Celebrating Partners in Education: School Administrators

By California State PTA Education Commission

Our kids’ education is a team effort! A collaborative partnership between families, teachers and school administrators who are dedicated to the well-being of all children and youth can strengthen family life and improve education outcomes for all students. 

California State PTA takes pride in celebrating October 10-16, 2021, as the “Week of the School Administrator”. Serving as role models in this new era of learning, school administrators are outstanding advocates who work together with families and the community to develop new visions for our schools and programs, spark innovation and inspiration for change, and support teachers in efforts to actively engage students in their own learning. 

Help Celebrate Administrators at Your School

We encourage unit PTA’s to celebrate the Week of the School Administrator by publicly recognizing the contributions that school principals and vice-principals make in creating quality educational opportunities and enhancing academic achievement for all. Here are a few ways to recognize your school administrators this week:

  • Create and display posters and fliers on campus to celebrate school leaders.
  • Provide a nutritious treat to your school site principal and administrators.
  • Give school leaders positive feedback by sending a thank-you note.
  • Give public comment in your next school board meeting thanking school administrators for the work they do.
  • Request that your school board adopt the Week of the School Administrator Resolution.

Family-School Partnership Standard #4: Speaking Up for Every Child

by Heather Ippolito, Vice President Family Engagement Commission

October 2021 Family Engagement

The fourth PTA National Standard for Family-School Partnerships calls for empowering families to speak up and advocate for their child and other children to ensure that students are treated fairly and have access to learning opportunities that will support their success.  

Families often need help in this area, as many don’t feel comfortable speaking up in school or district meetings. PTA and school administrators can do so much to help build confidence in our parents and caregivers. Here are a few ways you can help build capacity in this area:

Parents need to understand their rights and responsibilities. The California Department of Education oversees rights that are written into law as part of the California Education Code. Many families are unaware that they have the right to do things like review the curriculum their child is learning, observe their child in their classroom and participate in committees or councils at the school and district levels. School administrators and PTA units can help families understand these rights by doing annual information nights in multiple languages, including these rights in newsletters or on the website, and advertising opportunities for parent engagement in the committees and councils.

As issues arise on your campus, your PTA can host discussions for parents, students, teachers, staff, and administrators to come together and work toward solutions. Having all parties in a room together can spark creative solutions to issues and allow everyone to feel heard and involved.

Provide families with advocacy training. Advocacy is a scary term for many parents, but at the school level, advocacy can be as simple as asking your teacher for a resource your child needs or sharing a concern with the school principal. Show parents that all forms of advocacy small at the school site or larger efforts like speaking to legislators are welcomed and needed for our children to succeed. 

Families need to understand how the school system works. Who do they talk to if they have concerns about their child? When should they involve the principal? What offices at the district office are there to support student learning? California State PTA has the School Smarts Family Engagement Program that, over seven sessions, helps families at your school answer those questions and build capacity for greater advocacy and involvement. You can get more information about this program by emailing programsupport@capta.org 

You can download the comprehensive document PTA National Standards for Family-School Partnerships, or get started with this brief summary. You might also want to share our previous blog posts: 

Introduction to the National Standards

Standard 1- Welcoming All Families

Standard 2- Communicating Effectively

Standard 3- Supporting Student Success

Family-School Partnership Standard #3: Supporting Student Success

By Heather Ippolito, VP Family Engagement

As we continue our series about the  PTA National Family-School Partnership Standards  we want to remind you that we have several blog posts around this topic: 

The third standard of supporting student success encourages families and school staff to continuously collaborate to support students’ learning and healthy development both at home and at school, and to have regular opportunities to strengthen their knowledge and skills to do so effectively.  Here are some ideas of ways to bring this standard to life on your campus:

  • Help parents understand what their child needs to succeed in school by holding grade-level meetings to cover the state standards, assessments, and expectations at the beginning of the year.  
  • Testing data can be confusing to families.  Parents should be given resources to fully understand their child’s assessment reports and the school should also share full-school data with families.  This could be done at a coffee with the principal, a parent night event, or at a PTA/PTSA Meeting.
  • Parent conferences or goal-setting meetings are a great way for families and school personnel to connect, but these should be two-way conversations– not just an opportunity for the teacher to do all the talking.  Parents should be encouraged to share their hopes and goals for their child and to convey their families’ cultural experiences that may influence how their child learns. 
  • Families should be encouraged and welcome to participate in classroom and on-campus activities (when it is safe to do so).  The PTA can help facilitate this by making sure families are aware of the volunteer opportunities and any of the requirements necessary to participate (district training, fingerprinting, etc.).
  • Parents also need to understand how they can support learning at home.  Teachers can be a huge help with this by sharing ideas with families including visiting museums, seeing movies or concerts, or other opportunities for learning outside of the classroom walls.  The PTA can also support this by bringing educational experiences onto the campus to help ensure that every family can participate.
  • After-school or summer learning can also be beneficial to students.  PTA can help facilitate classes or other educational experiences to make learning fun for the kids and keep the learning happening outside of the traditional school day. 
  • California State PTA has an online Resource Library to help parents find resources to continue learning at home.  You can search by keyword, grade level, school subject, or type of resource (video, website, PDF, etc.). 

Do you have a great suggestion for supporting student success?  Please share it with us and you may be featured on our social media.

