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I think that this is something that I have been learning through my experience within different educational settings. At the first school I worked at, I had t make a lot of noise to try and get our administrations to help give us opportunities to get our families involved. I do not think that this is a natural thing for some schools and they might be scared to have some parents get involved in the classroom, but it is necessary! At my current work place, we have so many opportunities for parents to be involved at the school, but I have had to make some noise for other teachers and staff to recognize that not all families can actually come into the classroom. This does not make them bad parents. Let's make sure there are so many ways for parents to get involved and in contact with the staff.
-Nicole Roschbach

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When striving for engagement, we lead with our EARS.

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When striving for engagement, we lead with our EARS.

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The first thing that Dr. Mapp said that struck me was when she was explaining the difference between family involvement vs. engagement, and she used this explanation that involvement was lead with the schools voice, and engagement was lead with a schools ears. This is an idea that I have been really trying to understand and learn to apply this semester, even though I am not yet working at a school. The idea of a teacher family partnership is so extremely important to create a community that supports everyone, the students the teachers and the families. The 5 essential supports, and Dr Mapp's cake metaphor was another extremely useful tool. The equal importance of those ingredients to create that environment really stood out to me.
Rachel Watson

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"Families gain confidence in their ability to shape and influence their child's learning and development."
Dr. Mapp mentions that families start to change when they feel involved and engaged in the classroom. I believe that once that connection with the families, they engage even more in the classroom. Dr.Mapp also mentioned that families are involved even in the smallest classroom interactions, such as parent-teacher conferences. Sometimes families don't always have time, and it's important to know that even small connections like these make a difference in their lives.
As educators, we must set many opportunities so that families can engage with their children and the classroom community and teacher. Providing many options optimizes engagement within families.
I don't get to interact with families at the moment, but I can observe how my mentor teacher interacts with families. I noticed that there were many meaningful conversations during the morning drop-off. These are small interactions that are impactful to both the families and us.
Ashley Rojas Carbajal

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"You have to work on your partnership with families..."

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"You have to work on your partnership with families..."

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Dr. Mapp talks about family engagement looking different for each family. We can't narrow our scope to the general interactions of families. This can make families feel uninvited or disrespected. They will not want to reach out to the teacher if they do not feel seen. If they aren't receiving ways to engage in their child's education or the engagement we do not see that happens at home. By building relationships with family we get to set up different kinds of family engagement opportunities. Educators must begin building those relationships and welcome families. Keeping their minds open to different types of families and ways they engage in their children's education.
-Margarita Gonzalez

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Wow! This saying hit home for me as a teacher. My program is really involved in family engagement. I post weekly on interventions families can do at home with their children. We have monthly check-ins with each family to know what is going on at home and what they would like to work on as partners. However, I have one parent that does not seem to be as involved as much as I would like. The student has been missing quite a few days this year and it has me worried. I would think that the parents doesn't care about the students' education or how they won't want to take my offers for help.
It took me a while to think about the family as a whole. Looking at their culture, I had to consider the importance of providing for their family over education. It helped me talk more about the family's life and what was going on. A family that only has one car and one adult that can work. Meaning that mom is always taking dad to work and picking him up, which does not give her enough time to get the student to and from preschool.
Sometimes we are so focused on helping the students that we forget to look at their own support at home. The term parent is not as crucial as the term family. Family involvement guides the students' education. So how can I meet the families' needs before the students to help make this connection?

Whitney C

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What makes up a family & how do we get them engaged?

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What makes up a family & how do we get them engaged?

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I can admit that I used to follow the generic idea of family when interacting with families. In my mind each family was made up of  a mom, a dad and children. I would be understanding to dual household families, knowing that divorces happen. But I never thought that the family units each of my students belonged to, could be so wildly different and wonderful.
About 10 minutes into the video, Dr. Mapp shares a story about a grandmother who is a guardian to her grandchild. As involved families do, this woman was attending parent/teacher conferences at the girls school as she had done before. The grandmother goes on to describe what was said to her as a "welcome" when she down with the teacher. "But when is the real parent going to show up?" Based on the comment, I can understand why this woman described her anger while retelling the story. As Dr. Mapp speaks of, families can be made of of anyone. Grandma, Grandpa, Aunties, Uncles, cousins and so on and at this point I began to reflect back on my own mindset around families.
So if we don't understand or respect who makes up a family, how can we expect engagement? "Using family is inclusive because really we are talking about all adult caretakers". Why would people choose to engage (no matter how important) if they aren't seen as important? As part of the above listed quote says, "the goal of family engagement..... is to gain partners". And that is, as I believe, the first step in building a solid foundation for home/school partnerships.

