenges to parents. "Why do I have to go to bed?" may be a whine you hear often when it's time to say goodnight. And perhaps at times you are too tired to fight the bedtime battle. With homework, sports practice and dinner after school, there is not much time for play and relaxation. However research confirms we are not doing ourselves or our children any favors by allowing a later bedtime. A lack of sleep can contribute to poor grades and more challenging behaviors. But how much sleep do children need and what are the consequences if they are not getting enough? Read the full article.

This week two readers share their challenges with bedtime. Perhaps these problems are similar to yours? One feels the bedtime routine stretches longer and longer while she is tired and wants to move through it more quickly. The other receives calls after the "Good nights" have been said. Fears of the dark, a desperate thirst and most likely, a need for further attention keep her jumping up and down, returning to her daughter's bedroom when she's trying to have her own time at the end of a long day. Read on and see if some of the responses might assist you as you try to create a bedtime routine that is a positive experience for the whole family. Read full article.
The Heart and Head School Report Card
PARENT NEW SCHOOL CHECKLIST

If you have the luxury of choosing a school (whether its preschool, elementary or high), be certain to visit, tour and spend time in a classroom to get a feel for the culture of the school. Print out "The Heart and Head School Report Card" as your own checklist and use while on the visit or complete when you return home. See if the school meets your desires and criteria for educating the whole child.

HELPFUL ORGANIZATIONS/SITES

Harvard Family Research Project
This project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education conducts research on the best ways of increasing school-home and school-community collaboration. This site offers research papers on the topic, links to other organizations and links to many partnership models.

Getting Smart; Smart Parents
Articles, blogs, videos and more are included to help parents become involved in their children's education.

National Parent Teacher Association (PTA)
Tips, fact sheets and articles, useful to both parents and teachers, are included on a wide range of topics related to parenting and school-home collaboration.

New Mexico School Communities
Tips and tools are included to help teachers and parents promote positive parenting and how to help encourage children to become better learners in school and at home.

Educator's Reference Desk
An umbrella site that provides links to organizations, online communities, and other websites for a wide range of topics in education, including school-home collaboration, diversity in the classroom, background information on various ethnic cultures, parenting, and homework.

HELPFUL BOOKS

Parents and Teachers Working Together by Carol Davis and Alice Yang - This is an easy-to-read and use book that contains tools and supports for both teachers and parents to connect with one another on student learning.

Beyond the Bake Sale; The Essential Guide to Family-School Partnerships by Anne T. Henderson, Karen L. Mapp, Vivian R. Johnson, and Don Davies. (2007) - This is an easy, practical guide to creating authentic partnerships between caregivers and school staff. It offers many examples and helps readers think through barriers to collaboration as well as culturally responsive ways to connect.

Building Powerful Learning Environments from Schools to Communities by Arina Bokas (2017). - Bokas makes a solid case for the kind of education required to prepare global citizens and develop children physically, socially, emotionally and academically. She uncovers beliefs and assumptions that are now outdated and do not serve our children but still remain drivers of policy and practice. And she offers practical suggestions for deepening trust between families, communities, and schools.

© Copyright, 2021, Jennifer Smith Miller. All rights reserved.

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There are numerous resources focused on how educators can work with parents but what supports are out there for parents wanting to connect with schools? How are parents supported in building relationships with teachers and administrators? And how can parents support learning at home? The articles I've written on parent-teacher communications have been among the...

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This resource is useful as it provides information about improving family engagement in the school setting. It's important for teachers to communicate and reach out to the parents of their student's as it's a two way street so that if the teacher doesn't reach out, the parents might be less likely to reach out. It's also important to provide opportunities or ways for parents to be included in their child's education such as volunteering, events, conferences.

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10 Ways to Improve Family Engagement in Schools - ParentSquare

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Family engagement is essential for student success at school. When parents and guardians are involved in their child’s education, students have better academic outcomes, improved attendance, and higher graduation rates. However, it can be challenging to engage families with basic, one-way mass commu…

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This resource gives some strategies for engaging with families as an educator. There are some videos that show educators sharing their experiences and things that have worked and what hasn't. There are also other resources linked to help people "Go Deeper" into a specific area of engagement with families, and learn even more specific information.

