Tag: Student Success

National PTA Introduces New Standards for Family-School Partnerships

Posted on by Ray Kinyon

by California State PTA Family Engagement Commission National PTA Standards for Family-School Partnerships

PTA believes families are essential partners with schools in the shared mission to help every child reach their full potential. For more than 20 years, PTA’s National Standards for Family-School Partnerships set the bar for how schools and parent organizations work together to support student success. These standards are embedded in California’s education code.

National PTA identifies six standards that can help schools, PTAs, and school districts improve their family-school partnerships so that all students can thrive:

National PTA has updated these six standards by integrating the perspectives of families, educators, and youth – particularly those from historically marginalized communities. The goal is to make them more useful for today’s families and schools. This video provides a brief overview. 

National Standards for Family-School Partnerships Update

Each standard includes goals and a set of indicators that describe the more specific actions that schools and PTAs can take to make progress toward each goal. 

Using the standards as a framework, National PTA has created a number of additional resources in support of this work. They include:

  • Two sets of tools, one for PTA leaders and one for leaders of schools and districts, that can be used to guide development of a family engagement plan. 
  • A School Leader’s Rubric that includes reflection questions for school leaders, plus a comprehensive set of rubrics and examples for assessing progress across the six standards.
  • An advocacy document entitled Strengthening Family-School Partnerships through Education Policy, that urges the U.S. Congress to make key legislative changes to support family engagement and improve student success.

The California State PTA Family Engagement Commission is providing a more in-depth look at each standard, including great ideas for how PTAs and schools can work together to build powerful partnerships that serve all children and families. Read more here about Standard #1, Welcome All Families.

Family-School Partnership Standard #5: Sharing Power

Posted on by CAPTA IT

By Heather Ippolito, Vice President for Family Engagement

When families and schools work together as equal partners in decision-making, students succeed. Parents/caregivers, students, school staff, and administrators should partner to develop programs, practices and policies that have the best interests of all students at heart.  

Here are a few ideas for how your PTA can help foster collaboration using our Family-School Partnership Standard #5: Sharing Power, on your school campus:

  • Show parents the importance of participating in the Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) meetings. By law, parent (and student) input must be taken into account when a school district creates their annual plan, but if parents aren’t participating and sharing their thoughts or suggestions their voice is lost. Informing families when LCAP meetings are and how they can participate is a great way to ensure that the parent voice is reflected in the LCAP. 
  • Sponsor parent information events for families when new textbooks, curriculum, or school district policies are being proposed. This shows parents their input is valued in school or district decisions. PTA newsletters or websites are great places to advertise these events so parents can add them to their calendar. 
  • Include parents on school and district committees. To ensure that parent voice is included, families need to know what opportunities there are for participation and what the requirements are to join the committees. PTA units and councils can share this information with families and encourage participation. 
  • PTA leaders should be trained in facilitation skills that encourage families from diverse backgrounds to speak up. Helping our local leaders understand how to lead meetings and events to encourage participation from all parents will help to ensure that PTA programs truly address the needs of all families in your school. Your local PTA council or district is a great resource for training in this area (or plan now to attend workshops at our statewide PTA Convention in April of 2022).

This article is part of a continuing series covering the PTA Standards for Family-School Partnerships. You can see the other blog posts in this series below: 

Celebrate Inclusive Schools This Week — And All Year Long

Posted on by CAPTA IT

By Derby Pattengill, Vice President, Health and Community Concerns

During the week of December 6, schools across the country will be raising awareness about how to make sure every classroom offers opportunities for ALL children to succeed. The national Inclusive Schools Week celebration offers ideas that local PTAs can use throughout the year to create fun inclusion programs, examine your own practices, and encourage school leaders to do the same. 

Inclusive Schools Week is an annual event sponsored by the Inclusive Schools Network (ISN) and Stetson & Associates, Inc., which is held each year during the first full week in December. As the sponsors explain, “For 20 years, Inclusive Schools Week has celebrated the progress that schools have made in providing a supportive and quality education to an increasingly diverse student population, including students who are marginalized due to disability, gender, socio-economic status, cultural heritage, language preference, and other factors. The week also provides an important opportunity for educators, students, and parents to discuss additional steps schools can take to continue to improve their ability to successfully educate all children.”

