As large districts grapple with wide-ranging challenges from budget cuts to teacher retention to chronic absenteeism and persisting learning losses, the importance of implementing evidence-based practices that meaningfully advance student learning becomes increasingly critical. A powerful, but largely underutilized, intervention is a strong and well-executed family engagement strategy focused on student learning. Indeed, a robust and growing research base has linked family engagement with positive student learning outcomes, with recent insights connecting high levels of family engagement in learning with lower levels of absenteeism and increased teacher retention.
A key contributor to why family engagement is underutilized as a lever for promoting positive student outcomes despite its evidence of impact is a lack of educator training. Only 51 percent of educator-preparation programs provide at least one course on parent and family engagement. With limited training on how to implement high-impact, learning-focused family engagement strategies, there is an urgent need for on-the-job professional learning and support for educators.
At Family Engagement Lab, we are focused on helping fill these pre-service gaps by supporting schools’ and districts’ efforts to engage families in learning. Through our work in school communities across the country, we’ve learned a number of key strategies for effectively engaging in learning-focused parent-teacher communication:
Get input from your community: An effective family engagement strategy focused on student learning necessitates an examination of current practices and current areas of need. What type of information are families in your school community looking for? Is it how to support middle school math learning at home? Specific tips that address children’s individual learning needs? What is working well right now? Is it home visits? Family literacy nights? Email newsletters? What needs to change?
Ensure information is accessible: To ensure accessibility for all families, schools should consider languages spoken by families, families’ reading levels, and families’ preferences around communication channels. Technology can be a powerful facilitator of sharing learning-focused information between teachers and families, but tools must be selected with intentionality. Do families have the internet connectivity required for a mobile application that requires a wi-fi connection? Are email newsletters being translated into all the languages spoken by families in the school community? Equipped with insights from your community, evaluate your current communication strategies, tools and practices on how well they are meeting needs.
Make information specific and actionable: Educators are in a unique position to provide specific tips and activities that families can use to extend learning from the classroom to out of school contexts. With that information, families can reinforce learning concepts, provide additional practice opportunities, and engage in meaningful discussions with their children about their academic experiences. Families can also help boost the real-world relevance of classroom learning by layering on personally meaningful connections and connecting the curriculum to important aspects of their children’s lives, future goals, and personal interests. The result? Students are more engaged and motivated in their learning journey.
Share information regularly: When teachers and families communicate regularly and transparently about students’ learning, it helps build trust and collaboration between both parties. Families feel more confident in the school’s ability to support their child’s academic needs, while teachers gain valuable insights into students’ backgrounds, interests, and learning preferences, enabling them to tailor instruction more effectively to meet students’ individual needs.
Families are eager and ready to partner with schools to support student learning. With the right knowledge and tools, districts can design and implement a family engagement strategy that centers learning-focused parent-teacher communication and meaningfully advances student learning outcomes.
The author, Dr. Elisabeth O’Bryon, is the Chief Impact Officer and Co-Founder of Family Engagement Lab (FEL), a national nonprofit and leader in the advancement of learning-centered family engagement serving PreK-12 school systems.