|
June 4, 2019 – Volume 2, Issue 2
Building school-wide capacity to engage parents
In 2013, the U.S. Department of Education’s Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships highlighted the need for both families and educators to develop capacities to support robust school-family partnerships. Yet educators continue to report feeling ill-equipped to engage families. In this issue, we're highlighting some of the best and newest resources to help you and your staff identify and cultivate capacities to engage the families, neighbors, and organizations that help to make your school a community.
An example of this in practice comes from I.J. Holton Intermediate in Austin, Minnesota.
Family-community liaison, Stacy Edland, plans to welcome I.J. Holton teachers back to school in August with a kick-off event focused on the essentials of effective family engagement. Stacy has noticed, “There is this perception that family engagement is extra work, but it actually has the potential to make a teacher’s job easier because of the powerful partnerships that active family engagement creates.” At the first half-day PD in October, teachers will receive a copy of Powerful Partnerships: A Teacher’s Guide to Engaging Families for Student Success. Throughout the year, teachers can earn CEUs for participating in facilitated book group discussions focused on stories and strategies in the book. I asked Stacy about her inspiration for choosing Powerful Partnerships. Stacy shared, “I was inspired after watching an interview of Karen Mapp on YouTube and discovering that Mapp co-authored the book with two teachers.” Stacy hopes that by elevating family engagement and providing CEUs for I.J. Holton teachers, they’ll be encouraged by the many stories of powerful partnerships and find a few ideas that they can tweak and try in their classrooms.
|
Gearing up for next-generation family-community engagement
Joining Together to Create a Bold Vision for Next Generation Family Engagement was published in late 2018 by the Global Family Research Project for the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The report introduces five “shifts” that schools can make to create a strategic approach to family and community engagement.
The report is a great resource to help you jumpstart professional development and planning with your school team. Additionally, here are three opportunities for you to participate in and explore Next-Generation Family Engagement together:
|
What families appreciate and need from educators
Visit the Learning Heroes Parent Mindsets page to discover what families across the country have shared with researchers about their goals for their child, what they appreciate and what they need to know more about from their child’s educators. The Parents 2018: Going Beyond Good Grades report and webinar delve into the “disconnect” of why nine in ten K-8 parents believe their child is performing at or above grade level, despite national data that shows barely a third of students perform at grade level. In response to this “disconnect,” Learning Heroes created these elementary school and middle school Puzzle to Plan templates to guide meaningful communication between teachers and parents around student achievement.
|
A capacity-building toolkit
The Toolkit of Resources for Engaging Families and the Community as Partners in Education was prepared by Regional Education Laboratory (REL) Pacific for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) in 2016. The toolkit “brings together research, promising practices, and useful tools and resources, […] to guide educators in strengthening partnerships with families and community members to support student learning. The primary audiences for this toolkit are administrators, teachers, teacher leaders, and trainers in diverse schools and districts.” There's a plethora of information in this four-part toolkit! To avoid overload, I encourage you to use it as an idea generator rather than a step-by-step implementation guide.
Family and community engagement conversations
We recently kicked off a series of conversations to highlight the inspiring family and community engagement work happening across Minnesota. We had two fantastic conversations with educators at Anishinabe Academy and Lucy Laney Elementary School and had hoped to share the recorded conversations. We are still working to provide these conversations in a high-quality and accessible video format. Expect to hear about upcoming conversations soon. We're also hoping to hear from you! Do you have a family and community engagement story to share with this community? Please email Jackie Blagsvedt to set up an interview.
ICYMI: A chance to expand your family engagement network
The 2019 National Family and Community Engagement Conference is a professional development and networking opportunity, sponsored by the Institute for Educational Leadership. State leaders, school and district leaders, administrators, educators, community-based organizations, researchers and families will gather in Reno, Nevada, July 10-12, and focus on solutions that enhance and expand engagement and improve student success through family-school-community partnerships. Learn more about and register to attend the National Family and Community Engagement Conference.
Back to top
Jackie Blagsvedt | School Improvement Program Specialist
651-582-8805 | jacqueline.blagsvedt@state.mn.us
Visit the Family-Community Liaison Newsletter archives.
|