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As children's first teachers, parents play important roles in supporting academic learning at home and at school. Parents and other adult caregivers are important resources and allies for educators as they help students navigate through the schooling process and reinforce classroom lessons and good study habits at home.

The National Parent Teacher Association gives five reasons to renew the push to engage parents before, during and after "Bring Your Family to School Week":

Higher grades, test scores, and graduation rates

Better attendance at school

Fewer suspensions and incidents of violent behavior

Increased motivation and self-esteem

Decreased drug and alcohol use

Research has identified several essential components of successful parent engagement programs: a foundation of mutual respect and trust, connection of parent engagement strategies to student learning objectives, and reaching out to engage parents beyond the school, particularly in linguistically and culturally diverse communities.

Initiating Contact

How do you welcome parents and families into your classroom? Most teachers have a back-to-school protocol that includes some type of outreach to parents and families. Inevitably, some families don't engage in the ways teachers desire. The video and reading selections here will help you discover or rediscover ways to involve children's caregivers in the learning process - and help you check assumptions about class, culture or language that might undercut well-intentioned strategies for family engagement.

High school creative writing teacher, Foster Dickson, shares his strategies for initiating contact with parents.

Look for:

What does Foster do that's different from your practice? The same as your practice?

What constraints, as Foster articulates them, do the families of his students have that may inhibit parent/teacher engagement?

Go Deeper:

In The Question of Class, Paul Gorski calls on fellow educators to examine the classist assumptions infiltrating classrooms and schools. Read what he has to say about parent engagement.

Reflect on:

List constraints that may interfere with the ability (not willingness) of students' families to participate in traditional parent engagement practices, such as back-to-school nights, open houses or PTA committee meetings.

How might I incorporate additional engagement strategies to work through some of these constraints? How might I (and my school) address access to transportation, childcare, English-language proficiency and non-traditional work hours, for example?

Ready Resources
Parent Surveys: Home Visit Information: Postcards, Letters and Other Ways to Say "Hey":
Inviting Engagement

U.S. classrooms are growing more diverse - ethnically, culturally and linguistically. In response, teachers and educational advocates are employing new strategies, and adapting tried-and-true strategies, to better serve diverse parent populations.

In May 2005, Hyundai Motor Company opened a $1 billion automotive assembly and manufacturing plant in Montgomery, Ala., bringing with it thousands of jobs and a new community of Korean-speaking school children and their families. Elementary school teacher Diane Holtam talks about how she welcomes such linguistically and culturally diverse parents into her classroom.

Look for:

What efforts does Diane make to ensure that all parents feel welcome?

How does she use parent resources to augment student learning?

Go Deeper:

In an interview with Learning for Justice, then Teaching Tolerance, Dr. Alvin Poussaint, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Media Center for Children at the Judge Baker Children's Center in Boston, explores ways teachers can overcome cultural barriers to connect with parents and increase student learning.

Reflect On:

How does my approach to parents and families encourage or discourage their continued participation in the classroom? Are there cross-cultural communication or language considerations?

How can I use my students' families and cultural backgrounds to enrich the classroom and instruction?

Ready Resources:

Overcoming Language Barriers

Many U.S. cities with large, established ethnic enclaves have long sought to welcome newly arrived immigrants and their children. Yet, small towns and cities have less experience identifying and meeting the needs and interests of new immigrants. How can you make inroads when the path to much-needed community assets and resources isn't so well worn - or when it is well worn, but not so well traveled?

Hear elementary school teacher, Diane Holtam, talk about how her school overcame cultural and linguistic barriers to engage parents in the school. In May 2005, Hyundai Motor Company, Korea's largest automotive manufacturer, opened a $1 billion automotive assembly and manufacturing plant in Montgomery, Ala., bringing with it thousands of jobs and a new community of Korean-speaking school children and their families.

Look for:

What external resources did Diane's school use to reach out to parents?

What are some of the volunteer opportunities mentioned for parents whose first language is not English? Can you think of any others?

Go Deeper:

In Opening Doors on the Border, Teaching Tolerance magazine showcases effective parental engagement strategies that center on students' homes, communities and schools.

