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Upcoming Events, Conferences and Webinars from Family Engagement Lab

Upcoming Events
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Workshop: National Assembly for Family Engagement in Education
October 21-25, 2024, Denver, CO

​In this interactive session for educators and school leaders, participants will learn high-impact, equitable, actionable strategies families can use to support math learning outside of the classroom. Participants will also reflect on their current practices, as well as the specific needs and experiences of families in their communities. Using an action planning tool, participants will identify new strategies to help measure and accelerate the impact of their math-focused family engagement work.
Session: Friday, October 25, 2024 10:00am-11:15am MST

Past Events
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Webinar: Family Engagement Essentials for a Successful School Year
July 24, 2024 at 8:00 am PT | 11:00 am ET​

It's the perfect time to start planning your family engagement strategy for next school year. Join Elisabeth O'Bryon and the team at BetterLesson to explore practical tips and strategies to build a welcoming, inclusive, learning-focused student success team. Participants will receive a Family Engagement Basics Toolkit for teachers designed to equip educators with a few high-impact strategies and message templates for engaging families during the back-to-school season.
Watch Recording
Webinar: Boosting Math Confidence: Strategies to Combat Math Anxiety in Elementary Schools
July 10, 2024 at 11:00 am PT | 2:00 pm ET

Presented by Dr. Elisabeth O'Bryon, Co-Founder and Chief Impact Officer, Family Engagement Lab; Bonni Jones, Graduate Researcher, Utah State University; and James Sanders, Product Marketing Manager, Unruly Studios
Sponsored by Unruly Math 
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NewSchools Summit 2024
May 15-16, 2024 | San Francisco, CA

Vidya will be attending the New Schools Summit in San Francisco. NewSchools Summit is an essential gathering for change-makers seeking fresh perspectives and solutions for a dynamic time in education. Join us for networking, learning, and conversations with inspiring leaders and innovators working to reimagine K-12 education. Let us know if you're attending!
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Advances in Early Math Education: Critical Issues in Policy and Practice
May 3, 2024 | Palo Alto, CA

Elisabeth will be attending the Advances in Early Math Education: Critical Issues in Policy and Practice conference hosted by DREME and the Stanford Center on Early Childhood celebrating the progress made in the last decade in research and practice related to early math learning.
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OCDOE Family & Community Partnerships Networking Meeting
April 19, 2024 | Orange County, CA
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We had the opportunity to join innovative district and school leaders participating in OCDOE’s Family & Community Partnership Network to explore the question What does it look like to engage parents and families in meaningful ways to support student success?
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ASU + GSV Summit and AIR Show
April 14-17, 2024 | San Diego, CA

Vidya attended the ASU + GSV Summit in San Diego, where she spent her time connecting with educators, entrepreneurs, and funders. Vidya shared, “It is clear that K-12 education is shifting, and there is a lot to be optimistic about.” Some key themes that emerged from the summit
  • AI is more than an education trend
  • Family engagement is emerging as an essential strategy to support student learning
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Plain Talk About Literacy and Learning
​January 31-February 2, 2024 | New Orleans, LA | Hilton Riverside New Orleans
​ Featuring presenter Megan Lorio, Managing Editor at Family Engagement Lab

Plain Talk is a three-day institute on teaching, leading, and learning hosted by The Center for Literacy & Learning. Plain Talk offers relevant and innovative sessions that are focused on evidence-based practices that drive student, teacher, and school success.  It is regarded as the premier literacy event in the country. 
Download Action Plan
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CAFEN Inaugural Conference & Retreat
Organized by Parent Organization Network
December 7-8, 2023 | Los Angeles, CA

Landscape of Educator Capacity Building in Family Engagement at the National Level
​Featuring panelist Vidya Sundaram, CEO & Co-founder at Family Engagement Lab
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2023 EL Education National Conference: ELevate
  • November 30 - December 1, 2023 | Denver, CO

​​Creating Your Parent-Teacher Playbook
Vidya Sundaram, CEO and Dr. Elisabeth O'Bryon, Chief Impact Officer
Family Engagement Lab

