Parent Engagement that Best Serves your Community

In the last week I have presented in 4 different cities…at staff meetings, school improvement meetings, and a district-wide parent engagement meeting. Everywhere I go, educators are clamoring for help. Teachers and administrators know they need to get parents engaged in schools, but they’re not really sure how to do it. I would love to say that I have all the answers, but I really don’t. I, like you, have many questions still. How do we develop thriving PTA’s? How do we meet the needs of our students whose families are in economic crisis? How do we find funding to provide the necessary resources for all of our families… and even our schools?

There are no easy answers to these questions, no silver bullets. I wish I could leave every presentation knowing that I have left families and educators with every answer to every question, with the ability to create a successful situation for every child tomorrow, but I am not superwoman (although I would love to be), nor am I God. What I do know is that most of these answers reside within the members of a community. What I can bring is a new perspective about who should be around the table at school improvement meetings and PTA meetings. I may not have the answers, but I believe I can bring the right questions, which will hopefully lead a community to find the answers that will best serve that community.

Although it would be much easier to have one clear answer, I think there is great danger in the cookie-cutter mentality - that there is one way to engage parents, one way to engage students of color in their learning, one way to develop family-community-school partnerships. I am hoping with CISL that we can provide you with such a variety of best practices that as we facilitate conversations with your educators, your families, your community leaders, you will learn about those practices that best match the needs of your environment.