Promoting Family Engagement: Ways to Foster More Meaningful Connections

This post originally appeared on our ParentSquare Learning Network blog on May 28, 2020.

Written by Rachelle Dene Poth — educator, author, blogger, consultant, speaker and Director of Community for the ParentSquare Learning Network

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It has never been more important to involve families in the education of our students. The past few months have been a challenging time in the world and for families who are now taking on additional responsibilities as educators, and for educators who are not only educating their students, but also their own children. It requires a lot of patience and flexibility each day. Making those connections and building family engagement is crucial to student success.

Beyond just involving families, we need to strive for family engagement and work on creating partnerships between school, home and community. These partnerships, or connections between “stakeholders”, are vital for promoting student well-being and success. When we place a greater emphasis on fostering more meaningful and personal connections, the school, community and families can work together to provide support, structure and make decisions for the benefit of student achievement.

First, Get To Know Your Families

To promote family engagement, we must be intentional in learning about the families in our schools. It is important to make an initial connection, invite families in to engage in conversations and start to develop an awareness of each family’s needs, preferences and prior experiences in terms of involvement with the educational community. We should also seek to learn about any perceived or real barriers to family engagement. As we have learned during this unprecedented time in the world and in education, recognizing barriers to family engagement will help schools to develop the most effective strategies to help families feel more connected to and supported by the school.

Find Out What’s in Their Way

Barriers to family engagement in the past have been due to schedule conflicts, lack of information, the availability of childcare and at times, inconsistent treatment of students. Schools can be proactive and develop specific strategies aimed at reducing and eliminating these barriers. It is crucial that we understand the diverse needs of the families and students in our school system, so we can create a welcoming and supportive environment, which should also be reflective of the educational setting for our students. A strong and collaborative home-to-school partnership has been shown to positively impact student performance as well as empower parents.

Move Beyond Traditional, One-Way Messaging

Over the years, communication exchanged between school and home has traditionally involved sending information in letter form, an email or a phone call. While these methods are still useful, they are not the best choices in terms of timeliness, especially when it comes to time-sensitive matters. As we have worked through the sudden transitions to remote learning because of school closures, being able to share school news and update families on student progress is critical to classrooms and fostering this sense of “community”. The sense of “community” comes from focusing on the building of family relationships, which are critical for student success in the classroom.

Ask Parents What Will Work for Them

Moving forward and preparing for the next school year, we should first consider what might be the best way to connect with parents and how to best provide access to the classroom resources. Sharing a simple survey can help educators decide how to best establish a classroom presence and open channels of communication, especially to prepare for sudden transitions like that which we experienced with school closures due to COVID-19.

There are many ways to connect with parents. With technology, tasks such as sending class updates, assignment reminders, creating a calendar, sharing photos and distributing information is much easier. Even if families have mobile devices, that does not guarantee that Wi-Fi access is available. We can better understand our families’ needs through the use of a survey.

5 Tactics That Can Build Engagement

While parents want to be kept informed, we need to be mindful that we do not overwhelm them with a flood of information. When looking at how school-family dynamics have changed from the pandemic and what to plan for moving forward, the CDC created strategies to help schools build frameworks to promote family engagement. The focus is to “Connect, Engage, Sustain” families’ in the educational community. Educators can also refer to the many resources and tips for family engagement and working through this remote learning time. Here are five more ways to “connect, engage and sustain” family involvement.

1. Communication Tools: By using social media tools such as Twitter or Instagram, school leaders and classrooms can transmit messages quickly and with a far reach. Leveraging platforms like ParentSquare enables teachers and parents to communicate and also share information quickly. Having a system in place would help to reduce some of the barriers of time, lack of information and concerns about student progress. When we set something up ahead of time, teachers and parents can communicate instantly, privately and as often as needed throughout the year.

2. Video Tools: Teachers can record videos of weekly announcements, special events, or even teach a lesson and share the links with parents, which will create a more supportive connection between home and school. Videos are a great way to have students share their learning. It’s also a great way to engage the community — you could have families record video introductions to learn about one another.

3. Blogging/Class Webpage: When families know they can look to one centralized location to obtain class updates, ask questions, or read about class events, it provides a more structured framework for engaging families and fosters a greater connection between school and home. It also aids in resolving the barriers of time and lack of information, as families can refer to these spaces when convenient for them.

4. School and Community: There are a lot of possibilities for amplifying student learning by connecting with and sharing news of school events within the community itself. Social media can be one way of connecting, or simply by seeking out the local library and businesses to bring in real-world experiences for learning and to inform the community of the educational events going on at school. Invite the community to events virtually. When we are back in our physical classroom spaces, take opportunities to connect during Back to School nights, Open Houses or hold a learning night for families. These are just a few ideas for meeting and engaging families in conversations that will positively impact student learning.

5. Family Activities: A good opportunity to co-learn is to take part in something called “family playlist”. A family playlist, devised by PowerMyLearning, basically has the student becoming the “teacher”. In their role as “teacher”, students share their knowledge with the family, who then provides feedback to the classroom teacher, as to how the student conveyed the information and their confidence in doing so. Trying this method helps to further engage families in the educational experience, which leads to a better understanding of the types of learning experiences that students have in school, as will also provide beneficial insight into a child’s progress. It also promotes vital ongoing and supportive collaboration that we need to have between home and school.

There are many strategies that we can use to keep families informed and involved. These connections will lead to the creation of solid and supportive relationships between school and home, which will promote student achievement and enhance their sense of belonging.

The key is to find the way to not only make an initial connection and build the “family to school” partnership, but to engage families and continue to collaborate and grow together. We are better together.