Gina Martinez-Keddy of the national nonprofit organization Parent-Teacher Home Visits (PTHV) shared the history of PTHV and presented PTHV’s Five Non-Negotiable Core Practices: visits are voluntary for all; educators are trained and compensated; we share hopes, dreams, and goals; we don’t target students; and educators go in pairs and reflect.

Carmen Avila, a parent of five, then shared what happened when her daughters’ teacher visited her and her daughters at home. She recounted that she was nervous and wary of the visit. But when her daughter’s teacher asked her “What are your hopes and dreams for your child?”, school changed forever for Carmen and her family. Her daughters got excited about attending school every day, and their grades went up. Her son, after dropping out, graduated from high school. And Carmen herself partnered with her daughters’ teachers and got more involved at school.

Teacher Don Diehl helped us think about parents’ and educators’ mindsets, sharing his personal story with one family he visited. Don shared that he saw a different side of his student Rudy, who had seemed withdrawn in school, when he visited Rudy and his family at home. In that visit, he learned that he and Rudy’s mom shared the goal of helping Rudy learn to read better; that Rudy was a loving and engaged big brother; and that Rudy was keenly interested in paleontology and archaeology.

Interspersed with the personal stories from Carmen and Don were research findings, presented by evaluation consultant Teresa Cummings. Teresa shared the national evaluation work that has been done on the PTHV model and some of the most compelling findings that indicate that relationships between parents and teachers matter and that home visiting is a promising strategy for family engagement for school-age children. She shared two findings in particular: students whose families participated in home visits were less likely to be chronically absent from one year to the next; and students attending schools conducting home visits more widely demonstrated decreased chronic absenteeism and increased ELA proficiency.