PreK-Grade 3 Reentry: Connecting to Families
Overview
This resource provides tools and guidance to help educators and families get to know one another and collaborate on learning activities that promote growth across learning settings.
Resources to Connect with Families
Schools are encouraged to invite families to meet with their child’s teacher prior to or at the beginning of the school year to initiate a relationship among the child, the family, and the teacher. While this is required for kindergarten and Transitional Kindergarten as part of WaKIDS RCW 28A.150.220, teachers may meet with families at the beginning of the school year in other grades, counting this time as school days if districts seek a waiver for the purpose of conducting parent- teacher conferences.
A district seeking a waiver solely for the purpose of parent-teacher conference days must have local school board of directors’ approval and notify the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI). A district seeking a waiver of more than five days must request the waiver through the regular 180-day School Year Requirement waiver application process.
Building Trust and Relationships
Cultural Humility | Puget Sound Educational Service District
This video explores cultural humility, specifically having a willingness to learn and understand other cultures, and be willing to reflect on where your knowledge of other cultures is inaccurate, or needs growth
Including Voice in Education: Addressing Equity Through Student and Family Voice in Classroom Learning | Institute of Education Sciences and REL Pacific
This tool illustrates the necessity to incorporate student and family voices in learning, highlighting the need to create culturally responsive classrooms during and following the COVID-19 pandemic. This infographic visual provides strategies to create culturally responsive classrooms, learning and understanding student voice and family voice, strategies for supporting student voice for teachers and a deep dive into student and family voice strategies.
Family-School-Community Partnerships | The National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments
This website outlines school-family-community partnerships to support academic outcomes and features resources detailing partnerships for learning, along with a comprehensive handbook on Family and Community engagement.
Family and Caregiver Discussion Guide with Educators and Schools | OSPI
This is a resource for families and caregivers to use to guide conversations with educators. It provides helpful tips to prepare for meetings and questions for families and caregivers to ask teachers and other educators.
From ‘Best’ to ‘Next’ Practices in Family Engagement for Educational Justice | EmbraceRace
This eye-opening conversation about the principles and practices families and communities of color are using to challenge dominant narratives about race and class and bring about promising new possibilities for transforming power and fostering solidarities across communities in education.
Family and Community Engagement | Learning for Justice (f.k.a Teaching Tolerance)
This article details how investing meaningfully and sincerely in family and community engagement is a key pillar of anti-bias education.
Engaging Families and Creating Trusting Partnerships to Improve Child and Family Outcomes | Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center (ECTA)
This four part web broadcast series is aimed at supporting early intervention (EI) and early childhood special education (ECSE) systems leaders with building capacity in personnel and families to develop trusting partnerships. These partnerships in a child’s early years lay the foundation for achieving the long-term intended outcomes for children/students with developmental delays and disabilities articulated in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The series features discussions of the role that data play in strengthening family-professional partnerships. Suggestions and resources for designing personnel and family development activities to support partnerships are also shared.
Division for Early Childhood (DEC) Recommended Practices/Family Checklists | Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center (ECTA)
The DEC Recommended Practices were developed to provide guidance to practitioners and families about the most effective ways to improve the learning outcomes and promote the development of young children, birth through five years of age, who have or are at-risk for developmental delays or disabilities. The purpose of this document is to help bridge the gap between research and practice by highlighting those practices that have been shown to result in better outcomes for young children with disabilities, their families, and the personnel who serve them.
Family practices refer to ongoing activities that:
- promote the active participation of families in decision-making related to their child (e.g., assessment, planning, intervention).
- lead to the development of a service plan (e.g., a set of goals for the family and child and the services and supports to achieve those goals); or
- support families in achieving the goals they hold for their child and the other family members.
Evidence-Based and Promising Practices to Support Continuity of Learning for Students with Disabilities: Practices and Resources to Support Parents and Families | IDEA’s that Work
This topical brief provides practice information, examples and resources to support children with disabilities and their families. The content is presented in two sections: the first for school-aged children (ages 5-18), and the second for young children (ages 2-5). The content related to young children includes categories of practices for each area of growth and skill development and begins on page 8.
Reflecting on Anti-bias Education in Action: The Early Years | Anti-Bias Leaders in Early Childhood Education
This 48 minute film, Reflecting on Anti-bias Education in Action: The Early Years features vignettes of anti-bias strategies in early childhood classrooms interspersed with teachers reflecting on their practice. By taking viewers into diverse early childhood classrooms, the film seeks to demonstrate the importance of teacher reflection on identity, context, and practice in anti-bias education and provides a much-needed resource for teacher education and professional development
Advocacy
Parent Advisory Council (PAC) Guide | OSPI
The purpose of the Role of the Parent Advisory Council Training Guide is for Educational Service Districts and Local Education Agency to use when training District PAC Teams in their roles and responsibilities. It can be easily modified for any group to use.
