WHAT IS TRANSFORMATIVE FAMILY ENGAGEMENT?
Transformative family engagement is a shared effort of families, schools, and community leaders to advance programs, practices, and policies that empower every parent to make their child’s potential a reality.
WHY IS TRANSFORMATIVE FAMILY ENGAGEMENT IMPORTANT?
The world our children are educated in is changing. Communities are becoming more diverse all the time. Families are constantly barraged with new challenges raising their children. In addition, how and what schools teach children is constantly shifting and families are connecting with information and with one another in new ways.
PTA research shows that our members want more for the organization. They want the focus to be on their child. They want to have a clear understanding of the purpose and impact of their PTA. They are also interested in engagement opportunities that are not time intensive and they want better use of millennial communication preferences.
Family engagement matters for student success, but some kinds of engagement matter more. The latest research also shows that family engagement is just as important as a high quality principal and a rigorous curriculum and that struggling schools are more likely to “beat the odds” when they excel at family engagement. (Source: Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago a longitudinal study of 600 schools and showing five key ingredients for improving schools.)
HOW CAN YOU MAKE YOUR FAMILY ENGAGEMENT EFFORTS MORE TRANSFORMATIVE?
These four principles of transformative family engagement can be used as a guide to evaluate your current efforts or your future planning.
We know we are making the most of our time volunteering and the families at our school's limited time by checking how our day-to-day family engagement efforts line up to these 4 I's of Transformative Family Engagement.
It is important to make sure we are being Inclusive by embracing and valuing diverse perspectives in our PTAs. All parents should feel that they are valued and that their point of view matters. Consider each of these important aspects when considering whether your PTA is being truly inclusive.
We also need to Individualize our approach so we meet the unique needs of every family and parents feel like the PTA’s efforts are relevant to them and to their child. Consider each of these important aspects when considering whether your PTA is doing their best to individualize their plans and efforts.
Our family engagement efforts also need to be Integrated with the school. Integrated transformative family engagement will ensure that parents at your school will feel that your PTA’s programs contribute to their child’s classroom and school priorities. Consider these three important elements of integration.
The final I in the transformative family engagement model is Impactful. Impactful family engagement efforts empower parents to support their student’s success. Impactful family engagement includes these three things.
HOW CAN WE SUPPORT FAMILY ENGAGEMENT WITHIN OUR PTA'S?
- Create a Family Engagement Leadership Team - Invite your principal, SCC chair, teachers, and leaders of community organizations.
- Add someone to your board who is responsible for family engagement efforts. Appoint/elect someone to be over family engagement and ensure that family engagement values are considered in all you do.
- Advocate to make your school’s family engagement efforts more transformative by reviewing the 4 I’s as you evaluate current plans and programs or look to create new ones at your school.
- Stay focused on the mission of PTA to help make every child’s potential a reality. Make this the “why” of all you do in PTA.