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2023 Families Learning Conference
  • October 23rd -25th | Omaha, Nebraska
Engaging families in education is integral to achieving greater literacy and learning outcomes for families, higher attendance rates for children, and overall positive benefits to communities. While many education-related conferences exist, very few are laser focused on engaging families in family literacy, family engagement, and family leadership settings with an emphasis on equitable practices.  Click here to learn more or connect with us
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​Texas Parent & Family Engagement Conference
  • October 4th-6th, 2023 | Corpus Christi, TX
The major goal of the conference is to provide an opportunity for dialogue on Every Student Succeeds Act
(ESSA) topics in parent and family engagement among all stakeholders with an interest in improving teaching
and learning. Click here to learn more or connect with us
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Engaging and Connecting with Socially and Economically Marginalized Families
  • September 27, 2023 12pm ET | Webinar

Featuring panelist Vidya Sundaram, CEO & Co-founder at Family Engagement Lab
Every child deserves equitable access to high-quality early learning experiences that will put them on a successful path in school and life. Explore Waterford’s personalized blend of reading, math, and science programs for PreK-2 learners. Learn More
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University of Central Arkansas | College of Education 
  • Thursday, June 22, 2023 | 10:00 am PT | Virtual

Creating Your Parent-Teacher Playbook
Dr. Elisabeth O'Bryon, Chief Impact Officer and Megan Lorio, Managing Editor. ​You can view a recording of the webinar here.
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​Family Engagement Learning Series: Family Engagement to Support Student Success
  • Tuesday, February 28, 2023 | 1:00 pm ET | Virtual
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Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and Overdeck Family Foundation.  We are excited to share the webinar recording and resources from this session featuring Dr. Karen Mapp, Springboard Collaborative, Los Angeles Unified School District, Family Engagement Lab, and the DeSoto Parish School Board.  You can view a recording of the webinar here.
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Investing in the Future of Family-School Partnerships
presented by Grantmakers for Education
  • Thursday, December 1, 2022 | 3:00 pm ET | Virtual

​One of the root causes of the growing mistrust between the public and our public education system is the inconsistent, and sometimes missing, day-to-day interactions between families and communities and their schools. In this session, attendees will reflect on the current and future state of these interactions and consider systemic solutions to improve family-school partnerships, including National PTA’s recently updated National Standards for Family-School Partnerships. Attendees will hear from family, community and education leaders (including Vidya Sundaram, CEO & Co-founder at Family Engagement Lab) about the barriers they face to partnership and how they overcome them, as well as learn from other funders how they can create entry points in their portfolios to support this important work.

This event is intended for members and other education grantmakers. There is no cost to attend this Grantmakers for Education program. Registration closes 15 minutes prior to the program time. 
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Powering Up Early Childhood Conference 2022
  • Saturday July 23rd at 9:45am, 11:00am, and 1:30pm | New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center (NOENMCC)

​Presentation: "Supporting our Youngest Readers: Use Data, not Donuts"
Education Sessions presented by Megan Lorio, Managing Editor
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Use Data, Not Donuts: Supporting Family Engagement for Equitable Learning​
  • June 28, 2022 | ISTELive 22 | New Orleans, LA
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Family engagement is a top priority to achieve reading proficiency for all children. Learn about evidence-based practices when involving families to impact learning outcomes. (Hint: It’s not free doughnuts!) Discover innovative strategies to effectively scale and sustain family engagement to promote equity and access for all students.
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Louisiana Department of Education - Teacher Leader Summit
  • June 1st, 8:00-9:00 AM CDT | New Orleans, LA

​Presentation: "Creating Your Parent-Teacher Playbook"
Dr. Elisabeth O'Bryon, Chief Impact Officer and Megan Lorio, Managing Editor
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The Illustrative Mathematics Experience​
  • March 10, 2022 | Webinar
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IM K-5 Math series in a session titled "Family Engagement, Collaboration and Support."

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Cracking the Code for Improved Family Engagement
  • March 8, 2022​
Having a strong connection with families is paramount to building a student-centric school community. Yet often, families are overwhelmed by the variety of messaging channels and the volume of school messages – sometimes not even in their native language. During this lively session, participants will learn useful and easy-to-replicate tips for engaging families (even families who find schools inaccessible) across the various levels of their school community. Moderated by Frank Catalano of ParentSquare, panelists include Elisabeth O'Bryon (Family Engagement Lab), Renee Delport M.Ed (Kings Canyon Unified School District), and Sujata Wycoff (Cambridge Public Schools).

