Dimensions of family-school partnerships, including parent-teacher relationship quality and family educational involvement, are associated with positive outcomes for youth. Family-school partnerships are important for autistic youth, who may particularly benefit from cross-setting supports. Coordinated family-school partnerships may help maximize…

Families are their children's first educators. From birth, families nurture their children to be healthy and successful in school and in life. Head Start and Early Head Start program staff share these goals and partner with families as they work to meet these goals. There are unique ways in which these partnerships matter for children who speak…

Public libraries are ideal contexts for supporting child development and family involvement (Families and Work Institute, 2015; IMLS, 2013). Families with children often attend public libraries to participate in educational programming and experiences, yet university-based developmental scientists who study how people develop and adapt across the…

Innovation often means finding new ways to make better use of resources that already exist in our communities. A new initiative to connect schools and libraries was just the right catalyst to enhance family engagement. The New York Public Library (NYPL), which has 88 neighborhood branches across The Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, was one…

Family and Community Partnerships: Promising Practices for Teachers and Teacher Educators, offers a fresh new look at the competencies, strategies, and practices that effective educators develop to build strong partnerships with families and communities. Written by leaders in the field, the book is an outgrowth of a cutting-edge initiative led by…

When K-12 schools in California closed for in-person instruction in response to COVID-19 in March 2020, few would have predicted that most schools would remain physically closed for more than one year. Throughout this period, California's educators and students have continued teaching and learning remotely for the most part, demonstrating…

Tamara is a single mother of two children, Isaiah (2 years old) and RaShawn (5 years old). She recently noticed that Isaiah was not developing in the same ways his older brother did when he was Isaiah's age. Unsure of where to go with her concerns about Isaiah's development, Tamara contacted a local University child development center that…

Using a national sample of 155 school counselors, we examined the relationships between school counselors' personal and environmental factors and their involvement in partnerships with families of color. We found positive correlations between school counselor self-efficacy, multicultural competence, and involvement in partnerships. Multiple…

Together with Teach to Lead, a project guided by teacher leaders at the U.S. Department of Education and ASCD, we took a look at the first-ever family engagement summit, which provided a structured model for actively engaging families alongside educators, administrators, and community partners. This report highlights the voices of summit…

This study explores how a community initiative supports and advances a college-success culture in the African-American community. Research about creating and sustaining a college-going culture and a college-success culture within secondary schools and universities with a goal of increasing degree attainment is plentiful. However, a lack of focus…

The community school model is a strategy for addressing educational and place-based inequities. Our case study of a community school in Pennsylvania examines the role of the principal in leading toward authentic partnerships with families and community organizations. Our findings demonstrate how the school principal's approach to partnerships…

Public media stations play a powerful part in connecting families with broadcast and digital resources, local activities, and events that inspire children to learn about the topics that excite them most. The Families Learning Across Boundaries (FamLAB) Project surveyed more than 400 library professionals, 1,550 parents, and 600 pre-K through grade…

This study investigated the theoretical frameworks used to frame research on family-school partnerships over a five-year period. Although many researchers have described their theoretical approaches, little has been written about the diversity of frameworks used and how they are applied. Coders analyzed 215 journal articles published from 2007 to…

Presently, over 40 states in the U.S. have legislation in place to promote professional development in family engagement in school districts. Some of these states also have a mandate in place that preservice teachers are required to take a course in family engagement to obtain teacher licensure. This has spurred an interest in how various…

After receiving a multiyear federal grant, an urban school district and community agency that focused on family literacy implemented a comprehensive school reform initiative called Providence Full Service Community Schools (PFSCS). A host of community partners collaborated to develop the PFSCS model with the broad goal of strategically connecting…