Several decades of research has generated a near-consensus on the link between positive student outcomes and effective engagement between educators and families. Despite the widespread acknowledgement of this connection, many educators continue to struggle to engage families in ways that are both culturally responsive and sensitive to power…

Home-school communication is fundamental to parent involvement and student success. This essay and discussion article outlines the broad range of opportunities currently available for teachers to communicate with parents and associated strategies. The most frequent one-way modes of communication used with parents are discussed (websites,…

Family engagement is considered to be a cornerstone of successful universal prekindergarten (PreK) implementation. Using data from interviews with mothers, this study investigates the different ways families are engaged in their child's PreK experience. Multiple themes emerged from the interviews, including: family engagement, parents' knowledge…

This case study focuses on one district's process of continuous improvement in family engagement. The improvement effort addresses the point at which family engagement tends to decline precipitously and students are particularly vulnerable--the transition into high school. In this article we analyze the implementation of a continuous improvement…

Family involvement in a child's education is vital to student success. This article presents qualitative findings from a more extensive study that examined family participation within a Response to Intervention (RtI) framework for K-1 grade students receiving Tier 2 reading interventions. RtI is a problem-solving tiered framework designed to…

A community-based, multisite study using mixed methods examined the experiences and perspectives of Latino students and families in a low performing urban school district in New York State. This research project was spearheaded by a Latino Education Task Force which brought together multiple stakeholders in a collaborative effort to counteract…

A research study including 200 preservice teacher candidates in their junior and senior years of study at a public state university in Pennsylvania examined their knowledge and competencies in establishing family-school partnerships. The study found that preservice teacher candidates were aware of the many positive outcomes and barriers associated…