Reflect On:

What role might parent volunteers play in enhancing community connectedness and responsiveness at your school or in your classroom?

How might parent voice factor into decisions about instruction? Extracurricular activities? Support services - tutoring, transportation, nutrition, etc.?

Ready Resources:

Using Plain Terms

Beyond the language we speak, the words we choose can help or hinder the effectiveness of communication with parents and guardians. How do our word choices assist or prevent necessary interaction? How might our communication practices reflect power, instead of partnership?

High school creative writing teacher, Foster Dickson, talks about how the use of jargon and unidentified acronyms can impede effective teacher/parent communication.

Look For:

What education-specific knowledge and terminology do I take for granted when speaking with parents?

How might even the inadvertent use of such language hinder parent engagement strategies?

Go Deeper:

In this interview, education reformer Lisa Delpit encourages teachers to discover who their students are outside the classroom by engaging parents in authentic, meaningful ways and introduces her conceptions of culture and power.

Reflect on:

What is the implicit message that the use of jargon and unidentified acronyms sends to parents?

Are there unwritten or unspoken cultural codes in play when I communicate with parents?

How does my communication strategy reinforce or reconstruct the teacher/parent power dynamic?

Ready Resources:

Recommended Resources

The following resources are recommended for personal reflection and learning and for use by teacher work groups and other professional development endeavors.

Short Briefs:

" A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family and Community Connections on Student Achievement", a research synthesis by Anne T. Henderson & Karen L. Mapp, published by Southwest Educational Development Laboratory

Papers:

" The Effects of Comprehensive Parent Engagement on Student Learning Outcomes" by Sam Redding, Janis Langdon, Joseph Meyer, and Pamela Shelly for Academic Development Institute at Harvard University Graduate School of Education

" Parent Engagement Information and Tools: Moving Beyond Parent Involvement to Parent Engagement" from the Michigan Department of Education

" Readiness: School, Family, and Community Connections", a research synthesis by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, 2004

" Diversity: School, Family, and Community Connections", research synthesis by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, 2003

Books:

Halmoni & the Picnic. By Sook Nyul Choi and Karen Dugan. ($10) Houghton Mifflin, 1993. In the story, a student worries that her classmates will make fun of her Korean grandmother who has agreed to chaperone the class at a picnic in Central Park in New York City. ISBN-10: 0395616263, ISBN-13: 978-0395616260

School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, Second Edition. ($30) by Joyce L. Eptein, Mavis G. Sanders, Beth S. Simon and Karen Clark Salinas. Corwin Press; Second Edition, 2002. ISBN-10: 0761976663, ISBN-13: 978-0761976660

School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Preparing Educators and Improving Schools ($45) by Joyce L. Epstein. Westview Press, 2001. ISBN-10: 0813387558, ISBN-13: 978-0813387550

Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to Family/School Partnerships. ($17) By Ann T. Henderson, Vivian Johnson, Karen L. Mapp, and Don Davies. New Press. ISBN-10: 1565848888, ISBN-13: 978-1565848887

Doing Multicultural Education for Achievement and Equity. ($35) By Carl A. Grant and Christine E. Sleeter. Routledge, 2007. ISBN-10: 041595184, IBSN-13: 978-0415951845

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Most teachers have a technique or two in their back-to-school tool kits for introducing themselves to families and taking those first steps to engage parents and other caregivers in the classroom and the student learning process. And yet, family engagement is a year-long process.

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This resource provides valuable information on family engagement, how it impacts student learning, and addresses barriers that might be impacting school and family partnerships. This site also provides questions that schools and educators can ask themselves to assess their incorporation and accessibility for family engagement. Additionally, strategies and models are provided by this resource to help support and encourage school and family partnerships. Within these strategies, links to tools and platforms are given to help increase family engagement as well as additional resources for engagement implementation.

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Parents are the experts on their children. Yet, district leaders know that promoting family engagement is far from a simple endeavor.

Educators and administrators play a large role in shaping family-school partnerships. When schools elevate families as true partners and the experts that they are, students benefit significantly. When districts support families through thoughtful, equitable policies and programs, it encourages broader community engagement that can help to enrich student learning and optimize student success.

