Family Engagement

Introduction

On average, three times a year parents and teachers meet to discuss students’ academic progress, classroom behavior and school-wide initiatives. These are called parent-teacher conferences and they have been an integral part of family engagement practices in schools for years. Examples of school’s belief in this theory include events such as Meet the Teacher Night, Back to School Night, Parent Teacher Organization, parent-teacher conferences and ongoing communication (Halgunseth, Peterson, Stark, Moodie, 2009). Parent-teacher conferences are one of the most common used method of communication with families today across the nation. School districts designate days for them and expect all teachers to participate in them. Therefore,

When referring to family engagement in this article I will be referring to The National Family Association for Family School and Community Engagement (NFASCE) definition. NFASCE (2010) defines family engagement as a shared responsibility between schools, community agencies and families in which families are committed to actively supporting their children's learning and development. Family engagement occurs when there is an ongoing, reciprocal, strengths-based partnership between families and their children’s early childhood education programs (NFACSC

In the literature review written by Christenson et al (1999) numerous studies were identified that support the positive impact of family engagement on student and school outcomes. Christenson et al (1999) identified five factors that affect student achievement: parent expectations and attributions, structure for learning, home affective environment, discipline, and parent involvement. The review also discussed research conducted by Epstein (1991) which found that students have greater achievement gains in literacy when their teachers intentionally and purposefully emphasize family involvement, compare to those who do not. A study done by the U.S Department of Education (2001) found that teachers who were active in their outreach to parents of low achieving students saw a 50% high growth in reading test scores than students whose teachers and schools reported low levels of parent outreach. In the same study, math scores were 40% higher for students whose teachers reported high levels of parental outreach than students in whose teachers reported low levels of parental outreach activities (USDE,