Asian-American Women Leading in EdTech
  • March 8, 2022
​The recent edtech boom is happening against the backdrop of racial inequities brought to light by the George Floyd murder in 2020, growing violence against Asian-Americans, and severe underrepresentation and funding of female-led companies. During this session, participants will hear frank discussions from edtech leaders Anna Casalme (Novelly), Melanie Kong (Floop Edu), Sheetal Singh (Early Learning Lab), and Vidya Sundaram (Family Engagement Lab).
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​Show+Tell: Promising Ventures Fellows
  • March 2, 2022 | 1-2:00 PM ET / 10:00-11:00 AM PT | Webinar
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​Co-founder and CEO of Family Engagement Lab Vidya Sundaram will be pitching about their product and sharing how you can support them in expanding their early childhood services on March 2, 2022 at Show+Tell: Promising Ventures Fellows. Learn more and register here.
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​​2022 National ESEA Conference
 
  • February 17-18, 2022 | Expo Hall | New Orleans, LA
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Engaging Families with Social-Emotional Learning
  • Wednesday, October 27, 2021 | 2:00 PM Eastern | 1 hour
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Please join us for a webinar co-hosted by Committee for Children to learn about activating the power of families in your social-emotional learning (SEL) work. We’ll discuss best practices for meaningful, equitable family engagement. We’ll also share resources, including some from FASTalk and Second Step® programs, that you can use to partner with families.
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Back to the Future: Strategies for Centering Families’ Needs Post-Pandemic
National Family Engagement Summit

Thursday, October 14, 2021, 1:45PM EST

Session presented by Family Engagement Lab Co-founder and Chief Impact Officer, Elisabeth O’Bryon. Participants will learn how to collect and apply family feedback to inform your approach to advancing equitable school-home partnerships that support student learning. Participants will also complete a planning tool to clarify key action steps for developing a family engagement strategy that centers families’ needs.
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Uniting Schools and Families for our Students: A Conversation with Family Engagement Lab and Springboard Collaborative
Oakland Literacy Coalition Fall Symposium​​
October 1, 2021 | 12:50 - 2:05 PM Pacific

Families play a powerful and impactful role in supporting student literacy development. Learn about innovative literacy-focused family engagement approaches by hearing firsthand from local nonprofits Springboard Collaborative and Family Engagement Lab. Springboard will share their methodology of equipping Families to become reading coaches. Through their FELA framework they utilize families as assets in order to extend and sustain a culture of literacy habits and critical thinking that go beyond a classroom. Family Engagement Lab will share more about FASTalk (Families and Schools Talk), their family engagement tool that promotes equity and builds partnerships between teachers and historically underserved families by sharing engaging, at-home literacy activities via text messages in each family’s home language. In our exciting joint session, which includes an interactive Q&A, you will hear from two Oakland organizations that are empowering families, supporting educators, and lifting up students to reach their full potential.
T&L Summit
Is This Seat Taken? A Roundtable Discussion about Family Members as Co-Creators in Education
  • Monday, June 7 – 10:00 -11:20 AM CDT (Leaders)
  • Tuesday, June 8 – 10:00-11:20 AM CDT (Teachers)

Family Engagement Lab proudly participated in the 2021 Teacher Leader Summit, a professional development conference for  birth to grade 12 Louisiana educators.

In this session, members of the Louisiana Department of Education's Family Literacy Engagement Workgroup and Family Engagement Lab team members discussed the latest research on what families want and expect from their student’s school since the pandemic and how to plan for a future where families are partners and co-creators in their child’s education. Family engagement is recognized as an effective and impactful practice to boost student achievement and school improvement. This round table session brought together diverse perspectives from education practitioners in public and charter PK-12 schools, higher education and the Department to discuss strategic priorities outlined by the Department's workgroup. Strategies were shared for effectively addressing families’ needs through equitable family engagement.
Reporting on Education Amid Uncertainty
Education Writers Association 74th National Seminar Agenda
Family Engagement in a Post-COVID Era
Tuesday, May 4, 2021  1-2:15 PM (EDT)

The session featured:
  • Sarah Carpenter, Memphis Life
  • Keri Rodrigues, National Parents Union
  • Vidya Sundaram, Family Engagement Lab
  • Rebecca Winthrop, Center for Universal Education

To replay the webinar or read the transcript, visit here.
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Grade Level Reading Learning Loss and Family Engagement Lab
Why Shattering the Wall Between Home & School Is a Good Thing
Tuesday, March 30, 2021 3-4:30 PM (EST)
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Reimagine public education — with no walls between schools and home, parents and teachers. Together, we learned about the most common barriers to strong family engagement in K–3; how technology has opened up the possibility for cost-effective and impactful family engagement strategies; the role that curricula can play in engaging families; and how strong school-home connections support student learning.