Decades of research outline a clear need for parent involvement in a child's educational experience. When families are engaged in school, their children are more likely to succeed.

However, the research also shows that there are many common barriers to parental involvement. These barriers-such as a lack of time, childcare needs, and negative perceptions about school and staff-can make it difficult for families to engage in their children's education.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to family engagement. However, it's crucial to ensure families have a voice in their child's educational experience. Random acts of engagement are not enough; districts must look to systematically involve families across all grade levels.

This guide will equip you with the strategies and tools you need to meaningfully and continuously engage families in their children's learning and development. By the end, you'll understand common barriers to engaging families, equity-centered and technology-supported strategies for connecting with caregivers, and methods for enabling family engagement with survey data.

Download Now: the Panorama Family-School Relationships Survey

1. What Is Family Engagement? 2. The Power of Parent Involvement 3. Identifying Barriers to Family Engagement 4. Strategies for Supporting Family Engagement in Schools 5. Family Engagement Resources
What is Family Engagement?

Family engagement is the shared responsibility of family members, schools, and communities. District and school leaders often consider family engagement a two-way process that begins in early childhood education, persists through high school, and occurs across multiple settings where children learn.

Relational trust, mutual respect, and cultural responsiveness are pillars of systemic family engagement. The Global Family Research Project, led by researchers at Harvard University, identifies systemic family engagement - that is, parent engagement that is integrated into school structures and educator professional development - as a core component of educational goals, such as student achievement, school turnaround, and school readiness.

Family engagement requires a commitment from school leaders and educators to:

Create and sustain partnerships that are ongoing, mutual, built on trust and respect

Focus on supporting family well-being and student achievementHonor and support the strengthening of parent-child relationships, which are central to a child's healthy development, school readiness, and well-being.

To recognize the many different types of family configurations, researchers and youth-serving organizations tend to include parents as well as other adult caregivers in the definition of "family." For instance: many early childhood education centers describe family engagement as including biological, adoptive, and foster parents; grandparents; legal guardians and informal guardians; and adult siblings.

Questions to Consider

1. How does our district define "family engagement"?

2. Which types of families in our community need support in advocating for their child? How can we identify the supports that these families need?

3. How can we equip families with resources to empower them to practice social-emotional learning at home?

The Power of Parent Involvement

Why is Family Engagement Important?

Research shows that involving families in their children's education is paramount to student success. When families are meaningfully and continuously engaged in their children's learning and development, it has a positive impact on their child's health, academic, and well-being outcomes. Furthermore, numerous studies have shown that family involvement can benefit all students, especially those less likely to succeed in school.

Cumulative evidence from decades of research indicates that strong relationships among schools, families, and community members can positively impact student achievement and social-emotional health.

Family involvement has been shown to benefit children from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. For instance: Latino youth with parents who provide encouragement and emphasize the value of education as a way out of poverty tend to have higher grades.

Schools that engage families find that their students have higher grades, show faster rates of literacy acquisition, attend school more regularly, and are more likely to graduate from high school and attend college.

Children in grades K-3 whose parents participate in school activities tend to develop high-quality work habits and task orientation compared to children whose parents did not participate.

At a more holistic level, many studies support the importance of partnerships among families, schools, and the broader community.

Adolescents whose parents monitor their academic and social activities have lower rates of delinquency and higher rates of social competence and academic growth.

Emerging research suggests that teachers, parents, and administrators can play an instrumental role in facilitating successful partnerships and improving relationships to enhance student achievement.

Research shows that a lack of trust is often what keeps historically marginalized families (which includes families of language learners) from spending time at school.

Parental involvement tends to decline as children progress through elementary school and into middle and high school.

Questions to Consider:

1. Does our staff understand the importance of community engagement?

2. Is our staff equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to support family engagement? If not, how can we better support our staff?

Identifying Barriers to Family Engagement

We know that engaging families is critical for student success-in academics and social-emotional learning- as well as for the overall school climate.

