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Aspects of family communication that can shift the home-school partnership dynamic

8/28/2024

Struggles over digital learning, chaotic school board meetings, and breakdowns in student support have all grabbed headlines for the last several years. In an increasingly polarized K-12 education environment, there is a real need for building positive, trusting, and collaborative relationships between educators and families.

Schools that improve their school-home communication practices find that family satisfaction and engagement increases, and student outcomes improve. Yet, very few schools are making the most of their communication platforms. A few adjustments can result in meaningful, positive shifts. In this post, we’ll break down the anatomy of high-impact family communication that is tightly aligned with student learning.

What is high-impact family communication?

We know that teacher time is limited, with teachers reporting they spend on average 1-2 hours per week communicating with families. How can this time be maximized?

Communication with families can positively impact student attendance and learning outcomes, but it must be tightly aligned with classroom instruction. Our research with families and teachers suggests that there are a few key characteristics of high-impact communication:

Messages are sent home consistently (e.g., same day, time)
Updates are aligned with learning that is happening in the classroom
Information builds family capacity to support learning (e.g., defines key terms, breaks down key actions)
Messages invite or prompt family participation with a question or activity

In the sections below, we’ll break this down even further into key practices that will increase the impact of time spent communicating with families.

Create content that is focused on student learning

Families want to know 3 things - what their child is learning, how they are progressing, and how they can help outside of the classroom. Teachers and school staff can meet these needs by implementing a regular practice of writing and sending weekly updates to families that address these key areas.

Regardless of the communication app or tool being used, messages going home to families should include:

Brief description of learning that is happening in the classroom
Definitions of key skills and concepts in a way that avoids jargon
Reinforcing prompt or activity that helps families extends learning from the classroom to the home setting

Build strong relationships and invite participation

Teachers and families are the two most important stakeholders in a student’s learning journey. Regular communication between school and home builds the foundation for collaborative partnership that is centered on student learning. To maximize the impact of this practice, teachers should:

Send updates on a consistent schedule
Reinforce the important role that families play in learning
Share words of encouragement and appreciation

Strong communication practices lay the foundation for strong school-home partnerships that are mutually reinforcing and supportive of student growth and development.

Looking for more tips and templates for high-impact communication?

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4 Things Principals Can do to Improve Family Engagement At Their School

8/14/2024

Incremental steps that school leaders can take to improve student outcomes

Chronic absenteeism, persistent lags in academic achievement, concerns around student well-being and more - reporting has surfaced increasingly alarming challenges that school leaders are grappling with solving. A powerful, but largely underutilized, student success intervention is a strong and well-executed family engagement strategy that centers student learning. Indeed, schools that have invested in family engagement have seen improvements in student outcomes that persist over time.

School leaders play an essential role in setting the school strategy, equipping teachers with the resources and best practices to execute the strategy, and helping to set the tone for implementation.

Address root causes instead of symptoms with a strategy that delivers benefits for schools, families and students

Family engagement is a shared responsibility between schools and families to collaboratively support students’ learning and development. With strong family engagement, students are able to develop and practice key skills across multiple settings, inside and outside of the classroom.
Schools seeking to develop effective family engagement practices have an invaluable, research-based guide at their disposal: the Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnership. The Framework highlights how relationships between educators and families are central to supporting student learning outcomes; the essential process and organizational conditions that promote success; the importance of capacity building for both educators and families, and more.

Family engagement strategies can range from potlucks, performances, and celebrations to home-visits, teacher-parent conferences, and curriculum nights. With a myriad of options, it can be difficult to select strategies that align with your school priorities, while balancing the level of effort required to implement those strategies. Our research and work with school systems across the country has revealed a few key strategies that have the highest impact on student learning:

Consistent communication with families that provides insight into what students are learning, how they’re progressing, and builds family capacity to support.
Parent-teacher conferences that are centered on student learning and include shared goal-setting.
Home-visits where teachers and families focus on building trusting and collaborative relationships - the foundation for partnering to support student success.

4 things principals can do to improve family engagement efforts and maximize impact on student learning

Before adding anything new to your strategy, we’d recommend considering the following actions that you can take to make the most of your current capacity:

Step 1: Take stock of your current family engagement practices including your school’s communication practices. Who is responsible for engaging families? What expectations have been set for school staff? What strategies or practices are they currently implementing? What input have you received from families about the communication they receive?
Step 2: Gather your family engagement team. Consider bringing together a group of stakeholders who are responsible for advancing your school’s family engagement efforts. This might include school site coordinator, teacher(s), parent leader/liaison, and others. These stakeholders will be able to help fill any gaps of information identified in step 1.
Step 3: Collaborate with your team to set your school goals, select strategies, and define clear expectations for the school year. Collaborative planning and goal setting offers the opportunity to determine what to stop, pause, or start for the upcoming academic year. Consider these reflection questions - what will you keep from previous years? What should you stop? What will you add? What resources will your team need to be successful?
Step 4: Communicate your plan with school staff and families and carry out action steps. Set the tone for the academic year by ensuring that information about your student success plan is accessible (e.g., translated into home languages, available in multiple formats including digital). Any communication shared with school staff and families should be specific, actionable, and include an opportunity for feedback.

Looking for planning templates?

We’ve got you covered. Download your action planning template today!

Building a Better Student Success Strategy for Back-to-School

7/24/2024

Accelerated academic achievement. Second language learning. Social and emotional skill development. Increased attendance and engagement. Higher graduation rates. A handful of astonishing student-level benefits.

