Improving how schools engage families during the crucial 9th-grade year

Researchers Martha Abele Mac Iver, Joyce Epstein, and Steven Sheldon summarize the outcomes of their four-year partnership with an urban district aimed at improving the ways schools engage families during the critical transition to high school. They describe how schools put into practice the strategies learned in ongoing professional development, how family engagement practices changed, and what effects those changes had on students. Particular strategies include the use of an online parent portal and interactive homework assignments about the transition to high school.

‘Kufunika kwa mtundu/fuko’ (Family circle): Understanding experiences of grandparents raising grandchildren in Malawi

In Malawi, grandparents play significant roles in raising children when parents are absent. An inductive thematic qualitative approach was used to understand experiences of Malawian custodial grandparents. Seven focus groups with 29 grandparents were conducted and six themes emerged: (1) Better future for the children, (2) Family circle, (3) Strong support from other grandparents and the community, (4) Financial and physical hardships, (5) Intergenerational conflicts and discipline issues, and (6) Desire for more involvement with their grandchildren’s education and school. Roles of schools and non-governmental organizations as community resource centers with robust family engagement practices are explored.

Cultivating Community Partnerships as an ELL Teacher

Let’s face it. Being a teacher can be daunting for a variety of reasons. We are pulled in a million different directions every minute of the day. (Even during our preps and lunch breaks!) We are not just teachers. We adopt so many different roles in order to meet the needs of our students. In my quest to learn about effective family engagement practices I felt overwhelmed to add yet another role to my repertoire. I quickly realized that, in order to engage families in a meaningful and collaborative way, I needed help. In my quest, I was fortunate to experience multiple community partnerships that made engaging families feel more like creating lasting friendships and building bridges that crossed language and cultural barriers.

Family-Professional Partnerships Within Schoolwide Positive Behavior Interventions and Support (SWPBIS): Preliminary Evidence for the Partnering for Positive Behavior (PPB) Meeting Strategy

Schoolwide Positive Behavior Interventions and Support (SWPBIS) has been shown to be effective in improving prosocial student behaviors, which increases the likelihood of inclusive placements for students within school settings. However, to date, the SWPBIS model has lacked research-based knowledge about partnership-oriented family engagement practices that involve families and educators of students with mild to moderate problem behavior (i.e., problem behavior that does not require intensive, individualized intervention) using shared decision making to address student behavioral outcomes across home and school settings. This article reports the results of a pilot study examining Partnering for Positive Behavior (PPB), a partnership-oriented teacher-family member meeting strategy designed to address the needs of students struggling to meet classwide behavioral expectations. Participants were five educators in elementary and middle school settings. Data were analyzed utilizing a qualitative approach to generate themes. Results suggested participants and family members addressed positively stated behavioral expectations and defined them in a similar manner across the home and school settings. Overall, participants were satisfied with the PPB process, especially the strengths-based aspect of the meeting, and they judged PPB as usable and feasible given their current resources. Discussion and implications of these findings are offered.