Now, let's discuss the barriers that can prevent families from effectively engaging with school. Many of these barriers - such as families perceiving school staff as too busy to interact with them or that the school doesn't properly communicate opportunities to be involved - are areas that administrators and teachers can improve when they understand the underlying obstacle or challenge.

Common Barriers to Family Engagement

The following factors are commonly cited in research as barriers preventing families from engaging in their child's educational experience:

Busy work schedule for parents

Childcare needs

Staff and school seem too busy

Fears that adults at school will treat their children differently if they raise a concern

Lack of trust

Lack of information about involvement opportunities

Lack of guidance on how to communicate with the school

Transportation-related challenges

Low feelings of belonging with the school community

Measuring Family Engagement

In order to better collaborate with families, districts and schools need to better understand the needs, obstacles and challenges facing caregivers. Too often, educator perceptions of family engagement barriers do not align with families' experiences.

Conducting bi-annual, district-wide family surveys is one way to collect robust data that can elevate family voices and experiences.

By conducting a survey of your families, your school or district can hear from a representative group of parents and guardians, rather than relying only on the perspectives of parents who are already highly engaged in advisory committees or PTA groups.

Panorama Education's Family-School Relationships Survey - developed in partnership with Dr. Karen Mapp and researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education - provides districts with a clear picture of family attitudes about a wide array of topics, including:

School Fit: Families' perceptions of how well a school matches their child's developmental needs (e.g., how well do you feel your child's school is preparing him/her for his/her next academic year?)

Family Efficacy: How confident families are with regard to key parenting skills (e.g., how confident are you in your ability to support your child's learning at home?)

School Climate: Perceptions of the overall social and learning climate of their child's school (e.g., to what extent do you think that children enjoy going to your child's school?)

Barriers to Engagement: Factors that can create challenges for families to interact with their child's school. (e.g., how big of a problem are the following issues for becoming involved with your child's current school?)

In aggregating our dataset of responses of over 18,000 parents and guardians from diverse school communities across the country, several themes emerged in terms of common barriers to engagement for families. The most common barrier to engagement is a lack of time, with 54 percent of parents and guardians reporting that their busy schedule is a "medium" to "very large" problem for becoming involved in their child's school. Other top barriers to engagement include:

Childcare needs

A perception that school staff seem too busy

A belief that school staff will treat their child differently if the parent or guardian raises a concern

A lack of information provided from the school about involvement opportunities

Questions to Consider:

1. Are we inviting feedback from all families in our district? If so, are we asking the right questions to truly understand their obstacles and challenges when it comes to engaging with their child's education?

2. Are caregiver voices influencing our family-school partnership programs?

Strategies for Supporting Family Engagement in Schools

Ground your district's strategic planning in an evidence-based family engagement framework

Invite families to share priorities, concerns, and feedback

Bring families into the decision-making process

Assess all family engagement initiatives through an equity lens

Offer flexibility and a variety of options for family involvement

Leverage a variety of tools to facilitate meaningful, two-way communication

The work doesn't stop once your district has identified the barriers or obstacles to family engagement. With survey data readily available, family engagement coordinators and district leaders can take targeted steps to reduce these barriers through targeted strategies that build authentic family-school partnerships.

A strong family engagement plan consists of thoughtful, culturally-responsive, and equity-centered strategies that are grounded in feedback from both caregivers and as educators.

Ground your district's strategic planning in an evidence-based family engagement framework

The Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships is a valuable resource to consider when developing family engagement strategies.

Based on existing research and best practices, the Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships is designed to support the development of family engagement strategies, policies, and programs. Developed by Dr. Karen Mapp and a team of researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the framework provides the goals and "essential conditions" necessary for districts to chart a path toward effective family engagement efforts that support student achievement and school improvement.

As one example of this framework in action, Baltimore City Public Schools created a program that sent pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students home with bags containing award-winning children's books and resources for parents on how to promote early childhood literacy at home.

Invite families to share priorities, concerns, and feedback

Using family surveys, administrators can invite caregivers to document their perceptions of their child's experience in school. The data gathered can help districts better understand the experience of all caregivers, delve into potential disparities occurring on demographic and socioeconomic lines, and institute policy and programmatic changes accordingly.