This year, the Inclusive Schools Week’s theme is “Rebuilding our Inclusive Community Together.” Join us in celebrating Inclusive Schools Week December 6-12, 2021!

In inclusive schools, the shared ownership for student success extends throughout the entire school community – from bus drivers to crossing guards, from administrators to custodians, from cafeteria workers to front office personnel, and everyone in between. Together they work to foster relationships within the school and create awareness of effective inclusive practices. For example, research has consistently demonstrated that inclusive teaching practices that present information in ways that are relevant and meaningful to each and every student can improve academic achievement for all students. 

In celebration of the week, your PTA unit, council or district could send out a press release, announce your celebration in local media outlets, and post updates on your school website, etc. Even better, consider ways to promote inclusive schools all year long by:

  • Convening a planning team of faculty, students and family members. 
  • Creating excitement by hosting poster and essay contests, hanging a banner in your school lobby or appropriate virtual location.
  • Utilizing ready-made resources and materials to support your celebration and continuous efforts to promote and develop practices in your community.

You’ll find a wealth of resources and ideas on the Inclusive Schools Network website, including this year’s Featured Activities.  School administrators play a crucial role in creating and supporting inclusive schools. Additional information and activities for them are available on the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) website here.

We encourage you to share your successes with the California State PTA. Click here to share your success stories!

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

Posted on by Ray Kinyon

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

What is Family Engagement?

Posted on by CAPTA IT

By Heather Ippolito, Vice President for Family Engagement

In PTA we often talk about family engagement, but what does it really mean and why is it so very important?  

Family engagement with schools has many definitions:  

  • The US Department of Health and Human Services: Family engagement is the process used to build genuine relationships with families. Relationships with families support overall family well-being and children’s healthy development. When families are engaged, partnerships are created that have a common focus– helping children grow and thrive.
  • In 2010 the National Family, School and Community Engagement Working Group (now the NAFSCE Policy Council) defined family engagement like this: “Family engagement is a shared responsibility in which schools and other community agencies and organizations are committed to reaching out to engage families in meaningful ways and in which families are committed to actively supporting their children’s learning and development.”
  • National PTA defines transformative family engagement as a shared effort of families, schools and community leaders to advance programs, practices, and policies that empower every parent to make their child’s potential a reality.

Research shows family engagement is a major factor in student success, with an encouraging home environment serving as a bigger factor in student achievement than a parent’s income, education level or cultural background. It also tells us that family engagement:

  • Promotes healthy development and wellness in children
  • Increases graduation rates for those students whose families are involved on campus
  • Decreases dropout rates and behavior issues in students whose families participate on campus
  • Increases a child’s academic and social skills

What does this all boil down to for our  PTA unit, council and district leaders? Family engagement is something you do daily. Your programs and events help bring families to your campus and better understand educational issues that impact their children. When you help create and foster relationships between families, the school and the greater community, the students at your school thrive.  

Our goal as the California State PTA Family Engagement Commission is to give you concrete ideas to make this task easier. Every Friday on the blog we will share family engagement tips, best practices, and resources that will help you as you plan activities on your campus. We are so excited to work alongside you this term! 

Next steps:

  • This year at your first executive board meeting set three family engagement goals. Some examples of family engagement goals are:
  • Increase involvement of fathers, grandfathers, and other male family members in PTA and school events
  • Increase parent and family participation in the Local Control Accountability Plan and Local Control Funding Formula meetings
  • Take at least three actions this year to make your existing programs more accessible for families of children with special needs. For example, open up your Fall Harvest Festival 30 minutes early for these families so they can enjoy the activities with smaller crowds and less sensory stimulation.

Share with us your goals and you might be recognized in our social media (or win a prize). Email them to familyengagement@capta.org 

  • We also want to hear about your best family engagement activities. Complete this simple form and your school may be featured here on the blog, in our social media or on our website. 

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