Partnership Interview

For this interview on families and partnership, I interviewed Mrs. Desarae Richards, an

ESL teacher at Waterman Elementary School. Mrs. Richards started out as a dual-language

teacher on the Spanish side for about four years in first grade, and last year she recently switched

to ESL. She currently works with first grade and kindergarten language learners.  

The first question I asked Mrs. Richards was what were some good practices for teachers

to develop to establish a partnership with their families. Mrs. Richards explained the importance

of establishing relationships with students and families at the beginning of the school year. She

went on to explain how at school events like Meet the Teacher, she would provide a survey for

each family to fill out. This survey consisted of general information to get to know them and

especially their preferred method of communication.  She stated that once she determined their

preferred method of communication, it was very easy to stay in contact and for families to reach

out to her. Mrs. Richards also allowed families to have her personal phone number, which is

something most teachers do not allow, but by doing this parents could freely contact her with

school-related issues or issues concerning their child that the teacher may need to be aware of.

By having a strong relationship with her students and their families, this provided insight into

possible issues or struggles the student is having within the classroom. 

Another good practice to develop with families is home visits. Mrs. Richards said that

Harrisonburg City Schools requires all teachers to do home visits. When it is time for parent-

teacher conferences, there is an option for families to come into school or the teachers can visit

the student’s home. Mrs. Richards explained that the visits are never conducted to talk about

behavior issues or anything negative, they are used to get to know the family more and their
home environment. She said that home visits are one of her favorite parts of the job, and one year

out of 40 students, they conducted 34 home visits. Students love seeing their teachers outside of

school and they get very excited when their teachers visit their homes. Home visits are a very

powerful and important piece of building partnerships with families. Her school also holds many

family-centered events throughout the school year. Each content area has a family night and the

whole family is encouraged to attend and participate. One event that Mrs. Richards mentioned

was Back to School Night. At this event, parents would first spend time with their child’s teacher

and then there was an area where different community organizations provided parents with

information and available resources they may need in the community.  I also asked Mrs.

Richards about the role her school plays in the community. She said that there are many events

that the school brings to the local community like the Mobile Cafe, dinner with their teacher, and

book giveaways in students’ neighborhoods. 

I then proceeded to ask Mrs. Richards what types of barriers existed in her school and

what she did to overcome those. She explained that language is one of the biggest barriers. In a

city like Harrisonburg, there are so many different languages that families speak at home and it

can be very hard to find people to help facilitate communication in all of those languages. Mrs.

Richards talked about how HCPS has home-school liaisons at every school and throughout the

city who speak the language, but there are some languages that are harder to find interpreters for.

When there is urgent communication needed in one of the languages that is not widely spoken,

Language Line is a tool she uses when she cannot wait for an interpreter to be provided by the

school.  She said this year since students are not at school with their teachers, each grade level

team has at least one bilingual person to assist in communication. Another barrier she mentioned

was time and schedules of families. All families have different jobs and schedules, which will
always be difficult for attendance at events. However, she said that if she knows certain families

will be working and cannot attend, she always reaches out to them to see if there is anything they

need or a way she can assist them. 

The last question I asked Mrs. Richards was the kind of resource families bring to her

school. She mentioned how her school's multicultural event was a way to see all of the family’s

cultures and their funds of knowledge. Families brought in food, wore traditional clothing,

performed dances, gave lessons on how to use chopsticks, and even how to write in their

language.  A survey was sent out asking parents what they would like to share and she said that

this event always had a large turnout and families were very eager to participate.  She mentioned

that this day was very special for students and families teaching others about their culture and

their pride, and other students learning about new cultures. She said that her students and

families bring such a rich cultural and linguistic background to her school, which provides

learning opportunities for all. 

This interview gave me lots of great insight and ideas to use as a future ESL teacher to

engage and build partnerships with my students and their families. My original plan for this

interview was to speak with a home-school liaison in HCPS, however after speaking with Mrs.

Richards, this demonstrated to me how crucial it is for the teacher to not just rely on liaisons to

make connections, but to take initiative and do it themselves. I really admire how much Mrs.

Richards does for her students and families and all the effort she makes to ensure they are

comfortable and informed.