The session featured:  
  • Moderator: Stephanie Sharp, Associate Program Officer, Overdeck Family Foundation
  • Vidya Sundaram, co-founder and CEO, Family Engagement Lab
  • Dionne Aminata, Illustrative Mathematics Lead Curriculum Writer, Grades 2-5, Curriculum Implementation Support Specialist for LAUSD
  • Adrienne Austin, Deputy Chancellor of Community Empowerment, Partnerships, and Communication, NYC Department of Education
  • Alejandro Gibes de Gac, Founder and CEO, Springboard Collaborative
  • Heejae Lim, Founder and CEO, Talking Points

The webinar recording is accessible from this link after registering. Registration information can be found here. Once you are registered, you can also access the slides from the session.
NASP Understanding Latino Families and Family Engagement Lab

Understanding Latino Families' Experiences to Promote Meaningful Family Engagement
National Association of School Psychologists 2021 Annual Convention

Wednesday, February 24, 2021 6:15 PM–7:15 PM (ET)

To effectively partner and engage families, schools must understand diverse families’ needs and experiences. This session takes a close look at the beliefs and experiences of Latino families that shape and affect their interactions and relationships with schools and educators. Attendees will learn actionable strategies that they can apply to meaningfully engage Latino families, and will have the opportunity to discuss successes and challenges in their own family engagement efforts.

This session helps participants:
  • identify ways that Latino families’ experiences and beliefs may influence their relationships and interactions with educators and the educational system.
  • learn strategies for effectively reaching and engaging Latino families that consider and respond to families’ specific needs and experiences.
  • build their capacity to support their school’s family engagement efforts and fulfill their role in providing family–school collaboration services as outlined by the NASP Practice Model.

Visit the convention website for an update on accessing the recording.
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Grade Level Reading Learning Loss
Parents Eager to Address Learning Loss: Lessons From the Field
Tuesday, February 23, 2021 3-4:30 PM (ET)

 An esteemed panel, led by Family Engagement Lab, discussed what we are learning from families, including how families want to be engaged and embraced as essential partners and co-producers of good outcomes for their children. This session will also feature lessons learned from school closures and their effect on parent-teacher collaboration; support for at-home learning moving forward; insights from diverse school communities from coast to coast; and recommended approaches to centering families in learning.

​Access to a full summary of the webinar and the associated resources is available here.  To view the webinar recording,
sign up for the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading. Go to the Partner Webinar collection on the CGLR, Community Learning for Impact and Improvement Platform, or CLIP, at clipglr.org.
ESEA Use Data, not Donuts Family Engagement Lab
Supporting Our Youngest Readers: Use Data, not Donuts (Workshop)
National ESEA Conference

Wednesday, February 10, 2021 3:30 - 4:30 PM (ET)

Interactive workshop:
  • Alter how you approach family engagement by learning about the latest research on the power of school-family collaboration in at-home learning to support early learning outcomes, including early language development;
  • Initiate and/or refine planning for your district and/or school to effectively engage families by examining evidence-based strategies that support young learners’ development of foundational skills; and
  • Collaborate with colleagues to discover innovative family engagement methodologies.

Register for the 2021 National ESEA Conference to access a recording of the webinar until May 1, 2021. After this date, the webinar will be accessible via the Video on Demand section of the ESEA Network website.
Grantmakers for Education Supporting Families with At-Home Learning and Family Engagement Lab
Supporting Families with At-Home Learning: What We’ve Learned from School Closures
Grantmakers for Education Annual Conference
Monday, February 1, 2021 10 - 11 AM (PT)

Topics discussed:
  • How have school closures affected family-school partnerships?
  • What might we expect for the 2021-22 school year?
  • What roles can family engagement play in advancing equitable educational outcomes?

Participants:  
  • Vidya Sundaram and Elisabeth O’Bryon, co-founders, Family Engagement Lab
  • Sara Norris, literacy coordinator at Oakland Unified School District
  • Ambika Kapur, Program Officer, Carnegie Corporation of New York

Register with Grantmakers for Education to receive a link to the recording from this session.

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