Standard #2: Communicating Effectively

by Heather Ippolito, VP Family Engagement

In July we introduced the PTA National Standards for Family School Partnerships and Standard 1- Welcoming All Families on this blog.  Today we are going to share some tips and best practices for Standard 2: 

Communicating Effectively

The school, district, the PTA, and families need to engage in regular, two-way, meaningful communication about student learning and engagement opportunities.  This is one area that we hear complaints about regularly– parents feel like information is just pushed out to them– they are not being invited to participate in the conversation.  Parents want to be heard, to share their thoughts and opinions, and to feel included in what is happening at the school.  

Here are some tips for communicating more effectively with the families on your campus:

  • Use terms that your parents can understand– many families don’t understand educational jargon and abbreviations so try not to use them!
  • Get to know your families to discover how they like their communication– are they on specific social media platforms, do they prefer email, texts, phone calls, fliers, or a combination of things.  
  • Communication must be in a family’s home language.  There are lots of tools to help with this– from Google Translate for your website to using school staff as translators and interpreters.  Note:  Translators transpose writing into a different language and interpreters translate speaking into a different language. 
  • Family nights at the school site offer a chance for families, teachers, and administrators to interact and have meaningful conversations about curriculum and other issues that impact our children.  Use these events to build relationships so families feel able to turn to the school when they need help for their children.
  • Be consistent with your communication.  Post to your social media regularly and/or have a monthly newsletter.  Families like to know that they will be receiving information from the PTA and the school regularly.
  • Survey families to identify their issues and concerns, and plan with school officials for ways to respond to those.

If you see a great example of family engagement, we want to hear about it.  Take a moment to complete this simple form so that we can recognize units, councils, and districts that are doing amazing work in the area of family engagement!

PTA Knows Family Engagement! Learn more about the School Smarts Program

by School Smarts Committee

For nearly 125 years PTA has helped parents and caregivers make lasting connections to their school campus to benefit all children.  Over the last ten years our School Smarts family engagement program has helped over 10,000 parents understand the way the educational system works and how they can participate in it, make connections with staff and parents at their school sites, and shown them how to best support their child and their community.  

On August 24th from 10-11 a.m. our School Smarts Program Manager, Bianca De La Torre, will give a tour of the program for interested administrators, school districts and PTA leaders.  Come hear about how the program can increase family engagement on your campus and how this program can directly support student success. 

PTA Leaders – Invite your school principal to learn more about this amazing program and how families at your school can benefit from it. Join us on August 24th from 10-11 a.m.  Register here. 

Family Engagement: A Hot Back-to-School Topic

As the summer ends, many workshops, webinars, and virtual conferences are preparing educational leaders, teachers, and parents for the return to school.  Our Family Engagement Team has attended several of them. 

Here are some of the take-aways:

  • We can no longer move forward with families on the sidelines of education.  The pandemic brought families into the classrooms as learning went virtual and parents were forced to monitor/assist with their child’s learning.  Now that these lines of communication and collaboration between our schools and our families have been opened it is critical that we continue on this path.
  • We have spoken for years about the impact of family engagement on students (higher test scores, better attendance, etc.) but we need to mention the impact of family engagement on families as a whole.  Dr. Karen Mapp sites the following things that parents experience as a result of being involved on their child’s school campus:  
    • Their role perception shifts from just a “mom” or “dad” to a “teacher”, “mentor”, or “expert”
    • They gain confidence in their ability to shape and influence their child’s learning
    • They have an increased sense of accountability and begin to advocate for all children
    • They become empowered to take on new challenges– that could include serving on district committees, running for school board, etc. 
  • Family engagement is not a program but a practice— something that every school, administrator, and teacher needs to embrace so that our children can be the best they can be.  Families must be part of the team of experts.
  • Families are as vital to student success as school climate and teachers. A 20-year study from schools in Chicago found there are 5 essential supports for successful schools:  leadership (administration), professional capacity, parent/community ties, student-centered learning climate, instructional guidance (professional development). 
  • Social and emotional learning (SEL) is of particular importance this year. SEL has been a huge topic in most of the workshops about returning to school.  If you want more information to understand just what SEL entails and how families play a major role in social and emotional learning, watch this five-minute video from the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL).

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Family Engagement in the News

As we gear up to head back to school, our commission has been noticing a trend in the news — there has been a great deal of talk about Family Engagement! This is exciting for all of our PTA units, as this continues to show that the work you do every day to connect families to your campus is significant,  important, and valued. Here are three recent articles that might spark some discussions at your next executive board meeting or in discussions with your principal. 

Family Engagement in the News

USA Today delved into the huge rise in family engagement that came out of necessity during the pandemic, as parents and caregivers were helping their students every day participate in their online, distance learning. They share some of the best practices that came out of the pandemic, and some challenges as we return to school. The article goes on to say that parents and families shouldn’t just be told how to help their children succeed, they should be included in the discussion and treated as a valued member of the academic team.  

New Budget Brings Lots of One-Time Funding

Governor Newsom’s budget is one of the brightest spots in the news when it comes to educational funding. This budget increases funding for mental health needs that our students (and families) have experienced due to the pandemic. It creates Transitional Kindergarten for all 4 year-olds connecting children and families to schools sooner than ever before. There is also a great deal of focus on professional development for teachers- which could include time to devote to better practices for engaging and connecting with families. EdSource has a fairly comprehensive summary of the budget and what it means to the schools in California. 

To Share with our Administrators  

Tips for Communicating with Families – A school district in Florida has turned to social media and video clips to help families feel more connected to what their students are learning and how their children are using technology. Check out the article and an accompanying YouTube video for some great ideas including tech tips for families and tech tours. A great nugget from the interview: “Be where the families are- – find the best communications tools to reach them — a website alone is not enough for our diverse families.”

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