Family Engagement

Frameworks

Effective family engagement utilizes a comprehensive framework which focuses on the needs of students, families and educators. Numerous frameworks exist to support systematic family engagement.

U.S. Department of Education

• Dual Capacity Framework
• Dual Capacity Graphic

PTA National

• PTA National Standards - Family Engagement Tools
  • PTA Standards Overview
  • PTA Standards Implementation Guide
  • PTA Standards Assessment Guide
  • PTA Standards Worksheet

• National Network of Partnership Schools - Joyce Epstein’s Framework
  • Overview of Epstein’s Framework
  • Epstein’s Types Worksheet
  
  

• Flamboyan Schoolwide Family Engagement

• REL Pacific Toolkit for Engaging Parents and Community

Other State Frameworks

• California
• Georgia
• Michigan
• Wisconsin

Evaluation

Evaluating family engagement efforts allows for the opportunity to identify areas of improvement and to demonstrate program success and progress.

Data Collection

• Breaking New Ground: :Data Systems Transform Family Engagement in Education
• Data Collection Instruments for Evaluation Family Involvement
• Washoe County School District Family Engagement Rubric
• Resources to Strengthen Program Evaluation

Surveys

• Connecting Families and Schools: An assessment tool for educators working with culturally and linguistically diverse students
• A New Tool for Understanding Family - School Relationships: The Harvard Graduate School of Education Pre K-12 Parent Survey.

Planning/Logic Model

• How to Develop a Logic Model for Districtwide Family Engagement Strategies
• District Self-Assessment on Family Engagement
• Ten Steps to Success for Family Engagement
• Defining Our Vision for Family Engagement
• W.K Kellogg Foundation Logic Model Development Guide
• 10 things to know about evaluation

Family Resources

Resources to support families in connecting to schools and learning.

Helping Your Child Learn

• Let’s Do Homework!
• Homework Tipsheet
• Helping your Child with Today’s math
• PBS Reading Rockets
• With+Math =I Can
• I Have a Question: What Parents and Caregivers can ask and do to help children thrive at school.
• Mindset Kit: This is a free set of online lessons and practices designed to help teach and foster adaptive learning mindsets.
• Milestones: Grade Level expectations videos
• NBC Parent Toolkit
• Be a Learning Hero

Getting Involved

• America’s Promise Alliance Parent Engagement Toolkit
• Parent Power
• Parent videos on ways to get involved: Georgia DoE

State and National Web Resources

• NEA - Parents
• U.S. Department of Education Family and Community Engagement
• Oregon PTA
• National PTA
• FACT: Family and Community Together: This is a family leadership organization supporting individuals and their families experiencing disability.

Educator Tools & Resources

Family engagement tools and resources can support building partnerships between families and schools.

Parent Teacher Conferences

• Parent-Teacher Conference Tip Sheets
• Reimagining the Parent-Teacher Conference
• Parent Teacher Conference brochures: Examples of what a school could develop to support two-way communication, available in English, Spanish, Russian Vietnamese, Chinese, Somali

School Compacts

Information from the Connecticut State Department of Education regarding Building Powerful Partnerships with Families.

Welcoming Schools

• Family-Friendly Partnership School Walk-Through
• Family Friendly Schools Guide
• Educator Beginning of the year conversation questions

Other Tools and Resources

• Family engagement teaching cases
• Mindset Kit: A free set of online lessons and practices designed to help teach and foster adaptive learning mindsets.
• The Family Engagement for High School Success Toolkit

Useful Websites

• Boston Public Schools - Family Guides to Learning
• Harvard Family Research Project
• SEDL
• America’s Promise
• National Association for School, Family and Community Engagement

Educator Professional Development

Effectively training and supporting educators in implementing family engagement is an essential strategy for school improvement and student success.

• Teaching Case Studies
• Harvard Professional Development Handout
• Six Principles of Adult Learning
• Massachusetts Model for Educator Evaluation
• Teaching Teachers Family Engagement
• Poverty simulation

Research

Over four decades of research shows how meaningful family engagement supports student learning and how systemic family engagement and meaningful partnerships must be in place to ensure positive outcomes.

Systemic Family Engagement

• Seeing is Believing: Promising Practices for How School Districts Promote Family Engagement
• The Missing Piece of the Proficiency Puzzle
• Handbook on Family and Community Engagement
• Facilitating the Systemic Change Process in School Districts
• How Districts Can Lay the Groundwork for Lasting Family Engagement

Links to Learning

• Parents as Essential Partners for Fostering Students Learning Outcomes
• Beyond Random Acts: Family, School and Community Engagement as an Integral Part of Education Reform
• Taking Leadership, Innovating Change: Profiles in Family, School and Community Engagement
• Enhancing Home Involvement: Address Barriers to Learning: A Collaborative Process, A New Wave of Evidence
• A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family and Community Connections on Student Achievement
• Effectiveness of Different Types of Parental Involvement

Partnerships

• Creating Opportunity for Families: A Two Generation Approach
• Family-School-Community Partnerships 2.0: Collaborative Strategies to Advance Student Learning
• From Periphery to Center: A New Vision for Family, School and Community Partnerships
• Partnerships for Learning: Community Support for Youth Success
• Are School/Family/Community Partnerships on the Reform Agenda
• Parent Involvement Checklist
• Involvement or engagement

Attendance

• Bringing Attendance Home: Engaging Parents in Preventing Chronic Absence
• Every Student, Every Day: A Community Toolkit to Address and Eliminate Chronic Absenteeism

Pre-K - 3

• Racing to the Top: Maryland’s Promising Practices in Family Engagement
• Ready for Success: Creating Collaborative and Thoughtful Transitions into Kindergarten
• About the Engaging Diverse Families Project