Family Partnerships

Recommended Initiative 4.1

Promote meaningful family partnerships that enable families to understand and support their student’s academic progress and enable teachers to better understand students and their families.

Deliverables & Design Considerations

Click each deliverable below to expand its key design considerations.

TIMING: SPRING 2021

Administer a family survey to gather input on needs, preferences, and requests for school reopening

What key survey measures will inform our planning for Fall 2021?
Have we considered family preferences and multiple modalities for administering a survey (e.g. email, social media, paper, phone call, in-person, focus group, etc.)?
How will we monitor survey completion to ensure as many families and diverse voices are included in the results?
To what extent are we providing translation and interpretation services for our linguistically diverse families?

Publish a plan to engage and connect with families before the start of the school year, including continued use of a virtual option to increase access for families

How will we ensure all families have access to at least one virtual or in-person touchpoint with a trusted staff member (e.g. home visits, virtual meet-and-greets, etc.)?
What virtual or in-person SEL experiences can build community and generate back-to-school excitement?
How will we log communications and track needs or concerns that arise?
Who from the school team can support and drive this work forward?

timing: SCHOOL YEAR 2021-22

Publish a family handbook for SY21-22 that articulates key revisions to student culture and instructional systems

What key updates do families need to be informed about, e.g. grading, attendance, instructional and cultural systems?
Have we considered high-level, family-friendly language?
What guidelines, best practices, and resources do families need to know to help monitor distance learning expectations (as applicable)?

Publish a yearlong plan for family programming, including a scope and sequence of events that attend to family wellness, build connectivity between families and school, and provide learning opportunities for families and staff, targeting support between key transitional years

How will we identify programming needs and areas of interest from families?
To what extent can we build on virtual family engagement practices established from the past year?
To what extent can we partner with other schools or community organizations?
What are the multiple formats in which we can communicate the calendar of events?

Publish an inclusive family communication plan that is sensitive to culturally and linguistically diverse families and includes written, in-person, and virtual communication and engagement routines

What does survey data suggest are the ways families prefer to communicate?
How will families communicate questions or concerns with teachers? With school leaders?
Have we accounted for the translation and interpretation needs of our linguistically diverse families?
How will we monitor progress of the family communication plan and make adjustments as needed?
How have we accounted for research that suggests regular text “nudges” about home learning activities can raise achievement for multiple age groups (Lynch and Hill 2021)?

Publish a monthly student progress monitoring routine families and students can access to monitor student growth toward goals

How will families receive ongoing updates on their child’s academic and social-emotional progress throughout the year?
What are the 2-3 most important data points that will be consistently shared and monitored throughout the year?
To what extent do families have multiple way to access progress monitoring updates and student growth toward goals?

Give a survey on family partnerships

What key survey measures will inform our planning for SY22-23? Consider a family-school relationship survey, such as one offered by Panorama.
Have we considered family preferences and multiple modalities for administering a survey (e.g. email, social media, paper, phone call, in-person, focus group, etc.)?
How will we monitor survey completion to ensure as many families and diverse voices are included in the results?
To what extent are we providing translation and interpretation services for our linguistically diverse families?

Conduct EOY stepback to review data, and determine adjustments

To what extent did our family engagement programming, communication, and other strategies have the desired impact?
What does data (e.g. surveys, engagement, attendance) suggest are major lessons learned?
What adjustments will we make as a result of our findings?

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