Family and Community Engagement: August Roundtable Report

In August 2023, Principal Project brought together school and district leaders who’ve demonstrated expertise in family engagement to discuss leading student engagement for school and student success. Throughout the conversation, leaders shared their approaches to creating inclusive school communities through staff buy-in, fostering open-door policies and adapting to feedback and challenges.

This panel brought together the following leaders:

Panelists represented various geographies and priority states, including New York, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Virginia and Illinois. Similarly, schools and districts of various school size and grade levels were represented – ranging from a PK-5 elementary school to an elementary school with 1200+ students to middle school and school district perspectives. Thus, a diverse array of student populations were also represented – especially in terms of race, ethnicity, language and socio-economic status. Panelists serve in various roles within school and district leadership and administration, including a newly emerging role, District ESL Liaison (or Family Liaison), is a position specifically dedicated to serving and connecting with 500+ families whose home language is not English – and most commonly Spanish.

Panel moderators were given these questions in advance.

Core question 1: How do you welcome new families to your school community during BTS – and how do you get your team involved? 

 

Panelist Insights:
  • Panelists spoke to the importance of year-round connection with families, culture-building and staff buy-in.
  • The relatively new, still quite niche role of District ESL Family Liaison or District Family Liaison was mentioned as being critical to school success, particularly in connecting families of various cultures and backgrounds to individual school leadership at the beginning of a school year. 
Panelist Quotes:
  • “We’re not asking [teachers] to be [at the Back-To-School-Bash event] as workers. We’re asking them to be there almost like attendees. So they’re coming, and they’re bringing their families, and they’re mingling and interacting while [principals are] the ones running around sweating and taking care of everything because we want them to be able to spend time with the community and their families.” —Assistant Principal in Illinois  
  • “We allocate a certain portion of funds from our Title I funding to paying teachers to be onsite [at our summer BTS event] just to ensure that we’re adequately staffed. Like today … we probably had 10 teachers show up that weren’t paid. But we made sure … that we had at least six paid staff, and we rotate those paid positions throughout the year, and we’re able to do that with some of our title grants.” —Elementary Principal in New York
  • “It’s not like we say goodbye [to families] at the end of May or the beginning of June and then welcome back in August. We’re constantly engaging throughout. So it’s not necessarily a huge welcome back because we’ve been in touch, we’ve been connecting, you’re just happening to rejoin us.” —Assistant Principal in Illinois  
  • “We really know our students from elementary school through middle through high school. So parents trust us. That’s been key to our success … we’re learning constantly about families before they even get to us.” —Middle School Principal in Virginia 
  • “As a new principal, feedback from stakeholder surveys included that they didn’t really feel like they knew my predecessor. So I’ve started visiting my feeder elementary schools quarterly to get to know those families so that they come to us. They’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, we’ve seen you at all these other events and just kind of popping in.’ Suddenly they feel like I go to everything. I really don’t. But it’s like, ‘Oh, hey.’ They feel very connected.” —Middle School Principal in Virginia 
  • “Our family liaison is key for our success, and everyone knows her. We joke that if you don’t know our family liaison, you don’t actually live in our town of Herndon because she’s so well-connected. And oftentimes I have families calling her, and then she’s connecting me with them. So that’s an essential part of our [initial] connection.” —Middle School Principal in Virginia 

Core question 2: How do you ensure family communication is two-way? What are one or two strategies that have really worked in making families feel comfortable reaching out to you?

Panelist Insights:
  • Panelists emphasized the role of trust in engaging with families. Specifically, leaders spoke to the importance of aligning words and actions, maintaining a consistent communication loop, fostering an open-door policy and adapting to feedback.  
Panelist Quotes:
  • “You’re going to get a newsletter that gets sent out on the third Friday of every month. You’re consistent with that … when you create systems that families begin to trust, that’s a common theme, and [families] understand, they’re better able to access the information, and then the more comfortable they are, the more likely they are to reach out to us and engage in that two-way communication.” —Elementary Principal in New York
  • “So anytime that [families] come into the building … they’ll see one of the administrators … [of 1,200 students]. I know about every parent by face at this point. I’ve seen so many parents. I’ve seen so many students. I may not know the students’ names, but I can tell you what grade level that they’re in and who their homeroom teachers are. I can definitely tell you that.” —Elementary Assistant Principal in Georgia
  • “I think being open to feedback, listening to parents [and considering the questions]: Where are we missing some of these families? Where are they choosing to engage, and how can we hit on messaging in different pathways so they don’t feel like we’re just not communicating? Because that’s really not the case. The question is, ‘Where would they like to engage with us? Okay, let’s do that there.’” —Middle School Principal in Virginia 
  • “If you say you’re going to do something, you have to do it. You have to make sure you follow up. Then … families are going to be more comfortable to reach out to you.” —Elementary Principal in Florida

Core questions 3 and 4: How can leaders move from “family engagement” toward a school culture in which families are fully embedded? What’s been the most challenging aspect of truly engaging families with their students’ learning and the culture of your school?

