New Family & Community Engagement Toolkit Available on Agency Website

Purpose of Family & Community Engagement 
To ensure that the students of today are ready for the careers of tomorrow, families, schools and community groups need to work together to promote engagement that is systemic, sustained and integrated into school improvement efforts. 

Research over the past 30 years has shown that engaging families in their children’s education increases student achievement and decreases dropout rates. Effective family engagement is not a one-time program or the choice of a good school, but rather a set of day-to-day practices, attitudes, beliefs and interactions that support learning at home, at school, after school and during the summer. - SEDL National Center for Family and Community Connections with Schools 

Family & Community Engagement ties directly Heartland AEA’s goals: Growth, Gaps, Graduation and Gateways. “The evidence is consistent, positive and convincing: families have a major influence on their children’s achievement. (Gaps) When schools, families and community groups work together to support learning, children tend to do better in school, stay in school longer and like school more.” (Growth/Graduation) This statement summarizes the conclusions of A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family and Community Connections on Student Achievement, the most recent comprehensive review of the research. 

Key findings include: 

• Students whose families are involved in their learning earn better grades, enroll in higher-level programs, have higher graduation rates and are more likely to enroll in post-secondary education. (Graduation/Gateways) 
• When families take an active interest in what they’re learning, students display more positive attitudes towards school and behave better both in and out of school. 
• Children do best if parents can play a variety of roles in their learning: helping at home, volunteering at school, planning their children’s future and taking part in key decisions about the school program. 
• Children from diverse cultural backgrounds tend to do better when families and school staff join forces to bridge the gap between home and school cultures. 

Purpose of the FCE Toolkit Family engagement is a shared responsibility of families, schools, and communities for student learning and achievement; it is continuous from birth to young adulthood; and it occurs across multiple settings where children learn. Toward that end, the Family & Community Engagement Toolkit provides users with resources, tools and opportunities to: 

• Connect (make positive connections with families) 
• Engage (create opportunities for families to be fully engaged) 
• Sustain (strategies for staying connected and keeping families/community engaged) How can the toolkit help? 

How can we put these findings into action? 

• Recognize that all parents—regardless of income, education or cultural background are involved in their children’s learning and want their children to do well. 
• Design programs that will support families to guide their children’s learning, from preschool through high school. 
• Develop the capacity of school staff to work with families. 
• Link efforts to engage families, whether based at school or in the community, to student learning. 
• Focus efforts to engage families and community members on developing trusting and respectful relationships. 
• Embrace a philosophy of partnership and be willing to share power with families. 
• Make sure that parents, school staff and community members understand that the responsibility for children’s educational development is a collaborative enterprise.  
• Build strong connections between schools and community organizations.
•  Include families in all strategies to reduce the achievement gap among white, middle-class students and low-income students and students of color. 

If you have any questions about the toolkit or its contents, contact Terry Mendell, Lead Parent Coordinator, at tmendell@heartlandaea.org or ext. 17135.