We partnered with BetterLesson on a white paper where we explore the research-backed benefits of family engagement, signals that a school system is under-investing in family engagement, and high-impact strategies for student success.

Read paper!

Who should be thinking about this?

District administrators are grappling with looming budget cuts and a need to streamline technology. Building leaders are grappling with chronic absenteeism and persisting learning loss. Teachers are grappling with feelings of overwhelming to do lists and burnout.

Educators are beginning to prepare for the upcoming academic year. Addressing these persisting systemic challenges will require collaborative problem solving to address root causes.

Incremental steps to improve family engagement

Building leaders and classroom educators can take several steps to incrementally adjust their current practices.

Understand the existing evidence base
Reflect on your current practices
Identify high-impact practices
Create your plan

Get Action Plan Toolkit

When you think Student success, you should be thinking About Family Engagement

7/24/2024

Educators are grappling with wide-ranging challenges including absenteeism, persisting learning loss, teacher retention, and looming budget cuts. The schools that are effectively addressing these systemic challenges are making investments in family engagement and, more specifically, implementing high-impact strategies for engaging families in student learning.

Elisabeth O’Bryon and Megan Lorio joined the team at EdReports to discuss family engagement as an essential strategy for student learning success. This podcast is a must listen for school leaders planning for the next school year.

Listen Now

Move beyond performances and potlucks: the surprising benefits of family communication

Decades of family engagement research demonstrates strong connections between consistent school-home communication that is focused on instructional goals with key outcomes for teachers, families, and students.

Teachers get support and feedback

Through consistent communication with families, teachers gain access to information about their students’ interests and needs, a trusted adult as a resource to support students’ goals, and essential feedback to affirm their strengths and fuel professional growth.

Families feel empowered to help

Families feel empowered to help when they receive a welcoming invitation to support their child’s learning, access to actionable tips and activities they can use anywhere, and the opportunity to help connect classroom learning to their child’s interests.

Students experience learning gains

Students who have access to resources and support inside and outside the classroom experience increased motivation and engagement, improved attendance, and academic gains.

How to level-up your family engagement strategy

Building a comprehensive strategy takes time and planning. Before starting the planning process, it is essential to gather input from families, teachers, and the community to understand the current state of your school. What is working well? What needs additional time or attention? We’d recommend that you read our blog that covers 5 actions that school leaders can take to build strong home-school connections.

In this podcast, Elisabeth and Megan share high-impact strategies and tips for maximizing your family engagement efforts to support student learning.

Listen Now

Are you planning for next school year? Our expert team has designed a family communication toolkit with practical tips and messages that you can use as you plan for back-to-school

Get toolkit!

Strategies for reducing students’ math anxiety

7/10/2024

As school leaders, math teachers, and families prepare for the upcoming school year, strategies for supporting students’ success with math will be essential. With estimates that approximately 93% of adult US-Americans experience some level of math anxiety, it is critical to identify strategies that teachers and families can implement to help shape students’ positive growth mindsets and experiences with math.

We know that teachers play a powerful role in the development of mathematical mindsets and skills, including, implementing teaching practices that focus on fostering a growth mindset in math and building classroom environments that are supportive of those mindsets. In addition, we’ve shared other strategies that teachers can implement daily to foster classroom environments that support positive math mindsets.

Overcoming objections: "I'm not a math person"

Reimagining the role of families in reducing math anxiety

A recent study highlighted the powerful role that families play, "by fostering discussions about the importance, relevance, and application of math in everyday life." By doing so, "families and communities can create supportive environments for math learning outside of the classroom, which enhances students’ engagement inside the classroom." Furthermore, the results from this study suggest that students do better when:

Families and communities have high expectations of them
Districts/schools connect their teachers and families with cultural and language supports
They have community resources during out-of-school time to reinforce their math learning

Families play an essential role in supporting math success. Yet, many teachers are missing an opportunity to activate a powerful resource.

Strategies for equipping families to support math success

Dr. Elisabeth O’Bryon recently delved into the role that families play in helping students develop a growth mindset with math. Consistent teacher-parent communication is the single most important strategy to ensure families are equipped with information and actionable activities to support student success with math. Our expert team has compiled 3 best practices for making the most of your parent communication activities:

Avoid making assumptions about what families know (and don’t). Consider asking for input from families that they would find most helpful. When crafting messages, minimize the use of jargon and consider using tools that offer translation into families' home languages.
Include environmental prompts for connecting math concepts to everyday life. Families live mathematical lives (for example, noticing math in cooking or sports) and there are opportunities to weave math into everyday activities. This can make math more visible and relevant in their child’s life.
Appreciate the rich perspectives that families bring. Families know about and care deeply about their children. Welcoming the insights they have to offer will bring a more holistic picture of students in your classroom.

We're excited to offer K-8th grade-level math content for teachers and families

In addition to our literacy and SEL learning tips and activities, we are excited to offer FASTalk messages that are aligned with key concepts and learning goals for math. This comprehensive math content equips families with essential information about math concepts and prompts for engaging their child in conversations about math outside of the classroom. The messages include conversation starters, routines to try, and reflection opportunities to help strengthen a child’s growth mindset and mathematical skills.

Currently, our K-8 math content aligns to grade levels and units of the high-quality curriculum, Illustrative Mathematics, and soon we will support skills-based, standards-aligned math content in our library. Learn more about our mathematics content and how to bring FASTalk to your school.

Explore Math Content

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