Blog Post [ELM#1039] Transform Your School’s Approach to Family Engagement

As educational leaders, we often ask ourselves this crucial question, yet many of our well-intentioned efforts fall short. In my years working with school districts across the country, I’ve witnessed both tremendous successes and heartbreaking missed opportunities in family engagement efforts.

Authentic Engagement Through Cultural Humility

Strengthening partnerships with families from underrepresented groups requires more than translated flyers and annual multicultural nights.

It demands a fundamental shift toward authentic engagement built on cultural humility, shared decision-making power, and systems designed for equitable access.

Successful partnerships emerge when schools recognize families as essential collaborators in education—not merely recipients of information. This means creating spaces where diverse family voices actively shape school policies, practices, and culture.

Common Challenges Schools Face

Before discussing solutions, let’s examine where many schools are challenged:

The Information Dump

Many schools pride themselves on “communication” that amounts to one-way information sharing. We send newsletters, emails, and automated calls, then wonder why families don’t respond. This approach treats families as passive recipients rather than valued partners.

Cultural Blindness

“We treat everyone the same” might sound fair, but it overlooks critical cultural differences that impact how families interact with schools. Standardized approaches often center on dominant cultural norms, creating invisible barriers for many families.

Deficit Thinking

Too often, low engagement from specific communities is attributed to families “not caring about education” rather than examining how our systems might be unwelcoming or inaccessible. This damaging mindset prevents us from addressing the real barriers to progress.

Tokenism

Having a single “opportunity night” or translating a few documents doesn’t constitute meaningful engagement. These surface-level efforts can actually damage trust if not backed by more profound structural changes.

The Change Required

Meaningful partnership begins with a mindset shift:

• From Expert to Learner: Approach families with genuine curiosity about their experiences, perspectives, and knowledge about their children.
• From Fixing to Partnering: Rather than “helping” families overcome perceived deficits, work collaboratively to build on community strengths.
• From Compliance to Commitment: Move beyond checking engagement boxes to fostering authentic relationships that enrich the educational experience.
• From Uniformity to Equity: Recognize that equitable engagement means different approaches for different communities based on their specific needs and barriers.

Five Effective Methods for Strengthening Partnerships

1. Conduct Community Listening Sessions – Host small gatherings in community spaces where families feel at ease. Rather than presenting information, focus on asking questions and genuinely listening to responses. As Dr. Karen Mapp notes, “Engagement efforts must begin with parents’ priorities and needs, not the school’s agenda.”
2. Develop a Community Leadership Team – Create a team with significant representation from underrepresented groups, providing stipends when possible to value their time and expertise. Give this team meaningful decision-making power over engagement strategies and relevant policies.
3. Implement Home Visiting Programs – When done with cultural sensitivity and proper training, home visiting creates powerful connections between educators and families. These visits should focus on building relationships, not on compliance.
4. Redesign Traditional Engagement Opportunities – Examine every aspect of your parent-teacher conferences, back-to-school nights, and family events through an equity lens. Consider factors such as timing, location, childcare, transportation, language access, and cultural relevance.
5. Incorporate Cultural Brokers – Identify respected community members who can serve as bridges between schools and families, helping navigate cultural differences and build trust in both directions.

A Fundamental Transformation

Remember, strengthening partnerships with underrepresented communities isn’t a program or initiative; it’s a fundamental transformation of how we view and value family participation in education.

I challenge each of you to take these three steps in the next month:

1. Schedule a community listening session in a neighborhood with historically low school engagement. Go with questions, not answers.
2. Audit your current family communication practices. How much is one-way versus two-way? How accessible is it to all families?
3. Identify one existing policy or practice that may unintentionally create barriers for certain families, and work with community representatives to redesign it.

When we approach this work with humility, persistence, and a willingness to share power, we create schools that truly serve all students and families.

#EducationalLeader,
Kim

“When students are led well, they learn well.”

References

• Auerbach, S. (2010). Beyond coffee with the principal: Toward leadership for authentic school-family partnerships. Journal of School Leadership.
• Epstein, J. L. (2018). School, family, and community partnerships: Preparing educators and improving schools (2nd ed.). Routledge.
• Mapp, K. L., & Kuttner, P. J. (2013). Partners in education: A dual capacity-building framework for family-school partnerships. SEDL.
• Khalifa, M. A. (2018). Culturally responsive school leadership. Harvard Education Press.
• Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race, Ethnicity, and Education.

The views shared in the Educational Leadership Moment are solely mine and do not reflect the positions of my employer or any entity within the local, state, or federal government sector.