Family Engagement

TBA, Chair, Family and Community Engagement (email)

Be sure to attend Q&A with Tennessee PTA!

Be sure to watch the recorded videos about each National Standard! Missed viewing them on Facebook? Watch them here.

PTA’s National Standards for Family-School Partnerships

Standard 1: Welcoming all families into the school community—Families are active participants in the life of the school, and feel welcomed, valued, and connected to each other, to school staff, and to what students are learning and doing in class.

Standard 2: Communicating effectively—Families and school staff engage in regular, two-way, meaningful communication about student learning.

Standard 3: Supporting student success—Families and school staff continuously collaborate to support students’ learning and healthy development both at home and at school, and have regular opportunities to strengthen their knowledge and skills to do so effectively.

Standard 4: Speaking up for every child—Families are empowered to be advocates for their own and other children, to ensure that students are treated fairly and have access to learning opportunities that will support their success.

Standard 5: Sharing power—Families and school staff are equal partners in decisions that affect children and families and together inform, influence, and create policies, practices, and programs.

Standard 6: Collaborating with community—Families and school staff collaborate with community members to connect students, families, and staff to expanded learning opportunities, community services, and civic participation.

• Visit Transformative Family Engagement in Action to find about the Four I’s in family engagement and much more.
• Download PTAs Leading the Way in Transformative Family Engagement in English in Spanish
• Download How to Welcome Diverse Perspectives into Your PTA in English in Spanish
• Download and share What is Whole Child Education? This tool provides an overview of whole child education and what it looks like in action.

From the Tennessee System of Care: Family Engagement–New Beginnings

National PTA, in partnership with the National Education Association, is pleased to offer newly updated Family Guides. These guides can help parents and caretakers find valuable tips for helping their child succeed in key learning areas.
PTA leaders, teachers, parents and families should use these guides to engage families in education throughout a child’s academic career.

Family Guide to Fostering Whole Child Development offers concrete strategies for helping your child develop important life skills at school and at home.

Read the report Joining Together to Create a Bold Vision for Next Generation Family Engagement

 “Why Family Engagement Matters for Student and School Success” — learn about the future of family engagement. This parent-friendly resource provides five strategies to support your child’s learning and reflection questions for PTAs to think about family engagement in their communities. 

Watch this video series to discover how transformative family engagement will empower every parent to make their child’s potential a reality. PTA leaders share about the work of the Center for Family Engagement, describe the importance of being transformative in our approach.

PTA Take Your Family to School Week  
PTA Take Your Family to School Week encourages families to visit their child’s school and strengthen partnerships between parents, teachers and administrators. PTAs and schools nationwide host a variety of events and activities to promote family engagement in education. The timing of the week honors the day PTA was founded, Feb. 17, 1897.

For more information on PTATake Your Family to School Week, visit PTA.org/TYFTSW.

Learning Heroes
Download these Back to School Learning Heroes Flyers:
Summer Stride 
Summer Stride (Spanish)
Back to School
Back to School (Spanish)

Background
Report: The Positive Relationship Between Family Involvement and Student Success
A discussion of the finding connecting parent involvement to higher levels of student achievement.

National Standards for Family-School Partnerships (339k)
What parents, schools, and communities can do together to support student success.

Third Party Resources
A Parent Checklist
This guide provides families with questions, tips and resources to use to partner with their children’s teachers, support their children’s success, and make sure their children are getting a high-quality education.

Family Guide to Getting Involved With Correctional Education (NDTAC): Example of the Standards in Action
This guide was written for individuals with children who have been placed in a juvenile justice facility.

Additional Resources
Family-School Partnerships poster
Promoting the National Standards for Family-School Partnership

Action Steps for the Local PTA Leader
Ready, Set, Lead! National Standards action steps excerpted from the Implementation Guide

Estándares Nacionales para la Asociación de la Familia y la Escuela por PTA: acciones para el líder local de PTA
En susmarcas, listos, ¡guíen

National Standards Assessment Guide: Full Version
Includes introduction and information on all six standards for family-school partnerships

Estándares Nacionales Para las Asociaciones Familia-Escuela
Lo que los padres, escuelas y comunidades pueden hacer unidos para apoyar el éxito del estudiante

National Standards Assessment Guide: Introduction – Measuring Success
A guide to facilitate local schools’ implementation of programs, practices, and policies that are grounded in the National Standards

Standard 1: Welcoming All Families into the School Community
Families are active participants in the life of the school, and feel welcomed, valued, and connected to each other, to school staff, and to what students are learning and doing in class.

Standard 2: Communicating Effectively
Families and school staff engage in regular, two-way, meaningful communication about student learning.

Standard 3: Supporting Student Success
Families and school staff continuously collaborate to support students’ learning and healthy development both at home and at school, and have regular opportunities to strengthen their knowledge and skills to do so effectively.

Standard 4: Speaking Up for Every Child
Families are empowered to be advocates for their own and other children, to ensure that students are treated fairly and have access to learning opportunities that will support their success.

Standard 5: Sharing Power
Families and school staff are equal partners in decisions that affect children and families and together inform, influence, and create policies, practices, and programs.

Standard 6: Collaborating with Community
Families and school staff collaborate with community members to connect students, families, and staff to expanded learning opportunities, community services, and civic participation.

National Standards, Goals, and Indicators for Family-School Partnerships
Overview of the National Standard

The Power of Partnerships Family Survey (PDF)
An assessment tool for PTAs to measure the success of partnership programs

The Power of Partnerships Family Survey (Word document)
An assessment tool for PTAs to measure the success of partnership programs.

