Taking Leadership, Innovating Change

Profiles in Family, School, and Community Engagement

National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group

In response to increased attention to innovation, the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group compiled 12 examples of leading innovations in the family involvement field to advance student learning. These examples provide a snapshot, rather than a comprehensive listing, of some breakthrough strategies; they represent an array of approaches to reforming schools and improving student success.

Each of the featured family engagement examples grew from problem solving, attention to family experiences, and constant refinement in the context of emerging opportunities and challenges. Many of these innovations were created by community organizations, universities, or education advocates and conducted in partnership with schools and families. They attest to the capacity for creative solutions to emerge locally and bubble up for broader replication.

As a set, these innovations represent a vision of family, school, and community engagement as a shared responsibility and a continuous process that occurs wherever children learn and throughout their development into young adults. These innovations engage families along a continuum, drawing hard-to-engage parents (Tellin' Stories), supporting and reinforcing involved families (FAST), and empowering parent leaders to transform schools (CIPL).

We chose individual programs that tackle some of today's critical education issues: closing the achievement gap from early childhood (Project EAGLE), engaging underserved cultural communities (PIQE), developing effective teachers (Grow Your Own), engaging families in math education (MAPPS), using student data to support college readiness (New Visions), and building state (Federal PIRC program) and district (Miami-Dade) capacity for effective family engagement.

See this month's Harvard Family Research Project webinar on family, school, and community engagement in education reform, part of a series on involving the community in school.

Read the full report. 

ASCD Express, Vol. 5, No. 21. Copyright 2010 by ASCD. All rights reserved. Visit www.ascd.org/ascdexpress.