A healthy school community is strengthened by an active partnership with families. Family engagement doesn’t mean helicopter parents dictating curriculum. It is defined by families and school staff working together to support and improve the learning, development, and health of children and adolescents.
When schools engage families, students’ success rates increase, not only academically but also socially. School districts with engaged parents and caregivers show improvement in test scores, social skills, and graduation rates. And the first step toward engagement is through a Parent and/or Family Engagement Survey.
What are the components of family engagement and involvement?
The National Network of Partnership Schools from Johns Hopkins University developed a framework for family engagement and involvement – the keys to successful partnerships between schools and caregivers and parents.
Parenting: Assist families to create a home environment conducive to learning. Assist schools in better understanding families.
Communicating: Conduct effective communication between school and home. Have strategic, multi-directional communication plans about school programs and student progress. Make it accessible. Provide communication materials in multiple languages and through various mediums (no, not everybody has mastered QR codes).
Volunteering: Organize volunteer opportunities to support the school and students. This can look like a lot of different things: set up for school events, work a concession stand at a sporting event, support newsletter editing, help prepare classroom materials, offer reading help, work at the school library, and more. There are many places caregivers can participate.
Learning at Home: Involve families in their child’s homework. Help families understand grading rubrics, curriculum decisions, and more, so they can better support their child.
Decision Making: Develop an active parent-teacher association with strong family leadership. Include your families when developing new projects and actions (based on surveys).
Collaborating with the Community: Be the information point on community services that can help your families thrive. This might be information about after-school programs, discounted prices on extracurricular activities, support for families with food insecurity, and more. Likewise, the school and families can share information about the services they provide to the community.
(Here is a printable version.)
What is a family engagement survey?
The family engagement survey helps schools understand parent perspectives on school climate, safety, teaching, and learning. Designed for families of students from preschool through high school, it strengthens family-school relationships, supports engagement, and guides actions to improve school culture and student success.
What are sample questions on a family engagement survey (parent engagement)?
Our parent questionnaire can provide your school and/or district with feedback about key attitudes families have regarding their child’s learning, learning environment, well-being, school safety, bullying, and community. Based on the data, your school and/or district can take actions to engage families and improve educational outcomes.
Sample Survey Items:
- My student’s teachers follow through on what they say they will do.
- There are adults at this school who care about my student and their future.
- My student is adequately challenged in their classes.
- Bullying or harassment of any sort is taken seriously and dealt with appropriately at my student’s school.
- My student has a clear understanding of the school rules and the consequences for breaking those rules.
How can a family engagement survey help my school and/or school district?
Our parent engagement survey provides your school and school district with actionable feedback, so you can better understand how your families are experiencing their child’s school and learning, and act on it.
An effective family survey can:
1. Identify barriers that prevent families from participating in and attending school events. This could be anything from transportation and scheduling to the need for childcare. Oftentimes, schools mistake absences for disinterest when they are actually rooted in logistics.
2. Evaluate programs and policies to assess their effectiveness. A survey can help your school and district leaders get a pulse on anything from communication and the lunch program to family workshops and school safety policies.
3. Inform strategic planning with the feedback from your school community. Get actionable data from families regarding school safety, the curriculum, leadership, and other key issues. Based on this data, you can implement meaningful actions.
4. Increase family engagement. Studies show that the act of listening to your school community and acting on survey results helps improve family engagement. Families will feel heard and valued.
5. Improve school climate and culture by getting the pulse of how families feel about the school environment – whether it’s welcoming and inclusive, providing their child with a healthy culture to learn and thrive.
Engaging and involving families in meaningful ways is key to leading the way to educational equity. Parents and caregivers want to be involved. With CustomInsight for Schools’ online survey for families, you can engage your community of caregivers and families and improve school safety, school climate, and learning results. You simply need to start by asking.
Ask. Listen. Act.