The Power of Partnerships Family Survey (Spanish)
Spanish-language version (Word Document)

Family Engagement in Education Act
On March 02, 2015 the Family Engagement in Education Act of 2015 (S. 622/H.R. 1194) was introduced by U.S. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI), Christopher Coons (D-DE), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Representatives Glenn Thompson (R-PA) and Mark Desaulnier (D-CA). Read a summary of this important legislation that is intended to strengthen families’ engagement in their education of their children.

Research shows that family engagement in a child’s education increases student achievement, improves attendance and reduces dropout rates. The Family Engagement in Education Act of 2015 seeks to target capacity-building and technical assistance for effective family engagement strategies by promoting district flexibility to identify programming that works best for individual communities. Encourage your member of Congress to support the Family Engagement in Education Act. 

What PTAs Can Do
As a state leader, you are in a unique position to establish yourself as an excellent resource that members of Congress and their staff can turn to for information on federal legislation dealing with all aspects of education. Encouraging your local members to utilize congressional recesses to make a connection with state senators and representatives can go a long way in garnering support for PTA’s legislative priorities. 

LGBTQ – Every Child in Focus Series
http://www.pta.org/programs/content.cfm?ItemNumber=5025

Watch D.O.G.S.
https://dadsofgreatstudents.com/

WATCH D.O.G.S. (Dads Of Great Students) is a family and community engagement educational initiative. The goals of this organization is to provide positive male role models for the students, demonstrating by their presence that education is important and to provide extra sets of eyes and ears to enhance school security and reduce bullying. 

If your school does not already have a WATCH D.O.G.S. program, the first step is to sign up for our toll free ‘7 Steps to Success’ training conference call. After you have completed our ‘7 Steps to Success’ training conference call, the next step is meet with your principal to make sure they want to implement a WATCH D.O.G.S. program (at their school) to help them meet their educational goals. If your principal wants to implement a WATCH D.O.G.S. program, the next step is to purchase a Startup Kit. 
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All Pro Dad
http://allprodad.com

All Pro Dad, founded by Tony Dungy, is a program of Family First, an organization dedicated to strengthening the family. All Pro Dad programs include:

• All Pro Dad’s Day—A one-hour monthly breakfast held before school where fathers/male role models and their kids can meet, have fun and discuss family     topics. Materials for All Pro Dad’s Days are free of charge to local organizers. These materials include videos, father/child discussion cards, door prizes, meeting instructions, brochures, posters and promotional flyers.
• NFL Father and Kids Experience—Held in conjunction with an NFL team, these events include workshops on father and child relationships, motivational talks, and interactive sports and games.
• Play of the Day—A concise daily e-mail of fatherhood advice.

The Great Testing Debate: Making the Grade
Tests today are not like the tests most parents took when they were in school. New forms of evaluating students’ work are already in use, and even more changes will be coming in the years ahead. The broad term “assessment” has come into common use to describe these new ways of measuring students’ accomplishments.

Tests and assessments perform several vital roles in the education process. They are used most frequently to help students, teachers, schools, and parents know what students have learned and what they still need to study. Teachers can use information from assessments to design lessons that meet the needs of their students. School districts and states use assessment results to evaluate whether they are meeting their goals. Assessments also are used by policy-makers for accountability—to help gauge the effectiveness of programs and schools. Finally, assessments are helpful for transitions. They can show if students are ready to begin a new grade level, or to enter a particular college. Tests are sometimes used—along with other information—to help decide if students should be placed in special programs.

Parents should educate themselves about the tests and other assessments that are used in evaluating their children’s progress. For tests and assessments to be most effective, parents need to be informed and to understand the types of assessments that can be used.

Performance assessments
Increasingly, schools are now using performance assessments, which measure a student’s ability to do an actual task, such as playing a piece of music or conducting a chemistry experiment. The strength of this approach to testing is that it focuses directly on complex performances and the knowledge and skills required to accomplish them. Some of the disadvantages of performance assessments are that they are seen as difficult and costly to score and require a great amount of classroom time.

Portfolios are one type of performance assessment that is becoming increasingly popular in schools. Portfolios, which contain samples of students’ work, can be used to gather information about what students can do over a long period of time. A writing portfolio, for example, might include a series of story drafts, while a science portfolio might include a collection of lab reports. This approach allows students, teachers, and parents to analyze students’ progress and see how their work has changed over time. Portfolios can be difficult to score, but they contain a lot of important information. Some states already have portfolio assessments in place to evaluate students’ work in a subject over an entire year.

Standardized tests
Standardized aptitude and achievement tests still have a major influence on what students are taught. The movement toward education standards will probably see such tests continue to have a significant effect on education—if not an even greater effect than ever before. Parents should advocate for tests that are integrated into the curriculum. They should also be aware of the dangers of test bias; questions on tests might unfairly favor one gender or racial group. There are screening procedures for identifying and eliminating possible sources of test bias. Schools should use only those standardized test that have been examined for those biases.

No test gives a complete picture of a student’s knowledge, ability, or aptitude. And test results don’t explain why students score as they do. Parents should work with their children’s teachers and look at all of the assessment information available to them to get an accurate picture of how their children are doing in school.

As assessments continue to change, parent involvement is extremely important. Assessments can help pinpoint problems, but they can’t solve them. Parents, along with teachers, must make sure that assessments are used as they should be—as an aid to the learning process. A good assessment program should be part of an overall educational plan that focuses on critical thinking skills as well as factual knowledge.