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"Schools realize that our families don't just want to be involved in a narrow set of activities"

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"Schools realize that our families don't just want to be involved in a narrow set of activities"

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As Dr.Mapp shares about the definition of family engagement, she brings up how families don't want to be involved in a narrow set of activities. Most of all, families are the ones who know their child best. It's important that parents and not just being involved but also being engaged. A broader path needs to be prepared for them in order for family engagement to be present. And through this, high-quality education would become an essential component as well as better connections between the schools, teachers, students, and families.

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"Family engagement instead of parent involvement"   --- Bleidy Fuentes

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"Family engagement instead of parent involvement"   --- Bleidy Fuentes

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One the quotes that resonated to me is to use Family engagement instead parent involvement.

Traditionally parent involvement is seeing parents attending to their children school during schools’ hours, this makes many parents not to be present in their children’s school due to different work schedules and/or having multiple jobs. This, many times is not equitable. I am agreed with Dr. Karen. about using the term parent/family engagement and to find different strategies and ways how parent can be engaged with their child education without having to attend to school during business hours. There are some ideas like have a parent/student project to make at home, that involves both, parent and child to work and discuss about it, they can create, discuss and participate in their child educfatio0n, they can send you this project, video when they are doing it, or send pictures of it. This makes parents knowledgeable about what their child is doing at school. Always we as educator should have a well stablished communication to r4each out all parent and stablish ways for them to access you about this and any other need they have.

I been motioning the involvement of the parent, but I truly believed that any family member in charge of the student/chill that been taking care of them before or after school has the right to engage with the school or kids’ education. This way the uncle, anti, grandame etc. can do more for the chill or school because the parent is working to sustained his family needs.

Bleidy Fuentes

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I have unfortunately said that about some of the families I work with, usually out of frustration and I can usually find a way that works to get a family more involved but I wonder if this is sometimes true. I have a young mom who is 24 has three kids, 5th, second, and kindergarten and as the parent liaison, it is my job to get any parents who have not signed up for conferences to do so. I have been able to schedule zooms, phone calls, or even suggested swapping places with the teacher so I can take over her classroom while she meets with one parent who works long night shifts. This particular mom has cut off all communication and the kindergartener has said his mom keeps throwing out the paper to sign up because she does not want to come.

I have done a home visit for this family already and have had all the teachers reach out but we have been completely isolated. I think forcing home visits and frequent calls feels invasive and feels like we are questioning their parenting abilities. I am at a loss with this parent. Dr. Mapp talked about communities that took parent events to the parents' employer and that really helped involvement but how do you know to do those things when there is a refusal for communication on the other end?
Naomi Garcia

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"Our practices, systems, and structures are set up to treat families as spectators versus full team members and co-creators/designers."

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"Our practices, systems, and structures are set up to treat families as spectators versus full team members and co-creators/designers."

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I think this quote speaks so much volume. I think that as educators we spend so much time with children that we think we have them figured out, but really no one knows them better than their families. Earlier in the video Dr. Mapp talks about how families are labeled with tittles of "cant, don't, and won't" right off the bat. This is something I personally struggle with at times because I see the way my own parents were not involved which makes me angry to see how other parents do the same but really as educators it is our job to not have this bias. Now tying it back to the original quote I chose, I think besides conferences the system really does not do a good job at including families in their Childs learning. I think that once educators see families as resources or a partner, everything changes not only within the relationship but also in the Childs learning.

