“People know that they need to engage families, that relationships are key, but they don’t always connect that to the incredibly important performance indicators we want for kids. That feels like a true opportunity moving forward, to really capitalize on the demand that exists for family engagement….If you care about tutoring, you de facto have to care about family engagement because a high-quality tutoring program is only going to be great if families know that it’s there and are excited about enrolling their kids.”
– Stephanie Sharp 

In this Funder-to-Funder Conversation,  Stephanie Sharp of Overdeck Family Foundation offered the reflection above as she underscored the importance of family engagement. Yolie Flores of Families In Schools moderated the session, engaging funders, researchers and family engagement leaders in a conversation about the impact that strong home-school partnerships can have on student achievement and attendance. Throughout the conversation, the panelists stressed that trusting relationships are at the heart of their work, frequently echoing Dr. Karen Mapp’s assertion that family engagement is a “must-have essential” rather than the “nice-to-have component” many have traditionally viewed it as.  

Ambika Kapur of Carnegie Corporation of New York joined Sharp in highlighting the roles that funders can play in promoting family engagement. Both noted the importance of investing in efforts that foster demand for effective family engagement strategies and build the capacity of a wide range of research-based models to bridge the gap between home and school. Representing funders that invest in a number of education-focused strategies, they highlighted how family engagement can enhance the impact of those other investments by building demand for them. Kapur shared recent highlights from a Grantmakers for Education report, stating that, while 60% of funders indicated an interest in family engagement, only 8% of education support is directed at strengthening home-family relationships.  

“We at the foundation have this belief that when parents are empowered as true partners in their children’s education, students thrive, schools are stronger and the whole community benefits.” – Ambika Kapur 

Eyal Bergman, Ed.L.D., of Learning Heroes shared new quantitative data from a study it is conducting with TNTP. In this statewide study in Illinois, the researchers compare student attendance and achievement in otherwise similar schools that had either strong or weak family engagement before the pandemic. Chronic absence rates in 2021–22 were 39% lower in schools that had stronger family engagement pre-pandemic while students in those schools experienced much smaller declines in both English Language Arts and math. The research team plans to build on this initial quantitative analysis by conducting qualitative analysis to understand what was happening in these different schools and districts. The team will use both the quantitative and qualitative data to inform the development of measurement tools to help schools track progress in implementing family engagement strategies. Bergman also shared several free resources offered by Learning Heroes to help schools, districts and families collaborate.  

“We want to see not just more investments but smarter investments. We know what works…. There are resources available. I think that a lot of times…folks don’t necessarily have a clear notion of how to invest. They might not necessarily have the mental models for what really compelling, really good, solidarity-driven family engagement actually looks like. This data can help us tell some of that story.” – Eyal Bergman, Ed.L.D. 

The session also featured two examples of evidence-based family engagement models, representing the wide range of approaches that schools can use from high-tech text models to high-touch home visiting approaches.  

Gina Martinez-Keddy introduced the Parent Teacher Home Visits model, explaining how voluntary biannual home visits enable educators to develop trusting relationships with families that extend throughout the school year. She shared that educators are encouraged to ask families about their hopes and dreams for their child in the first home visit, using the question to open up a different conversation and relationship. Martinez-Keddy also offered highlights from a research study that found the model resulted in significant decreases in chronic absenteeism and significant increases in English Language Arts proficiency rates.  

“Trust is so fundamental to all other kinds of outcomes — attendance, learning and social-emotional wellness. At Parent Teacher Home Visits, we really pay attention to that foundation of trust. Because when you have trust between families and schools, every other program, every other intervention is probably going to work a whole lot better.” – Gina Martinez-Keddy 

Kate Pechacek, M.Ed., explained how Talking Points leverages technology to strengthen communications and foster stronger relationships between educators and families. TalkingPoints automatically translates text messages between teachers and school staff into a family’s home language and then translates the family’s response back into English. She shared results from a five-year longitudinal study that found a causal relationship between TalkingPoints and improved math and reading proficiency and reduced rates of chronic absenteeism.  

“We simply can’t survive in schools anymore without [strong family engagement]. We can’t just do more. We have to be smarter. And the smartest thing we can do is get families and schools to partner to support student success.” – Kate Pechacek, TalkingPoints