In addition, the Office of Head Start provides an interactive Parent, Family, and Community Engagement Framework which creates the mission for the two-generational anti-poverty and child development program model. Creating a clear recruitment of experienced Head Start and Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP) Parent Advisory Committee members to actively inform the new elementary school policies is critical to the relevance of the elementary school policies to families.
Washington Family Engagement Website
Washington Family Engagement fosters social transformation by supporting the development of multigenerational leaders from diverse backgrounds to become actively engaged in schools and communities in Washington State
SEL and the Family
Parent Engagement Practices Improve Outcomes for Preschool Children (3-5) | Head Start Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center
Video from the Best Practices in Family & Community Engagement Video Series. This January 2017 research brief describes research-based approaches to effectively engage families and children furthest from educational justice. The brief highlights findings from recent studies with preschool children (ages 3-5) and focuses on effective parent engagement models that improve school readiness outcomes in well-controlled studies. It finds that supporting parents' efforts to help their children develop during the preschool years improves a child's school readiness, reduces behavior problems, enhances social skills, and promotes academic success.
Aligning and Integrating Family Engagement in Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS): Concepts and Strategies for Families and Schools in Key Contexts | Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports
This book offers an in depth exploration of PBIS supports and strategies for families and schools across grade levels.
Family Communication
Best Practices for Using Technology with Multilingual Families Toolkit | OSPI
We are relying on technology more than ever, and families are overwhelmed as remote and distance learning is becoming more prevalent in their children’s lives. Parents are supporting their children with numerous unfamiliar platforms and communication tools. Multilingual families are attempting to navigate these online learning environments in a new language.
This toolkit is designed to help Local Educational Agencies create and maintain effective strategies with multilingual families. We explore and model best practices for the use of technology in teaching, as well as for assessing and communicating with diverse adults. The following guide is applicable for face-to-face, blended, and online instruction, and can also serve as a toolkit.
Systems, Tools, and Frameworks for Family Communication
Parent Engagement and Leadership Assessment | Center for the Study of Social Policy
An in-depth guide to analyzing the quality of family engagement within a system. The purpose of this assessment is to support agencies and systems to engage parents as partners and leaders to advance a more equitable, accountable, and responsive early childhood system of care.
Understanding Family Engagement Outcomes: Research to Practice Series | Head Start Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center
This series is from the Best Practices in Family & Community Engagement Video Series. This January 2017 research brief describes research-based approaches to effectively engage families and children at risk for poor school readiness. The brief highlights findings from recent studies with preschool children (ages 3-5) and focuses on effective parent engagement models that improve school readiness outcomes in well-controlled studies. It finds that supporting parents' efforts to help their children develop during the preschool years improves a child's school readiness, reduces behavior problems, enhances social skills, and promotes academic success.
Policy Statement on Family Engagement from the Early Years to the Early Grades | U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Education
This policy statement provides recommendations to early childhood systems and programs on family engagement.
General Resources
Family Engagement Guidance and Toolkit | OSPI
The Family Engagement Guidance and Toolkit was developed to support districts, schools, and classrooms with planning for implementation of positive family engagement and participation practices. Each section begins with guided questions that were compiled from considerations and concerns raised by workgroup members. As you review the information for each area, read from left to right to gain an understanding of the progression from Family Involvement to Family Engagement to Family Partnership. As you review each of the three, a pattern will be seen as the complexity of actions builds to a deeper commitment to constructing strong, beneficial interactions with all of Washington’s 1.1 million students and their families. You will see that many different voices from the workgroup are honored and are included in the following sections. Page 20 of this Guidance includes numerous external links around Family Partnership Planning Resources.
Edutopia Family Engagement Resources | George Lucas Foundation
Provides relevant and timely information and has been filtered to show articles and videos related to family engagement in the current context. Many of these contributing educators share practical tips and strategies that are working for them in their classrooms. Teachers, administrators, and other school personnel will find relevant and valuable tools and resources here for strengthening bonds between schools, families, and communities.
Family Engagement Resource Library | National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations
This resource library page provides guidance around family engagement and includes a link to the Early Childhood Technical Assistance (ECTA) Family engagement broadcast series along with additional related resources.
Early Learning Professional Opportunities for Ongoing Learning: Family Engagement | NCESD
This slide deck is created by Josie Komorowski, Early Learning & Inclusionary Practices Coordinator from North Central ESD. It outlines the importance of working with families and provides strategies for developing relationships with families.
Attribution and License
Attribution
Icons from the Noun Project: growth by Rockicon, Family by DewDrops, evaluative assessment by ahmad, resources by Becris, School by PJ Souders from the Noun Project
License
Except where otherwise noted, this curated resource collection by the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and Washington Association of Educational Service Districts is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. All logos and trademarks are property of their respective owners.
This document contains links to websites operated by third parties. These links are provided for your convenience only and do not constitute or imply any monitoring by OSPI or AESD. Please confirm the license status of any third-party resources and understand their terms of use before reusing them.