Next Steps: Strategies for Engaging All Families

As the level of trust in a school increases, teachers, family members, and administrators not only become more willing to work together, but develop higher expectations for success. There is still much that can be done, however, to make opportunities for involvement more meaningful and more accessible to all. Listed below are a number of strategies suggested by practitioners, researchers, and parents for engaging families with diverse backgrounds, interests, and needs:

Collaborate with families on ways to be involved. In many schools, staff members have traditionally been responsible for establishing

the nature of the relationship between themselves and parents. If parents feel uncomfortable with the school's conceptualization of family involvement, they may be inclined to abstain from any of the 'menu items' made available by school personnel (Voltz, 1994, p. 290 ).

Communicating with families and asking them how they would like to be involved and how the school can facilitate that is an essential part of developing true family-school collaborations.

Provide family members with opportunities to develop participation skills. "If ethnically diverse parents feel they lack the knowledge and competence to operate within the bureaucratic structure of the school, they may involve themselves at lower levels or not at all" (Young, 1998, p. 16). Programs such as the Parent Effectiveness Leadership Training (discussed in the Northwest Sampler) can be helpful for families to understand their rights, responsibilities, and roles in the education system, and develop their leadership and communication skills.

Express high expectations for family-school partnerships. "Teacher expectations can affect teacher-family interactions in the same way that teacher expectations can affect student-teacher interactions" (Voltz, 1994, p. 289). It is up to schools to make genuine efforts to reach out to families and assure them their contributions are valued.

Communicate with families in person. In some cultures, notes sent home from the school are regarded as too impersonal and may not be interpreted as genuine invitations for parents to participate. Visiting families in their home at times that are convenient for them may be a better way to reach out.

Recognize diverse family structures. "School personnel often regard mothers as the primary caregivers in the family, and therefore direct most communications about a child's school performance to his or her mother. Under these circumstances, paternal involvement may not be encouraged, and fathers may even receive messages implying that it is not welcomed" (Onikama, Hammond, & Koki, 1998, p. 6). Don't overlook other adults in students' lives—grandparents, older siblings, tribal leaders, and so on—who play a central role in their upbringing (Voltz, 1994).

Create a family resource center in the school. Family resource centers

should be centrally located in the school, conveying the message that families are valued partners in education. Ideally, centers should be equipped with kitchens and bathrooms, soft furniture, resource information in many languages, telephone and computer access, and toys for small children. When the center welcomes the whole family—including children of all ages—parents or grandparents can access the resources available to them more easily. Even more important, making the whole family welcome displays the school's respect for the family as a unit (Trumbull et al., 2001, pp. 43).

Make school events more accessible to families. Providing transportation and childcare may make participation in school events possible for a number of family members who were not previously able to attend. Holding events in other places in the community that parents frequent and where they feel more comfortable is another way to encourage participation (Sosa, 1997). It may also be necessary to offer events at different times of the day or week to reach all families.

Don't let language be a barrier. As Antunez (2000) writes, "Inability to understand the language of the school is a major deterrent to the parents who have not achieved full English proficiency. In these cases, interactions with the schools are difficult, and, therefore, practically nonexistent." There is much that schools can do to prevent language from blocking families' involvement with the school, from hiring bilingual staff members to connecting parents with others in the community, as discussed below. Whenever possible, schools should avoid asking children to translate for their parents, as this may do more to make parents uncomfortable than to aid in communication.

Build connections between families who speak the same language. Connecting recent immigrants to other members of the school community who speak their language and are more familiar with the school may be especially valuable, particularly for families with few other connections in the area. Families may also feel more comfortable attending school events if they know that other people they recognize and can communicate with easily will be there.

Provide opportunities for meaningful involvement. Studies have shown that family members are generally more interested in activities that are directly connected to their child. Volunteering at a school fundraiser, for example, may be seen as less valuable to some families than receiving information on how to work with their child at home on reading or math. Further, families need to know what purpose activities serve and how they relate to overall goals.

Design assignments that build on families' "funds of knowledge." Families offer a wealth of knowledge that can contribute to the curriculum. One teacher, for example, identified construction work as a topic with which many of her students' families had experience. She then developed a series of assignments in which students researched and wrote about construction work, built model buildings, and gave oral reports on their projects. "By the end of the semester, 20 parents and community people had visited [the] class and shared their knowledge with her students" (NCREL, 1994). Other schools, such as Heritage Elementary in Oregon, have developed projects in which children interview their families about their culture in the classroom, and the families teach the students dances and songs. (see the Northwest Sampler for more about this project).

Provide staff training on working with families. As noted earlier in the booklet, many teachers have had little experience or training on ways to engage students' families. Others may feel intimidated by parents or worry that involving parents more directly in the classroom will be a waste of time. School leaders may need to jumpstart a schoolwide family involvement initiative by providing professional development on school-family collaboration, intercultural communication, connections between culture and learning, or other topics specific to involving diverse families more directly in students' education (Trumbull et al., 2001).

Consider ways to involve and build relationships with family members of high school students. "As students move to secondary schools, parents and students are faced with the challenge of communicating and building relationships with several teachers" (Adams & Christenson, 2000, pp. 491–492). Teachers who have more than 100 students find it increasingly challenging to build relationships with all their students' families. Under these circumstances, a school can develop relationships in such ways as inviting families to participate in activities such as student mentoring, career days, senior projects, and fundraisers. Sending short but frequent notes by e-mail to families also helps to keep the school in touch with families on a regular basis.