Episode 152: What Happens When Schools Engage Parents As Partners

Parents don’t just want updates; we want a seat at the table. This episode explores how to move beyond volunteer hours and sign-up sheets to real partnership—where families, teachers, and schools build trust, share responsibility, and help kids thrive in reading, language, and math. I break down the difference between parent involvement and parent engagement, explain why two-way communication matters more than polished newsletters, and share practical ways to set clear expectations at back-to-school meetings so everyone starts aligned.

I walk through five strategies any school can implement to welcome families. You’ll also hear a powerful Detroit-area case study showing how a community school model—with onsite health services, food support, and a parent resource room—boosted enrollment, lifted reading growth, and pushed parent-teacher conference rates to 98 percent. The message is simple: reduce barriers, build trust, and learning time increases.

I also address a missing link in teacher preparation: family engagement training. Too many educators graduate without the skills to partner with caregivers, which is why districts must make engagement systemic, accessible, and responsive to culture and schedules. To help you act now, I share 10 concrete parent moves—from daily reading talks and consistent study routines to respectful, steady communication with teachers—that build confidence and achievement over time. Ready to turn school-home contact into a true partnership? Listen, share your experience, and help us grow a community where every family has a voice.

If this conversation resonates, follow the show, leave a review, and share it with one friend who cares about stronger parent engagement and school-home partnerships. Your story could spark someone else’s next step.

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Chapters

• 1:01 Host Intro And Purpose
• 3:36 Communication, Trust, And Peace Of Mind
• 5:41 Defining Involvement Versus Engagement
• 7:15 Five Ways Schools Build Family Trust
• 10:24 Tech As Bridge, Not Crutch
• 13:55 Community Schools And A Detroit Case Study
• 19:41 Why Teachers Rarely Learn Family Engagement
• 22:31 Make Engagement Systemic, Accessible, Responsive
• 25:14 A Parent’s Story: Unhelpful Notifications
• 27:29 Ten Practical Ways Parents Can Engage
• 30:19 Recap, Reflection, And How To Respond

