Learning Outcomes

* Define the meaning of family school collaboration in the context of school climate
and parent attitudes
* Identify how to create family-school collaborations and the roles of different
stakeholders
* Describe school activities and resources that help in building collaboration with
families in the community
* Explain how to create pathways for family engagement that build and strengthen
collaboration
School Climate
* Environment
* Relations
* Communication
* Interactions
* Comfort level
* Nurturance
* Attitudes
Family Attitudes Contribute to the School Climate
Parents respond to school based on their experiences
* Avoid school: If the experiences were filled with failures and
disappointments, the thought of school is depressing; if they do approach the
school, it is with trepidation.
* Encouragement needed: Teachers should strive to recognize, understand,
and respect parent’s cultural and social backgrounds.
* Respond when invited:
* Comfortable and enjoy involvement: If the school has an inviting and
responsive climate, the groups of parents will feel welcome.
* Enjoy power and are overly active:Offering a variety of tasks and different
degrees of involvement assures parents that they may contribute according
to their talents and availability and allows all of them to be comfortable about
coming to school and enjoying involvement in the educational process.
Family–School Collaboration and the Roles of Different Stakeholders
* The Leader’s Role in Family Involvement
* Morale Builder The principal or director builds staff morale by enabling staff
members to feel positive, enthusiastic, and secure in their work with children
and parents.
* Program designer: If the principal or director allows teachers the autonomy to
work with parents using them as volunteers and aides in the development of
individualized curricula, the school is on its way to an effective program of
parent engagement.
* Influences spirit and morale: The principal or director determines whether the
school ecology makes parents feel welcome.
* Program coordinator: The principal in the program coordinator.
* Encourages teachers, staff, community, site-based committee: This new role
needs strong leadership ability to encourage and enable teachers, staff, and
parents to work together and develop an educational program specific to their
 community’s needs.

Family–School Collaboration and the Roles of Different Stakeholders

* The Teacher’s Role in Family Engagement
* Must understand inequities in society: Teachers need to develop such
understanding because they need to learn how to reach parents and how to get
rid of negative stereotypes.
* Must accept parents: If a teacher feels anxious about having parents in the
classroom, she can organize or structure volunteer activities where the tasks are
clearly delineated.
* Must reflect on own values and see how those influence view of families:
….then they can understand and even appreciate the children they teach and
their families.

Possible Roles for Parents in Schools

* Parents as
* Teachers of own children:
* Spectators
* Temporary volunteers: Can provide needed resources.
* Volunteer resources: Some parents spend morning or afternoons working in
the resource center, developing materials, and sharing with other parents.
* Employed resources: Many employed parents use a childcare center, their
contributions will need to be geared to their availability.
* Policy makers: School boards have been composed of community leaders
charged with making educational policy for many years.

Ways to Enhance Center–School– Home–Relations

* The center-school atmosphere and involvement of parents: The leadership of
the administration and individual teachers from such schools have made the
 school responsive to the parents, and therefore the parents supportive of the
school.
* Activities and resources for parents:
* Contact early in the school year
* Meeting the needs of the school or center area
* Volunteers
* An Open-Door Policy: What is the attitude of the school? Parents are welcome at
any school with an open door policy.
* Parent Advisory Councils and Site-Based Management: Title 1 was developed to
improve the academic achievement of children of underrepresented groups and to
‘ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to achieve a
high quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging state
academic achievement standards and state academic assessment”
 Strategies for Supporting and Involving Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Families
* Involvement—actions at home provide support for children
* Engagement—parents and teachers work collaboratively
* Empowerment—parents, teachers and administrators participate in all aspect of
decision-making

Time is always a factor

Strategies for Supporting and Involving Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Families
* Homeschool Continuity: A good way to improve relationships between school and
home is to do a needs assessment or survey to determine what the families in the
school area desire.
* Family Rooms: Ideally, families will have a room similar to that traditional have, the
teachers’ lounge, as well as aspace within each classroom.

School Activities and Resources

• Back-to-School Nights
* Shared Reading
* Parent Education Groups
* Parent Networks
* School–Home Activity Packets
* School Programs and Workshops
* District or School Conferences
* School Projects
* PTO or PTA
* Fairs, Carnivals, and Suppers.
* Exchanges.
* Book and Toy Donations.
* Caring-Cards Exchange.
* Learning Centers
* Telephone Tutors
* The Internet
* Resource Rooms
* Articles on Teaching.
* Games.
* Recycled Materials.
* Libraries
* Toy Lending Library.
* Activity Lending Library.
* Book and Magazine Library.
* App Lists.
* Video Lending Library DVDs.
* Summer Vacation Activities
* Parents as Resources
* Book Publishing
* Career Day
* Talent Sharing
* Children Learn at Home
* Welcoming Families Before School Starts
* Letters in August
* Neighborhood Visits
* Block Walks
* Bus Trips
* Picnics
* Assisting Families with Their Needs
* Worksite Seminars
* Telephone Trees, E-mail, Blogs, or Chats
* Transportation
* Parent-to-Parent Support
* Childcare
* Crisis Nurseries
* After-School Activities
* Family Literacy Programs
* Skills Training
* Emotional and Educational Support for Families Experiencing Homelessness
* Advocacy

Building Family Strengths

* Communication: Strong families have learned to communicate directly and use
consisten verbal and nonverbal behaviors.
* Appreciation: Appreciation involves being able to recognize the beautiful, positive
aspects of others and letting them know you value these qualities.
* Commitment: Means that the family as a whole is committed to seeing that all
members reach their potential.
* Wellness: Family wellness is the belief in positive human interaction.
* Time together: Quality and Quantity. Members of a strong family spend a lot of
meaningful time with each other.
* The ability to deal with stress, conflict, and crisis: This core serves as a resource
for those times when conflict and crisis come.

Parents as Volunteers
* Who Should Ask for Volunteers? Individual teachers may solicit volunteers from
parents, individual schools can support a volunteer program, or school districts can
implement a volunteer program.
* Recruitment of Volunteers by Individual Teachers: If you have used volunteers
previously and parents in the community have heard about your program from
other parents, recruitment may be easy.
* Invitations that Work: --Does the event sound enjoyable? --Is there something in it
for the parents? --Are the parents’ children involved in the program? --Does the
 program have alternate times for attendance?
* Performances: Experience in front of an audience can develop poise and
heightened self-concept.
* Field Trips: Parents can volunteer for field trips, during which teacher and parent
can find some time to chat.
* Invitations to Share: --Teachers and children need their help. --Each parent is
already experienced in working with children. --Their child will be proud of the
parents’ involvement and will gain through their contributions.

Parents as Volunteers
* Management Techniques: A parent coordinator can be very helpful in developing
effective communication between teacher and parent.
* Schedules. : When parents can visualize the coverage, the class will not be
inundated by help in one session and suffer from lack of help in another.
* Volunteer Sheet.: With this list, the parent coordinator can secure an effective
substitute for someone who must be absent.
* Increasing Volunteer Usage: Ideally, an assistant should tutor a reading group or a
child for several sessions each week rather than just on.
* Volunteer Training: Guidelines:
* A healthy, positive self-concept is a prerequisite to learning.
* The act of listening to a child implies that you accept the child as a worthwhile person.
* The child will develop a better sense of self-worth if you praise specific efforts rather than
deride failures.
* Provide tasks at which the children can succeed. As they master these, move on to the next
level.

Recruitment: