Assess, Reflect, Improve: Elevating Family Engagement in Schools

Connecting with parents enhances student achievement and supports a positive school culture. However, determining if a school truly embodies a partnership with families can be challenging. How can you objectively identify strengths, gaps, and areas for improvement? Here's a structured approach to assess and elevate family engagement in schools.

Assess Your Baseline

Honest reflection is a powerful tool. Start by assessing your school's current practices in key elements of family engagement. Assemble a team of stakeholders, including parents, to evaluate your school from a fresh perspective. Examine if your facilities are genuinely welcoming and what assumptions may exist about families. Consider both the physical and online environments (websites, social media, etc.). Is information readily available or hard to find?

Now it's time to compare your community to the four school profiles identified by top researchers in Beyond the Bake Sale:

• Partnership School: Actively collaborates with families and communities as equal partners.
• Open-Door School: Involves families but relies on them to take the initiative.
• Come-If-We-Call School: Welcomes families passively, based on the school's needs.
• Fortress School: Excludes family involvement, viewing it as detrimental or unhelpful.

Going Deeper

Building Relationships

Building relationships with families is fundamental to a positive school culture. Evaluate whether your facilities are welcoming, community use of the building, and assumptions about families' desire to be involved. An open two-way dialogue where staff honor families as partners is crucial. Be wary of the "fortress" mindset that shuts families out.

Learning Connections

Ensure families have a clear understanding of what their children are learning. Determine if your school merely provides curriculum updates or if it actively involves families in analyzing student work, reviewing assessment data, and providing resources for learning at home. Without these explicit links, families may be left guessing about expectations and how to engage with their child's education.

Embracing All Families

Your family engagement efforts should account for cultural differences and language needs. Avoid a one-size-fits-all approach that leaves some groups underserved. Evaluate practices around translation services, inclusive events, representative organizations, and celebrating diversity.

Advocacy Opportunities

Position families as advocates for their students. Examine your communication about student progress, processes for resolving issues, and how conferences and meetings empower families' voices. True partnership requires an open feedback loop where families can drive positive change for their kids.

Balanced Decision-Making

Explore whether your school shares power and leadership with families. This ranges from merely informing families to involving them in decisions that impact the school community. Failing to create avenues for sharing power means missing out on valuable experiences and perspectives families can offer.

Next Steps

By evaluating your school's practices across these five key areas, you'll gain a comprehensive view of the current state of family-school partnerships. This process encourages stakeholders to determine if involvement is surface-level or if families have an authentic voice in decision-making. Challenge assumptions about family engagement in schools and strive for continuous improvement.

Rubric credit: Henderson, Mapp, Johnson & Davies (2007)

Use the Beyond the Bakesale rubric annually to identify priorities, set goals, and elevate your family engagement to higher levels. A game plan template is available to support your next steps.

Take the first step today by downloading and sharing the rubric and game plan with leaders in your community to improve family engagement in schools. Move beyond email blasts and bake sales to build the powerful family-school partnerships that all our students deserve.