What are good practices for teachers to develop to partner with families?

Before the school year starts, try to establish a relationship with the parents or guardians of
each student. This could be meeting parents in person during an Open House event or calling
parents if they are not able to make the in-person event. Ask parents for their preferred mode of
communication and let them know how they can get in touch with you. If parents don’t speak
English, find out how your school communicates with families who speak other languages.

What kinds of resources do families need and how do they get them?
Families need to know the expectations for their children and the type of participation that
parents would like. At Smithland, a significant percentage of our parents did not grow up going
through the U.S. school system. The expectations and roles of students, parents, and teachers
may be very different here than what they are used to. These parents may need a more careful,
step-by-step explanation of how your classroom systems work (homework, take home folders,
reading logs, etc.) to be able to give the supervision or guidance that their child needs at home.
In addition to this, at Smithland, we have tried to focus on 3 main questions that we want our
parents to be able to answer at all times: What is my child currently learning? How are they
doing in the learning process? What can I do at home to support my child?
This requires open communication between parents and teachers and helps if the whole school,
including administrators have the same goals.

What kinds of resources do families bring to your school and how?

I think the main resource that families bring is an intimate knowledge of their child. Parents are
the experts on their children. Parents can give key insights into developing strong relationships
with students that form the basis for learning. Parents also feel empowered and more open to
working with teachers when we ask them questions about their child and recognize their
expertise.

What barriers exist to family partnerships and what are some ways to overcome those
barriers?
One of the main barriers is language. Our school system has “liaison” who role is to facilitate
communication between parents and the school. We have liaisons for our main languages:
Spanish, Kurdish, Arabic, Russian, Tigrinya, and Swahili.

Another barrier is parents and teacher’s work schedules. Many parents work at jobs where they
can’t take a break to answer their phone, which makes communication during the work day
difficult. Teachers are also working all day and don’t have much time to make phone calls.
Making the effort to call a parent in the evening at home is tough after a long work day. I hope
that teachers get enough of a break during their planning time that they can reach out to families
by phone. If a message is short and doesn’t involve discipline or sensitive topics, text messages
work well and there are lots of apps like Seesaw, which allow teachers to communicate with
their whole class or message people individually.