Families can also share any skills or contributions they would like to offer to the school community. School leaders can then provide families with volunteer opportunities to match those skills and interests.

Bring families into the decision-making process

Successful family engagement programs are built on a foundation of joint decision-making and goal setting. Inviting families to take part in this work can increase caregiver engagement and reinforce that their involvement will have a direct impact on their children's education and well-being.

Some districts invite caregivers to be part of their decision-making process through specific councils or committees that are tasked with setting school policies or developing enrichment programs.

Other districts create advisory committees composed of teachers, administrators, parents, and community leaders to solicit and provide input on educational initiatives and policy.

Assess all family engagement initiatives through an equity lens

Your district's family engagement initiatives must be responsive to the attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs of all families. No matter a family's race, ethnicity, culture, or socioeconomic status, every family has both aspirations and concerns for their children's success. Families are the foundation from which teachers build their students' voice, agency, and academic development. Without this understanding, the most well-intentioned efforts can fall short of establishing authentic partnership with families.

In linguistically and culturally diverse communities, it is of particular importance for districts to recognize and honor the traditions and sacrifices of all families. Families of color typically rely heavily on familial and social networks, including extended family members.

Consider the following when evaluating your district's family engagement programs:

In addition to high-quality early learning opportunities for children, is it possible to offer postsecondary education for families through a community partner?

Is it possible to provide economic supports to families in need through grants or fundraising?

Are there formal and informal networks of support for all families, especially those who may not be able to engage with schools in traditional ways?

What assumptions are district leaders, school leaders, and educators making about class, culture, or language that might detract from well-intentioned family engagement initiatives? This is especially important to reflect on when planning ways to welcome parents and families into the classroom.

Are we using plain terms when communicating with parents? How might communication practices or language reflect power versus partnership?

Offer flexibility and a variety of options for family involvement

Flexibility is key. Not all parents have time to visit school in the middle of the day or to attend meetings on school nights. Although some parents may want to be involved in projects or committees, they may lack the time, resources, or social capital to engage.

Here are examples of ways to set up flexible pathways for parental involvement.

Offer supplementary educational resources to support learning at home (both for academics and social-emotional learning) via a school newsletter, social media updates, or in-person workshops. Families should receive frequent, digestible information on curriculum, instructional strategies, student assessment data, and overall student progress.

Set up online and mobile event registration and/or host events for parents online to make it easier for parents to participate. Also consider recording these sessions to share with parents who could not attend live.

When asking for help with fundraising, event planning, or field trip coordination, always include multiple options for parent participation. For example, provide options for helping during and after school hours. Ask parents to recommend community organizations that the school could collaborate with. Make it clear that any and all help-no matter how small the contribution-is valued.

Set up a parent-teacher home visit program. Research points to numerous benefits when teachers visit the homes of their students, including increased connection between teachers and parents, more parental engagement in a child's academics, increased trust and communication, and better student behavior.

Launch a literacy-themed family teacher night, similar to the one that Wake County Public School System piloted (details in this blog post).

When schools offer flexible options for parents to get involved, and parents can start to see the positive benefit of investing in school initiatives, engagement efforts are far more likely to be successful.

Leverage a variety of tools to facilitate meaningful, two-way communication

When implemented effectively, parental engagement strategies employ consistent, two-way, meaningful communication to ensure parents are viewed as full partners in their children's education and included (and truly heard) in decision-making processes that involve their school's various education programs.

According to a 2018 report on community engagement, parents want timely and impactful communication from their child's school. They want to be kept informed without feeling overwhelmed.

Two-way communication (correspondence that goes back-and-forth between parents and educators as equals) is crucial to conveying care and building trust. One-way communication (communication that only flows from the school to the home) is inadequate for deeply attending to families' experiences, strengths, and needs. Districts need to allow for both school- and family- initiated communication that is timely and continuous, focuses on a child's educational experience, and reflects each family's language preference.

In the past decade, technology-enabled family engagement has emerged as a new option for schools. When assessing which tools or mediums are a best fit for your district's unique context (and your families' unique needs), consider some of our favorite options:

Communication Tools: Apart from the main social media platforms, tools such as Remind and ClassDojo make it possible for teachers to virtually bring parents into the classroom. These apps allow teachers and parents to communicate and share information quickly. Both options offer translation capabilities. Another app, Ready4K, offers evidence-based text messages for parents that can deliver an entire family engagement curriculum via SMS.