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:36

Welcome to another episode of K-12 Public Education Insights, Empowering Parents of Color Podcast. The podcast that converges at the intersection of educational research and parental actions. It's about making the trends, topics, and theories in public education understandable so that you can implement them into practical, actionable strategies that work for your children. My name is Dr. Kim J. Fields, former corporate manager, turned education researcher, and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with school educators and administrators, as well as experiencing the microaggressions that I faced as an African-American mom raising my two kids who were in the public school system. I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. Once I gained the information and the insights that I needed, I was then equipped to be able to successfully support my children in their educational progress. This battle-tested experience is what I provide as action steps for you to take. It's like enjoying a bowl of educational research with a sprinkling of motherwit wisdom on top. If you're looking to find out more about the current information and issues in education that could affect you or your children, and the action steps you can take to give your children the advantages they need, then you're in the right place. Thanks for tuning in today. I know that staying informed about K-12 public education trends and topics is important to you, so keep listening. Give me 30 minutes or less, and I'll provide insights on the latest trends, issues, and topics pertaining to this constantly evolving K-12 public education environment. Are you involved in your children's schools or are you engaged with their schools? There is a difference. Communication and trust are key. Effective parent educator communication is crucial for a successful school year for the student, the parents or caregivers, and the teacher. Strong parent communication ensures that both parents and teachers collaborate as a team throughout the school year for the child's best interest. The bottom line is that you want to have peace of mind that your children are in good hands when they are sent to school, and establishing an effective communication system that includes positives and areas of improvement for your child is key to ensuring a successful school year. I discuss what effective parent-teacher communication is, the difference between parent involvement and parent engagement, as well as the benefits of parent engagement for enhancing your child's academic success in this episode. I also provide recommendations for ways to build parent engagement and support for your child to be successful in school. Let's gain some insight on this. Schools should make it easy for families to receive, consume, and respond to the messages they send out via their communications platforms. The easier it is for parents to receive notifications via email, app, voice, or text. The more parents will appreciate the updates. Teachers should set communication expectations with parents at a back-to-school conference. At that conference, the teacher meets with families one-on-one and discusses expectations at school as well as their preferred communication styles. It's important to remember that the relationship between teachers and parents is one of trust. Parents trust that the teacher is highly qualified to manage the classroom and teach the required content for that grade level. Teachers trust the parents to share their questions or concerns about their children in a respectful, receptive manner. Fundamentally, a school can have perfect parent and family engagement. All it takes is a commitment to building trusting relationships with families regardless of their circumstances. These are the five suggestions every school should consider when looking to improve family engagement. One, meet families where they are. This could involve home visits in which teachers meet with parents at their homes or a local park or community facility to get to know the family, understand their expectations, and commit to being partners. It's not about identifying problems at this stage. It's more about making connections. Two, make space for parents in school buildings. This involves creating a designated space for families, such as a parent resource room where they can meet with teachers or meet other parents. If there isn't room for a dedicated space for parents, schools can implement an open door policy for families, which allows families to visit during the school day. 3. Maintain a focus on academic achievement. Schools can use events to provide parents with lists of at-home activities they can do with their children to help with certain subjects such as reading and math. In this way, parent events are a great way to get parents familiar and comfortable with school and incorporate student learning. Bring in community and cultural partners. At a minimum, schools should translate communications into parents' native language. Schools can also partner with religious organizations, universities, and community groups to provide resources and host events for families that reflect their cultures and community. And five, use technology as a tool, not a crutch. Tools such as Class Dojo, Seesaw, and Zoom can allow teachers to meet parents where they are and give parents an inside look at the classroom as well as build two-way communication. Schools need to ensure, though, that technology does not replace in-person connections. Parents should be treated as full partners in their children's education and not taken for granted you can become transformational advocates for your children when you are empowered with the right resources and knowledge. Research shows that the more parents that engage and are engaged, the greater the academic success of the children. Sometimes parent engagement training is needed. Training could focus on educating parents on the educational jargon that's used in schools, as well as how to navigate the school system and to help uninvolved parents in the school find ways to become involved. The training could also incorporate how to facilitate productive conversations with people from different backgrounds, learning styles, and reasons why they want to become more engaged in their child's school. If you want to learn more about parent engagement training, check out the Governor's Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership at Pritchardcommittee.org forward slash Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership. Over ninety percent of today's parents have smartphones, but only 20% are fully engaged with their children's schools. Can educators bridge the gap? Absolutely. And most times it involves technology. We need to recognize that not all families can volunteer at school or have the confidence that they have something to offer. Therefore, it may be necessary to redefine engagement to include meeting with the teacher or administrator to learn about how the student is doing in school, reading to the student at night, going over homework assignments, or attending a school-wide event or meeting. This level of engagement can be tracked, and teachers and school administrators can encourage parents to engage in different types of school participation. They can set a baseline expectation of one hour per week and then watch the hours accumulate through a visible tracking system that's communicated to the community. Prioritizing