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This video brought up mixture of two emotions; inspiration and deception. When Dr Mapps mentioned how the antiquated the caste system is and how it was still present in the schools. Regardless of what we as teachers may assume, I strongly believe that parents feel guilt for not being able to participate in school activities with their kids. I remember my mom always saying that she couldn’t make it because of her job when I would ask her to attend a field trip or stop by for the thanksgiving lunches. I didn’t think of how she must have felt knowing she does not have enough PTO to spend time with her child. This made me think back to what my PARA days looked before COVID, and after COVID. I remember my first assigned teacher had a preference, for those parents who were involved and donated to the classroom. Comments would be made about some parents, assumptions that had little respect for the families efforts. After COVID, with my new assigned teacher, I was able to see the new growing relationships between the teacher and the families. Communications through email, frequent phone calls and daily texts. Although some parents were not responsive, my teacher set a good example of putting out a smile and finding different ways to bond with the family.

I think back to my parents struggles and any that I may face when my son starts to go to school. Putting ourselves in the shoes of the parents changes our view completely, it helps us as teachers have more respect and helps us acknowledge that they’re actual people doing THEIR best to raise their child. It’s disappointing to know that there has been this generational disrespect towards families, especially minorities, that have been assumed to be the worst. This speech is yet another inspirational context to breaking the chain and creating a new school environment/classroom for healthy family engagement.

-GABRIELA ORTIZ

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How Family Engagement Influences Our Children.

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How Family Engagement Influences Our Children.

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This diagram that Dr. Mapp is exhibiting demonstrates that when schools and homes work together to build cooperative partnerships, it has a positive impact on children in many ways, including boosting their performance in terms of their mental stage of mind, physical development, and cognitive development. It is clear from looking at the picture that pupils are achieving higher levels of academic success. Additionally, research has shown that children grow up to act and behave differently in families that place an emphasis on the importance of family ties. This is due to the fact that we take an interest in each individual and work to strengthen them for future growth and success. PAVEL PALAMARCHUK

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How Family Engagement Influences Communities.

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How Family Engagement Influences Communities.

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Many families are given a sense of agency thanks to the effects of family engagement, which in turn fosters the expansion of psychological growth. As an added bonus, it opens the door to a richer appreciation for family norms, changes, and individual expression.  PAVEL PALAMARCHUK

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We should stress the importance of using the term "family engagement" rather than "parent involvement" when discussing the importance of getting the whole family involved. Furthermore, the term family itself is more inclusive than the term parent, which requires clarification if it is used, since some people may interpret the latter as referring exclusively to a child's biological parents and not to the wider range of adults who have a role in the child's upbringing. As Dr. Mapp mentioned in one of her stories, there was an occasion in which she met a woman in a supermarket who told her that another individual had disrespected her at a parent conference for a school in Boston by asking when "the real parent" would show up. The woman added that she had a terrible time at the conference. This demonstrates how crucial it is to recognize that a family includes not just the parents but also any relative or guardian they have. PAVEL PALAMARCHUK

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As a way to differentiate between family participation and family involvement, this quote is really insightful. In most cases, being "involved" with something does not imply a serious dedication to it, and the phrase "involvement" does not imply a true partnership. For instance, there is a distinction to be made between being engaged with someone and saying that you are dating and involved with someone else (Mapp, (2022). In light of what Angelique Vigil mentioned, this comment is relevant. PAVEL PALAMARCHUK

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There are a few quotes that Dr. Mapp said that stuck out to me. One being the comparison she made about involvement and engagement. Saying that involvement is like dating and engagement is like being engaged. Having engagement means having real commitment and it being a 2-way partnership. Also, when she said that when looking at family engagement we need to look at the impact of how it benefits everybody involved. Sometimes teachers forget to think of how family engagement can benefit everybody. Teachers may blame the parents or they may not see the importance to having a relationship with families. But, that family engagement is an essential part of teaching.

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Family engagement is not a program, it is a practice.

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Family engagement is not a program, it is a practice.

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Dr. Mapp says, in answer to an attendee question at the end,  that the issue and point is that family engagement is not a program, but a practice. This is in response to an educator asking how teachers can get Admin to invest in the importance of family engagement when they only seem to care about academics.
This struck me in part because it seems that in Education, there are always new or different programs, trainings, curriculum, etc and so for many elements, the practice is removed or left out, and the program or instructions are what is implemented. The intentionality, hard work, and TRUST work, as Dr, Mapp said, come from our own practices as educators, colleagues, team members, and school community. While explicit Family Engagement trainings are crucial to this end, the leg work itself is our practice, and can not come from predetermined or rote workbooks or slide shows, or a script of sentence starters, for example. It isn’t something Admin can develop and decree as a blanket approach or campaign. It is a rewriting of the culture and climate of the school and it’s staff as it relates to Family Engagement, which thereby leads to every other element of school wellness.