Video Tools: In addition to connecting with families via Zoom, educators can share news about student work or create lessons for families to view online using platforms such as Educreations, Flipgrid, or Screencastify. These tools also allow educators to record videos of announcements, record lessons to share with parents, or capture student learning through digital portfolios.

Virtual Classroom Spaces: Kidblog, Padlet, and Edmodo are all popular tools that can create a classroom space in the form of a blog or a class website. The goal is to create a centralized location for families to bookmark and refer back to when they have questions or want to see updates from the school. Maintaining a blog or website can help alleviate the barriers of time and lack of information, as families can refer to these spaces when convenient.

Questions to Consider:

1. What is our district vision for family engagement?

2. How do we ensure that families, staff, and students have a voice in establishing this vision?

3. How can we ensure communication is parent friendly and truly two way?

4. How is our district addressing challenges such as childcare, English-language proficiency, non-traditional work hours, and access to transportation?

5. How can we use the cultural backgrounds of our families to enrich instruction and school climate?

6. What might make a family feel unwelcome or uncared for at our school? How can we address this?

7. What are we doing to actively build trusting relationships with families?

Additional Family Engagement Resources

This guide is just a starting point for exploring the topic of family engagement. Here are some resources to explore next:

There are many other organizations and researchers that specialize in this area. Here are some articles and resources worth bookmarking:

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Family Engagement in Schools: A Comprehensive Guide

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Parents are the experts on their children. Yet, district leaders know that promoting family engagement is far from a simple endeavor. Educators and administrators play a large role in shaping family-school partnerships. When schools elevate families as true partners and the experts that they are, students benefit significantly.

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This resource is useful for understanding the value of finding meaningful and culturally appropriate ways to encourage families to take initiative in supporting their student's learning and development in school. There are a variety of articles that discuss strategies for facilitating relationships with families and the surrounding community as well as the impacts that those relationships have on a students education such as higher academic achievement, more motivation, and better attendance. Having a strong and positive relationship with families as well as the community is such an important part of a students education, I believe that not only is education important for learning curriculum but it is the foundation of fostering effective members of society, which cannot happen in a vacuum. It is crucial to build those relationships and supports for each individual to help them succeed. I also like that this website includes state profiles to observe data and find state-specific resources.

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Research shows that when schools, parents, families, and communities work together, students:

This is true for students of all ages, all backgrounds, and across race and ethnicity. Furthermore, a variety of supports cutting across the spectrum of social, health, and academic needs may be necessary for school success. High quality schools have demonstrated track records connecting with community resources and families to improve student outcomes in all domains of development.

Although schools may interpret lack of involvement of immigrant or non-English speaking families as "not caring" about their children's education, this is most often NOT the case. Bilingual resources and staff, programs to help parents understand how to support their children's education, and parent liaisons who can connect the school and families to linguistically and culturally diverse community resources can be highly effective strategies for developing partnerships between schools, families, and the community.

Foundations for academic success begin in early childhood and are further developed during elementary school years. Conversely, patterns of failure and disengagement also begin early. For example, struggling readers are likely to continue to experience ongoing difficulties in secondary school if they are not supported early in their development. Continuity with family engagement strategies and partnerships with community programs from Pre-K/Elementary School to middle and high school can help support academic achievement throughout students' school tenure.

Adelman, H. & Taylor, L. (2007). Fostering School, Family, and Community Involvement. The Hamilton Fish Institute on School and Community Violence & Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Available at: http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/publications/44%20guide%207%20fostering%20school%20family%20and%20community%20involvement.pdf

Epstein, J. L. et al. (2009). School, family, and community partnerships: Your handbook for action. Third edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Family Support. (n.d.). National Education Association. Available at https://www.nea.org/student-success/engaged-families-communities/family-support

Handbook on Family and Community Engagement. (2011). http://www.families-schools.org/downloads/FACEHandbook.pdf

National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group: Recommendations for Federal Policy . Cambridge, MA: Harvard Family Research Project; 2009. Available at https://archive.globalfrp.org/family-involvement/publications-resources/national-family-school-and-community-engagement-working-group-recommendations-for-federal-policy

National Network of Partnership Schools' (NNPS). (n.d.). Available at https://nnps.jhucsos.com/

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Family-school-community partnerships are a shared responsibility and reciprocal process whereby schools and other community agencies and organizations engage families in meaningful and culturally appropriate ways, and families take initiative to actively support their children's development and learning.