engagement in schools could be a theme in meetings with the community, inner faith, and business leaders. Establishing the benefits to the community at large can help to generate a gravitational pull towards the school if for no other reason than self-interest in an economically stable community. The obvious benefits of parental engagement include parents being aware of what's taking place at the school and getting involved, parents having a better understanding where their children may struggle, not just hearing it secondhand, at a teacher conference, better attendance and participation for children who follow the enthusiasm and good example of their parents, and parent-child bonding over a common goal. Has your child school utilized technology to help keep you engaged with the school and your child's progress? Tools like Parent Square, School Messenger, and Class Tag are apps that help schools engage parents in their community and improve the quality of family support in education. There's a continuum that extends from parent involvement to parent engagement. Parent involvement is more like doing to, and parent engagement is more like doing with. Parent engagement could look like making home visits to families before or near the start of school year so that the focus is on building relationships instead of talking about problems. In this way, parents and teachers help create trust. Teachers are looking at parents as the experts on their children and look forward to understanding what's needed to help the child succeed. Parents can tell teachers about when the child seems most excited about attending school, how the child spends free time, and what past teachers have done to successfully connect with their child. If schools are recognized as neighborhood institutions that have a responsibility for what goes on inside of their four walls, they can look outward at the challenges facing the families they serve. Social capitalism is a term used to describe human connections that are created out of these types of interactions. Urban schools are notorious for having low parental engagement. However, with effective mentoring and modeling high expectations for parent engagement, benefits to the parent and the child are noticeable. Many parents in urban communities don't become engaged in their child's education because the school has not invited them to become involved or has failed to create a welcoming environment. The school staff and administration must intentionally create an environment that tells parents they are welcome. It's critical that the initial communication between school and home be positive. When parents physically show up at school, the red carpet should be rolled out and they should be treated in the most professional and courteous fashion. Considering that many parents may hardly ever be able to attend school during the time when school is in session, it's critical that parents be invited to get engaged by serving on committees, focus groups, completing surveys, volunteering for events and activities, chaperone field trips, and more. Parent involvement can be defined as the amount of time parents volunteer at the school, while parent engagement is the amount of support, communication, respect, and commitment that parents demonstrate in their child's schooling. A student's behavior and attendance are strongly correlated with parental engagement, and the likelihood of high student achievement follows closely behind. Parent engagement involves seeing the school as a community school, a model that brings into the school a range of non-academic services to meet students and families' basic needs. This can include an on-site full service health clinic run by a city or state authority, a parent resource room, and even service animals. The hope with this model and services is that it transforms the overall mindset in which families become central to everything that educators do. This was the case with the lowest performing elementary school in the Southfield School District near Detroit, Michigan. The Stevenson Elementary School went from the lowest performing school with enrollment dwindling to around 390 students to one that today has an enrollment that has grown to nearly 500 students with a wait list. Its parent teacher conference participation rate is 98%, and its students show the highest growth in reading scores in the 13 school district for the past two years. The principal enforced the concept of a community school to raise parent awareness and engagement. The programs that the principal instituted were funded from a five-year grant from the United Wales, Southeastern Michigan that was awarded to the school. The idea is that when schools can provide more resources such as health care and counseling services, students experience fewer barriers to learning and have more reasons to attend. When students can go to school and get medical care on site, they don't have to miss important lessons in math, science, and reading to go to a doctor's appointment. When parents have access to free groceries and healthy recipes through food drives and food banks, their children are less likely to feel hungry and distracted in class. It's a strategy that, if implemented well, can lead to major benefits for students, particularly for low-achieving students in high poverty schools. These strategies are also effective in improving parents and caregivers' trust in schools, which contributes to positive student outcomes. One drawback to community schools is if they go away when a brand or community partnership ends, students and families are left without something that they have come to rely on, and the school risks losing the trust it's built up with the community. The lesson learned from this case study is that if schools don't build relationships with parents, there's no way that the type of work that they're doing at this urban school could ever work. Being an engaged parent in your child's school also means being a parent advocate for your child, especially if your child has special needs. There are a few educators who are equipped to work with families, whether it's navigating the intricacies of special education services or more generally inviting parents to be partners in their kids' education. Unfortunately, many educators view parent and family engagement as an add-on to their overall practice. That's because parent and family engagement isn't often built into college and university programs that prepare the vast majority of America's teachers for the classroom. Only 51% of teacher preparation programs provide at least one course on parent and family engagement, according to a recent survey from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and the National Association for Family, School, and Community Engagement. The thing is, for those colleges and universities that do offer courses, not all of those courses are even required. If the teachers are not trained on family and community engagement, then they're going to think that it's something that's not very important. Additionally, many states don't have any laws or policies requiring schools to train teachers in family engagement after they enter the classroom. Colorado and Nevada are the only states with laws requiring that their departments of education employ staff that support districts in developing and implementing family and community engagement policies and practices. Still, parent and family engagement has yet to catch on as a core skill for educators or as a core function