K-12 SCHOOL
Schools play a central role in the lives and learning of students. Yet, strong partnerships between schools and families are critical to the success of students.
Join us in a review of research and stories from the field to best support Our Neighborhood in strengthening our schools to work collaboratively with families to serve our students.
Research
Below is an on-going compilation of some research to support family engagement in the K-12 school environment. This is by no means an exhaustive list and we welcome additions to this collection (see submission information here).
Changing the Game in STEM with Family Engagement: A White Paper for Practitioners and Field Leaders to Empower Families in STEM
As part of STEM Next Opportunity Fund’s Family Engagement Project, this white paper was released to support leaders in the field to best connect with families. The paper reviews promising STEM opportunities for children and their families, in addition to offering recommendations to make such opportunities more inclusive.
Read the Annotated Bibliography
Read the Annotated Bibliography
Global Parents Survey
In a comprehensive study of more than 27,000 parents from across the globe, the Varkey Foundation set out to discover the hopes, fears and aspirations of parents in 29 countries.
Read the Annotated Bibliography
Read the Annotated Bibliography
D.C. Middle School Lauded for Family Engagement
Teachers and other school staff visit homes in Washington, D.C.
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Read the Annotated Bibliography
Family Matters: Making Family Engagement a Cornerstone of Literacy Education
Continuous engagement efforts of schools to engage families in literacy campaigns have proven effective for districts across the United States.
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Read the Annotated Bibliography
Promising Practices: Preparing Children of Immigrants in New York and Sweden
Global review of programs “that prepare students from immigrant backgrounds to be active and empowered actors in the multicultural, global contexts of their receiving nations.”
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Read the Annotated Bibliography
Parental Engagement: A Promise, Not a Program
Traditional reporting methods to parents, including report cards and parent-teacher conferences, need to be re-examined.
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Read the Annotated Bibliography
Academic Trajectories of Newcomer Immigrant Youth
A longitudinal study summary of three factors affecting newcomer immigrants’ academic trajectories. Using the stories of immigrant youth, the authors reviews the failures of existing methods and frameworks provided in the field.
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Read the Annotated Bibliography
School readiness and later achievement
A longitudinal study looking at the three key elements of school readiness: academic preparedness, ability to pay attention and socioemotional skills. Early math skills proved the strongest predictor of all three.
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Read the Annotated Bibliography
User’s Guide for Road Map Family Engagement Survey: Data Inquiry for Equitable Collaboration
A six part survey and user guide with examples and lessons learned from a pilot study within a seven-district cross-sector collaborative initiative. The research uses an equitable data approach to give priority to equity in the data collection methods and analysis.
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Read the Annotated Bibliography
National Standards for Family-School Partnerships: An Implementation Guide.
This guide walks through six standards to build successful family-school-community partnerships. A review of each standard and its relevance, tips to support implementation and success stories are included for each standard.
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Read the Annotated Bibliography
Data Inquiry for Equitable Collaboration: The Case of Neighborhood House’s Data Carousel
This study acknowledges the traditional role that data collection has played as a vehicle for demonstrating compliance, in addition it a new, meaningful role that it can play when collection efforts are approached collaboratively with families.
Read the Annotated Bibliography
Read the Annotated Bibliography
Building Relationships, Bridging Cultures: Cultural Brokering in Family Engagement
Research around the important role of “cultural brokers” play between families and schools. Cultural brokers serve as bridges and translators between family and schools and can adopt strategies for building parent and family capacity.
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Read the Annotated Bibliography
Measuring Family Engagement, Strengthening the Learning Triangle
Education reforms that do not touch on the relationship between students, teachers and parents will fail to be successful. National education nonprofit, PowerMyLearning, has created Family Playlists to engage the whole triangle.
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Read the Annotated Bibliography
The Diverse Immigrant Student Experience: What Does It Mean for Teaching?
The author asks: “With one in four students in our classrooms coming from an immigrant-headed family, how should teachers be thinking about that student experience?” Immigrant students arrive in school with different past experiences that must be factored when designing family engagement strategies.
Read the Annotated Bibliography
Read the Annotated Bibliography
Breaking Down Barriers Between Educators and Families Through Technology
Technology can play a powerful role in connecting families, students and educators and thought and effort must be placed into developing accessible communications vehicles and strategies. Technology can be especially useful at breaking down barriers for immigrant families as the author recounts their own education experience.