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I think that this resource is useful for figuring out how to engage parents post-covid and find new ways of connecting with students' families. It also discusses the concept of building trust with parents, which I think is vital to student success in the classroom.

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Top 5 insights for improving family-school collaboration during COVID and beyond | Brookings

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Rebecca Winthrop discusses the top five insights on family-school collaboration.

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I think that this is a valuable resource for helpful guidelines of what the relationship should be between a school and a student's family. The list is student centered and focused on student success. I believe that a student's family should have equal involvement in their student's educational journey and goal creation, and this article promotes this concept heavily.

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Just as beliefs, attitudes, and context significantly impact students' educational experience, they also have a tremendous impact on the relationship among home, school, and community. Successful collaborative relationships with families are based on a number of beliefs about families and the perceived benefits of family-school relationships. Beliefs associated with positive family-school partnerships include: ¹

1. Family-school relationships should be focused on student progress and success. The reason for educators and families to cooperate, coordinate, and collaborate is to enhance learning opportunities, educational progress, and school success for students. Therefore, family-school interactions focus on what each partner can do to improve the development and learning of children and youth.

2. Families are equal partners in attaining educational goals for students. Educators view families and creating family-school relationships as essential for children's optimal academic, social, and emotional learning.

3. Both in- and out-of-school times are recognized as influencing students' school performance. When student concerns are described, the reciprocal influence between family and school contexts is considered. Decisions made at school affect home, and vice versa.

4. Sharing information about child behavior across settings is valued. Each partner recognizes that he or she sees the child primarily in one setting and understands how the child is reacting in the other setting. Differences in child observations are expected (e.g., the child does not behave the same way in home situations) and are valuable for assessment and intervention planning.

5. Collaboration has a positive impact on student learning. Educators believe that home and school can accomplish more than either home or school can accomplish alone. They also believe in equality (the willingness to listen to, respect, and learn from one another) and parity (the blending of knowledge, skills, and ideas to enhance positive outcomes for children)².

6. Families should be active partners in decision making. Educators believe in the value of making decisions with parents. They avoid such practices as making decisions in separate meetings prior to meeting with parents. Educators recognize parents' expertise and seek input from them on a regular basis. Educators believe in including parents when addressing concerns about student learning.

7. Problems are solved mutually and without blaming each other. When students are experiencing school difficulties, school personnel and parents understand that two-way communication is necessary. Families and school personnel realize that they see the children's behavior in their respective settings and, therefore, withhold judgment until both sides have had an opportunity to provide input. Blame is not attributed to only the family or only the school.

8. Problem solving is based on a positive, strength-based orientation. Families and school personnel operate from a non-deficit model and they focus on strengths of individuals (educators, parents, student). School personnel view parents as resources for addressing educational concerns. Collaborative problem solving efforts help to foster optimism about what school personnel and families can accomplish by working together.

9. Family-school relationships are cultivated and are sustained over time. Family- school relationships are an ongoing process. Families and educators work together within and across school years to address mutual concerns and provide mutual support for enhancing the learning progress of children and adolescents. Thus, educators realize that working as partners with parents this year will strengthen the partnership in subsequent years.

¹Liontos, Lynn Balster. At-risk families & schools: Becoming partners. Eugene, OR: ERIC Clearinghouse on Educational Management, College of Education, University of Oregon, 1992.
² Welch & Sheridan, 1995. Educational partnership: Serving students at risk. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace

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Family-School Partnerships: 9 Beliefs and Attitudes for Success - Institute for Student Achievement

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Just as beliefs, attitudes, and context significantly impact students' educational experience, they also have a tremendous impact on the relationship among