in school systems. The good news is that there is a desire now in higher education teacher preparation programs to address parent engagement and parent advocacy in ways that have not been addressed before. They now have an understanding that this needs to happen and there's a desire for this to happen. While the teacher preparation programs gradually incorporate more training on parent engagement, there's still not much state-level emphasis on schools seeing parents as partners, especially as parents' trust in the overall school system remains tentative. When schools figure out how to truly partner and work with parents, caregivers, and families, it can be game-changing for students' academic achievement and social emotional skills. The academic achievement has seen positive effects on reading achievement, language comprehension, and interest in reading, as well as progress in mathematics. Schools stand the best chance of ensuring their family engagement makes a difference by making it systemic so that everyone in the building is prioritizing it, making it accessible so the school isn't exclusively relying on any one approach, like nighttime school events that exclude a fair portion of the parents, and making it responsive to the school's community and culture. What makes strong family and community engagement is when teachers are looking at working with families as partners in their child's education. It's not about producing a newsletter, it's not about ice cream socials or fundraisers or even parent-teacher conferences. It's about the act of developing relational trust with families in ways that can support a partnership to the benefit of the child. So, what can you do with the information that I just shared? Here are the action steps you can take regarding transforming parent engagement. Speaking of the types of notifications that I mostly got when my kids were in public school, those communications mostly centered around my son's quote unquote behavior. Let me give you an example. I'm picking up my son from after school care one day, and the administrator of the after school care program tells me when I'm getting ready to sign my son out that they had to give him a warning because of the way he played dodgeball. She indicated that he threw the ball too hard and a child got the wind knocked out of him. My immediate question was Isn't that the object of the game? To hit someone with the ball? She said yes, but he threw the ball too hard, she said. Number one, that's subjective. Number two, that's not the type of feedback that's helpful for me. I know how my son plays. Number three, you thought that was a good idea to tell me that he threw a ball too hard in a game in which the object of the game is to throw a ball at someone? Huh. That's not a way to build a positive partnership for parent engagement. In my mind, this type of tattletaling notification from the school is annoying and unnecessary. I didn't even mention the conversation to my son because, as far as I was concerned, there was no correction that was needed on my part to address with him. No further notifications about this type of incident took place after that. Whenever I had a conversation with school staff, my kids, teachers, or the principal, I always reminded them that I was never too busy that I couldn't come up to this school and advocate for my children. Here are ten ways to build engagement and support for your child to be successful at school. One, make school a priority and insist on perfect attendance and punctuality. Two, trust the school, model respect for teachers and staff, and work cooperatively with the school. Three, ask your child what they learned at school every day, not just how was your day. Four, read with your child or have him or her read to you every day and talk about what you've read. Five, create a study routine. Set a time and a quiet place for your child to work every day. Go over homework together and insist that it gets completed neatly and accurately. Six, make sure your child gets plenty of sleep each school night. Seven, model good character because your child learns from you. Speak positively about education and never talk negatively about the school or teachers in the presence of your child. eight. Encourage independence. Allow your children to make mistakes and accept responsibility for their choices. nine. Attend parent teacher conferences and school events whenever possible. Communicate consistently with your child's teacher via the school's communication system, apps, telephone, email, notes, etc. And ten. Build success and confidence in your child by affirming and expecting effective effort. Praise and celebrate their achievements. You are your child's first teacher. It's important that you engage with your child's school and promote academic success from kindergarten through high school graduation. Schools can't do the job of parents, which is to send your children to school every day and require them to pay attention, work hard, and obey their teachers. A positive teacher school parent partnership is the ultimate goal. Here are this episode's takeaways. Effective parent-teacher communication is crucial for a successful school year for the student, the parents or caregivers, and the teacher. Strong parent communication ensures that both parents and teachers collaborate as a team throughout the school year for the child's best interests. The bottom line is that parents just want to have peace of mind that their children are in good hands when they are sent to school, and establishing an effective communication system that includes positives as well as areas of improvement for your child is key to ensuring a successful school year. Parent involvement can be defined as the amount of time parents volunteer at a school, while parent engagement is the amount of support, communication, respect, and commitment that parents demonstrate in their child's schooling. When schools figure out how to truly partner and work with parents, caregivers, and families, it can be game changing for students' academic achievement and social emotional skills. The academic achievement has seen positive effects on the On reading achievement, language comprehension, and interest in reading, as well as progress in mathematics. Schools stand the best chance of ensuring that family engagement makes a difference by making it systemic so that everyone in the building is prioritizing it, making it accessible so that school isn't just relying on any one approach like nighttime school events that exclude the majority of working parents, and that the school is responsive to the communities and cultures that they serve. What's been your experience with parent engagement? Let me know your thoughts and experiences by leaving a text comment on my podcast website, K12Education Insights.budsprout.com. Here's how you can leave a text comment. Go to the episode description page and click on the Send Me a Text Message link. Again, that's on my website, K12Education Insights.budsprout.com. If you enjoyed this episode, why not listen to another episode from my library? It can take as little as 15 minutes of your day. And remember, new episodes come out every Tuesday. And before I forget, would you do me a favor? Go online right now and share this episode with one friend who you think would love it. Thanks for listening today. Be sure to come back for more insights on K 12 educational topics that impact you and your children. Until next time, learn something new every day.