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The school I worked at last year seemed to have a case of the "don't, can't, won't"s. I would hear constantly, even from my mentor, about how parents were unable or unwilling to participate in their child's education.

I recently switched schools and the school I am at now has a very different attitude. They have much higher family engagement and you can tell from the overall school culture and the behavior of the kids.

One of the biggest differences I am noticing is that my new school puts much more emphasis on family engagement through administration and organizations such as the PTO. On the other hand, at my old school, the responsibility fell on individual teachers. Engagement was also then limited due to COVID. Cultivating and retaining family engagement is much more difficult to do by yourself, when there is help from admin or a team, it is more manageable.

It is interesting to see how attitude towards family engagement can make such a difference in the school's overall climate and culture.

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When Dr. Mapp stated during the videos "if you're gonna stay in education are you going to be able to love all kids and all families. and if you don't think you can do that, I'm going to cancel you out of the field because that's how seriously I take love, trust, and relationships in this field." She stated this after how she described how we are influenced by everything around us and how we need to constantly take a deep look into our own personal biases. And this really resonated with me because I have seen this so much in the last 3 years since the pandemic and the election. As teachers, we are influenced by so many things, our students, our beliefs (from politics, religion, cultures, etc), and the beliefs and opinions of everyone around us. And it's sometimes hard to disassociate it all, and focus on what's best for our students in our classroom. Which ties into, if you can't love every student and their family for who they are, even if you don't agree, then you can't do your job. We need to be a safe and open place for these families in all different aspects. And we need to work on skills for teachers to be able to reflect on these in the classroom.

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“Students feel seen and heard by their teachers because the teachers know their families”

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“Students feel seen and heard by their teachers because the teachers know their families”

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One of the important aspects Dr. Mapp mentioned is family engagement. She stated families know a lot about their children and need to be engaged in conversations about curriculum and what gets taught in the classroom. They are equal partners no matter what their background is. And we must meet parents where they are at so that we can be equitable. By doing this, we create a partnership between home and school in which it is shown that children earn higher grades, perform better, have better social skills and behavior, and attend more regularly.

Yuliana Rueda

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Unfortunately, I have been there & said that. Maybe  I didn't fully mean it, but have felt like it was true. Dr. Mapp explained families as this expensive diamond  that have been an untapped resource. Families ARE the experts on their own family. The know the strengths and the challenges 1st hand.
There is no way, that I can know that the family doesn't care. I can only assume, and assumptions do not hold an equal and equitable partnership.
I connected the FULL partnership to the FULL ingredients of the cake, and to have this full partnership; we must share power: from admin to teachers, to families, to the community, to students.
The diagram illustrated how  the classroom will be impacted as the 5 supports interconnect. With the release of power also comes the trust and respect.  This is where partnerships can be solidified and when the whole team will be impacted from the admin, to the teachers, to the family/community, and the success of students.
Jovhana Lopez

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The Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships Webpage

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The Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships Webpage

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This framework is really helpful as a way to see a path forward for both families and school in a shared process. I really appreciate how it connects with so many ideas we have been talking about so far in this course, for example relational trust and funds of knowledge. What other connections do people see when they look at this framework?

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Based on existing research and best practices, the Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships (Version 2) is designed to support the development of family engagement strategies, policies, and programs. It is not a blueprint for engagement initiatives, which must be designed to fit the particular contexts in which they are carried out. Instead, the Framework should be seen as a compass, laying out the goals and conditions necessary to chart a path toward effective family engagement efforts that are linked to student achievement and school improvement.
Suggested citation:
Mapp, K. L. & Bergman, E. (2019). Dual capacity-building framework for family-school partnerships (Version 2). Retrieved from: www.dualcapacity.org

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Based on existing research and best practices, the Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships (Version 2) is designed to support the development of family engagement strategies, policies, and programs. It is not a blueprint for engagement initiatives, which must be designed to fit the particular contexts in which they are carried out.