March 2022 Issue Brief: Family Engagement

Research consistently shows that family engagement in learning positively affects a range of student outcomes, including grades, behavior, enrollment in higher level programs, graduation, and college attendance. Families and teachers want children to succeed, and working together, they can provide the supports necessary for student success.

In this month’s issue brief, we explore a playbook on family engagement that offers an international perspective, ways to build trust and reciprocity, methods for activating family networks to leverage untapped potential. We look at the research on the benefits of teacher visits to student homes and explore guidance for the type of stakeholder engagement (including parent engagement) required under the Every Student Succeeds Act.

We'd love to hear from you! In your experience, what do school and district staff need to know and do in order to effectively collaborate with families? What do families need to know and do in order to work successfully with schools? What resources do you recommend on this topic? Please respond to our call for commentary.

Thanks for all you do to support and inspire great educators and engaging education.
Kim Fleming
President, Core Education LLC

Collaborating to transform and improve education systems: A playbook for family-school engagement
The COVID-19 pandemic has put the topic of families and schools working together to educate children at the center of virtually every country’s education debate. A new playbook from Brookings makes the case for why family engagement is essential for education systems transformation and why families and schools must have a shared understanding of what a good quality education looks like.

Family Engagement Reimagined: Innovations Strengthening Family-School Connections to Help Students Thrive

During the 2020-21 school year, schools and families learned in particularly dramatic ways that they can’t effectively support students without being in partnership with one another. Every family faced its own unique challenges navigating distance learning, and many schools had to create new family communication strategies on the fly.

Rising Together: How Four Districts are Building Community During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Community, collaboration, and relationships have become more important than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic. Across the country, many school districts have embraced this opportunity to rethink how to engage with families and the surrounding community.

New Forms of Parent Engagement as an Education Game Changer post-COVID-19
Until the pandemic, the global education community spent comparatively little time thinking about the role of parent engagement in education. But with parents' recent insight into their children’s learning, parent engagement is a new driver for change. The Center for Universal Education (CUE) is delving deeply into the topic of parent and family engagement in education.

Trio of Studies Confirms Benefits from Teachers’ Visits to Students’ Homes

When teachers visit families at home and ask, “What are your hopes and dreams for your child,” chronic absenteeism goes down, test scores go up, and teachers change their own mindsets.

Stakeholder Engagement: Challenges and New Practices

The stakeholder engagement provisions in the Every Student Succeeds Act will fundamentally alter how education policy is made. It will ensure that the expertise of the parents, educators and other leaders working with, and on behalf of, students every day informs the development of state and local policies and practices.

Call for Commentary

What do school and district staff need to know and do in order to effectively collaborate with families?

What do families need to know and do in order to work successfully with schools?

What resources do you recommend on this topic?

Send your responses to these questions to kfleming@coreeducationllc.com
We thrive on the discussion!

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