Family Engagement: Resource Roundup

Ideas for Getting Started

• New Teachers: Working With Parents: Find ideas to help teachers engage and build trust with families. (Edutopia, 2016)
• The Beginners' Guide to Connecting Home and School: Discover five steps to engage parents, whether through at-home activities or in-class participation. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Five-Minute Film Festival: Parent-Teacher Partnerships: Watch this video playlist on parent engagement for ideas on fostering strong parent-teacher relationships. (Edutopia, Updated 2014)
• 12 Conversation Starters on What Parents Want You (Teachers) to Know: Put yourself in parents' shoes with this list of 12 conversations teachers should be having. (Edutopia, 2013)
• Building Parent-Teacher Relationships: Check out a guide to effective parent-teacher relationships, including sections on benefits, communication strategies, and phone guidelines. (Reading Rockets)
• Family Engagement Toolkit: Discover a variety of helpful readings, resources, and downloads for welcoming linguistically and culturally diverse parents. (Teaching Tolerance)

Teacher-Tested Strategies and Tips

• 9 Tips for Organizing Family Conferences: Review steps to make family conferences welcoming and efficient like smart scheduling, sending questions in advance, keeping student materials on hand, and thinking like a parent. (Edutopia, 2015)
• 3 Ways to Make Meaningful Connections With Your Students: To have a better sense of your students' lives outside of school, consider setting time aside to get to know them outside of class. (Edutopia, 2015)
• Kitchen Table Connections (or 5 Ideas to Re-Envision Homework): Discover how homework can be used to bring bridges between students’ home lives and school lives. (Edutopia, 2015)
• 8 Tips for Reaching Out to Parents: Discover eight tips for engaging with parents, from avoiding confrontation and communicating clearly, to earning their trust on back-to-school night and coaching their children's after-school activities. (Edutopia, Updated 2015)
• Home Visits: Reaching Beyond the Classroom: Get to know your students and strengthen the home-school partnership with these seven tips for reaching out to parents and meeting families. (Edutopia, 2014)
• 5 Tips for Engaging Parent Volunteers in the Classroom: Read about obstacles to and success strategies for engaging parent volunteers in the classroom. (Edutopia, 2013)

Effective Communication Is Key

• Tech-Enhanced Parent Engagement: Use email, messaging apps, websites, or virtual office hours to keep parents in the loop about what’s going on in the classroom. (Edutopia, 2016)
• Back-to-School Night: The Ultimate Conversation Starter for a Successful School Year: When establishing that first contact with parents on back-to-school night, start the year right by being transparent, direct, and consistent. (Edutopia, Updated 2015)
• The Power of the Positive Phone Call Home: Discover how positive phone calls with students' families can transform your classroom dynamics. (Edutopia, Updated 2015)
• Empathy and Research: Engaging Parents With Tech Initiatives: Welcome parents into the conversation, listen to their concerns, and make them part of the solution. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Engaging and Communicating With Parents: a Teacher Guide: Explore different educator perspectives in this collection of articles about communicating effectively with parents. (Education Week Teacher, 2015)
• Parent-Teacher Communications: Everything You Need: Find resources, ideas, and practices for parent-teacher conferences, open houses, newsletters, and more. (Scholastic) 

Top Tips for School Leaders

• Family Engagement: Engaging the Disengaged: Start with listening to understand the causes of parent disengagement. (Edutopia, 2016)
• How Can High Poverty Schools Engage Families and the Community?: Explore seven strategies and practices to build trust between schools, students, and families. (Edutopia, 2016)
• 8 Ways to Encourage Family Engagement in Secondary Schools: Read about various ways that schools can reach out to and engage families. (Edutopia, 2016)
• Maintaining School-to-Home Ties in the High School Years: Commit to a tiered communication strategy that leverages both the power of technology and personal interactions. (Edutopia, 2015)
• Homework vs. No Homework Is the Wrong Question: Read about the home activities that matter the most for student learning and development and the role that parents play in them, as your school considers homework policies. (Edutopia, 2015)

How Parents Can Get Involved

• Back-to-School Resources for Parents: Find resources to help children begin school with a positive mindset, support their transition into a new school year, and prepare them for fall learning. (Edutopia, Updated 2016)
• Myths That Undermine Parent Involvement: See how parents can partner effectively by supporting home learning, establishing constructive dialogue with educators and policy makers, and shining as individuals within their community. (Edutopia, 2016)
• 5-Minute Film Festival: Building a Parent Toolkit: Check out a few of the best videos and tools for parents of kids at every age and grade from the Parent Toolkit website. (Edutopia, 2015)
• 19 Proven Tips for Getting Parents Involved at School: Browse through proven strategies, courtesy of parents and educators in the Edutopia and GreatSchools online communities, for strengthening the connection between home and school. (Edutopia and GreatSchools, 2014)
• Parents: 19 Meaningful Questions You Should Ask Your Child's Teacher: Consider asking one or more of these 19 meaningful questions at the beginning of the school year. (Edutopia, 2013)