Panelist Insights:
  • Panelists emphasized proactive communication and connection with all families unique to their school community.
  • Panelists underscored the importance of affirming the realities and experiences common to the families in their school community.
  • Panelists discussed varied perspectives on the role of social media – displaying an intimate understanding of its power and potential effects within the scope of their work.
  • Leaders face challenges in “controlling the narrative,” especially in communities facing external challenges – such as poverty and exposure to violence. 
Panelist Quotes:
  • “We noticed that [sending periodic ‘Remind’ messages] was really successful. Three weeks before the [end of the] nine-week grading period, I was sending Reminds to parents. ‘Parents, don’t forget to check your kids’ parent portal for any missing assignments.’ And we saw a big, big change in grades because parents know about these, and, with enough time, can help their kids complete any missing assignments.” —District ESL Liaison in Texas
  • “I lead what’s called All-Pro Dad meetings, and these meetings take place in the mornings … we promote it on our morning show … I facilitate and lead this consistently at 6:30 in the morning. So by me doing that and by the faculty and staff and the students seeing that, now the dads are coming in, and now through that, I’m teaching the dads how to have conversations with students’ teachers about what’s going on academically. And now I’m seeing more men be visible on campus … when you have dads also visible on campus, it takes it, in my opinion, to another level of being fully invested in the school community.” —Elementary Assistant Principal in Georgia
  • “[As an] ESL liaison, [part of] my job was to have two sessions every month with parents. We’d have these sessions to try to invite parents to come to the school, and we’d say, for example, ‘Okay, we’re going to show you step by step how to use the parent portal.’ We explained to them about dual credit, [etc.]”—District ESL Liaison in Texas
  • “I think, also, the kids have to see themselves in the curriculum, and the families have to see themselves in the school. A hard truth of some underserved communities is that the adults in the community didn’t have a positive school experience, so they’re already sending their kids into our doors every single day, not trusting us, not trusting our systems, because we did them wrong. So how are we going to create a space where they can challenge authority, where they can ask questions, where they can actively contribute, where they feel like they’re helping to build something?” —Elementary Principal in New York
  • “One thing that’s been essential to us is [a program] we call Community Neighbors … which is a key piece to any of the research that you read about family engagement. It pulls in leaders within the community. Oftentimes, that’s faith-based leaders or that’s people who are viewed as senior leaders within a community … and they come together alongside the principals, the family liaison … and in learning together alongside some of our district supports and really brainstorming, ‘What is the community seeing as a need? What are we as a school seeing as a need?’ [Then addressing] how we can be better about connecting knowledge, resources, et cetera, each month. That’s been really powerful for us to take [family engagement] deeper, where it’s not just parents, kids and principal. It’s really truly the community.” —Middle School Principal in Virginia 
  • “A lot of our families who weren’t really reading our newsletter, they’re on a Facebook page that had long kind of died, and we were trying to revitalize that, and we put [the newsletter] on there, and suddenly they’re engaging with us.” —Middle School Principal in Virginia 
  • “Our students are on Instagram, our families are on Facebook and we as professionals, at least where I’m from, are on Twitter, and understanding where your audience is helps control that narrative and helps you drop different nuggets and tailor the narrative to the audience that you’re trying to communicate with.” —Elementary Principal in New York
  • “Your actions or your recommendations are your résumé. So whatever you’re doing is going to be communicated by someone else about what you’re doing at your school, in your community, your church, whatever. So your actions have to align with your words.” —Elementary Assistant Principal in Georgia
  • “I’m not a big Facebook person. I got rid of it once I went into a school administration … [families are] creeping on every little page that you follow … they just want to know, ‘Hey, can I trust you with my kids?’ … I can control that through Twitter. I control the narrative of: I promote heavily what our school’s doing. What am I doing to be an educational leader? And then I sprinkle in some [of my own] kids and husband.” —Middle School Principal in Virginia 
  • “Families and people want to see who you are outside of work now … who do you hang out with? What type of music do you listen to? Are you a faith-based person? Do you go to church? … so I know, with me, social media is an opportunity for me to tell my narrative … and be very transparent on who I am in the building and outside of the building. My values correlate. Whether I’m in the building or out of the building, they are always aligned.” —Elementary Principal in Florida
  • “As amazing as our school might be, the reality is that we live in a rough community. And so, within the last calendar year, we had eight students who were shot. We lost three. We’re the first school on the West Side who has tennis courts. We had this huge event to announce, ‘We’re trying to bring tennis to the West Side. A guy who coached Venus and Serena has a tennis place. He came out, and he funded it and opened it, and one news station showed up. We did a men’s health event in November to promote men’s health, especially within the Black community. It’s a thing we don’t do. We don’t take care of ourselves. And so we had blood pressure screenings and diabetes screenings, and we did all this. Nobody came out. Because the idea is, ‘Well, the kids at Michelle Clark get shot.’ Or ‘kids at Michelle Clark are doing it.’ And it’s like, no, they’re unfortunately, more often than not, victims of the community. They’re victims of that space. They just so happen to be students at our school … so Facebook blows up with that, and parents see that, right? So it becomes very, very hard as we’re trying to pump out all the positives, ‘Look at all the things that we’re doing,’ and really try to challenge and counter the narratives that exist out there … how do we regain and constantly stay ahead of that narrative and pump that out so that parents trust us, support us, and when we’re sharing information, that they’re not filtering it through all of that and that they’re hearing us directly.” —Assistant Principal in Illinois