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Read the Annotated Bibliography
Creating Creators: How Can We Enhance Creativity in Education Systems?
Short reflections from the field in favor of prioritizing creativity as central activities for learning.
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Read the Annotated Bibliography
American Students and Families are Getting Lost in an Avalanche of Confusing Information
It’s confusing, at best, to get a clear picture of how students are performing in school; parents get lost and overwhelmed by the huge amount of data that is available, all intended to track student progress.
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Read the Annotated Bibliography
Joining Together to Create a Bold Vision for Next Generation Family Engagement Engaging Families to Transform Education
This paper is intended to stimulate work that can result in “next generation family engagement” that involves aligned, strategic and systemic approaches to family and community engagement from a child’s birth to young adulthood.
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Read the Annotated Bibliography
Changing Mindsets, Changing Outcomes: A New Paradigm for Teacher-Parent Partnerships
An essay urging educators to speak honestly to families and ensure that their messages are properly heard. A pilot program to train teachers in Las Vegas is reviewed.
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Read the Annotated Bibliography
Necessary but Not Sufficient: The Role of Policy for Advancing Programs of School, Family and Community Partnerships
School and district policies, as well as federal and state legislation, affect the quality of school based partnerships. Review an analysis of data from 347 in 21 districts to identify different ways policy mandates are implemented.
Read the Annotated Bibliography
Read the Annotated Bibliography
The Impact of Parental Involvement on Children’s Education
Parental involvement is one of the most important predictors of students’ success. This report reviews the importance of family engagement from the early years all the way up to age 16.
Read the Annotated Bibliography
Read the Annotated Bibliography
Parents 2017: Unleashing their Power and Potential
A national study reports that parents are far more optimistic about their children’s academic successes than data indicates they should be. The study also includes recommendations for helping parents with such areas as learning goals, financing college, life skills, parent-teacher communication, and learning tools.
Read the Annotated Bibliography
Read the Annotated Bibliography
Stories from the Field & Practical Tips
These are just some stories, ideas and tips from schools and ecosystems on their efforts to engage families in meaningful partnerships. This is by no means an exhaustive list and we welcome additions to this collection (see submission information here).
PIQE Empowers Families With Strict Adherence to Treating Families as Equals
Driven by a philosophy based in Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, PIQE, the Parent Institute for Quality Education, shares tips for providers to keep families as equals at the table in their child’s education.
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OC STEM Family Toolkit on CA Common Core Standards
A toolkit for parents and students to understand California Standards, also referred to as the Common Core Standards. All materials are available in English and Spanish.
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Got STEM? Families are Key as students head back to school
The blog acknowledges the achievement gaps that exist for students that don’t have access to summer and afterschool opportunities. STEM Next Opportunity Fund gives four easy tips to support families in connecting to STEM opportunities within the community.
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An Award- Winning Way to Partner with Parents by Jessica Wilbanks
The former principal of an elementary school in Washington, D.C., which won an award for excellence in family engagement, has expanded her school’s thinking about family engagement to more than just pointing parents to useful resources.
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Pizza: The Secret Ingredient – Leaders of the North Country STEM Ecosystem share some of their family engagement strategies
In upstate New York, the North Country STEM Ecosystem is mindful about the environments parents are invited into to engage with their students. Ensuring food and the location is right are just a few things they share with us.
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Ensuring equitable access through connection – How EvanSTEM Ecosystem uses a comprehensive data system to broaden access to STEM for families
With the development of significant trust built within the community, the EvanSTEM ecosystem is using it’s school data systems to make STEM programming more accessible for all families.
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Shifting the Paradigm – School Leadership in East Syracuse is Changing Education as We Know It
The East Syracuse Minoa Ecosystem is changing the way we think about education. By engaging all community stakeholders, including families, the ecosystem is re-imagining education as a means to thrive in current and future economies.
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Funding STEM and Reduce Achievement Gaps in New Jersey Schools – How the Delran STEM Ecosystem Alliance is leveraging district funding to make change
Delran Township School District leads the STEM Learning Ecosystem in Burlington County, NJ and has many tips on engaging families and the greater community. From leveraging district funding to learning how to tell your story, this story from the field will surely leave you with some helpful take-aways.
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