FAMILY ENGAGEMENT IN EDUCATION

The Devaluation of Family Engagement in Some Schools Series

Part 1: Here’s what some educators do.

Series Introduction

Numerous schools and families everywhere have historically positioned themselves as educational partners. When positive home and school partnerships prevail, schools are higher functioning because parents assume the role of being their child’s first teacher from their earliest beginnings. And highly successful schools embrace parents as valued members of their student’s school teams. The voice of these parents is respected within these schools and these parents challenge and inspire their children educationally at home.

Despite what takes place in many of these schools and homes, that is not the case everywhere. A lot of parents remain invisible in their child’s education. And a lot of schools either experience genuine struggles connecting with parents or willfully exclude parents from being accountable educational participants.

As a family engagement influencer, I have established a definition that enables parents, educational leaders, teachers, and other school employees to understand what family engagement is. Contrary to the traditional belief that parental involvement and participation at school translate into family engagement, it is not.

In numerous published articles I have defined family engagement as

“the mutual support, dedication, and cooperation that parents and other caregivers, as well as educators, share as students are being educated”.

The common belief about family engagement is that it increases the overall success of students at school. However, when authentic family engagement is embraced and prioritized as a critical function within all school structures, students are not the only recipients of the positive benefits. Educators, schools, parents, caregivers, families, and society at large receive tremendous outcomes.

Here is a link to one of my published stories that accentuate these genuine benefits.

Despite all the dynamic and positive results that are unleashed with parents and educators being partners, family engagement in education continues to remain either superficial, unimportant, misunderstood, or ignored within many schools and homes along with many sectors of society.

This four-part series examines how and why many but certainly not all educators, parents and caregivers, students, and sectors of society diminish family engagement in education. Solutions to this problem will also be presented in each part.

How Some Educators Diminish Family Engagement

Schools and school districts everywhere are filled with highly trained, talented, and well-educated teachers, counselors, principals, superintendents, and professional employees. While the vast majority are awesome in performing the traditional duties associated with their job performance, some falter as it relates to interacting with parents.

There are many reasons why this deficit occurs.

• A lot of educators have never been exposed to research-based and quality family engagement training either during their college or university preparation or during their professional development involvement.
• There are educators including school and district leaders who do not understand what family engagement is. They think that it only encompasses parent participation and involvement within the school. Sadly, without an inclusive understanding of the relational component of parental interactions, they fail to comprehend the inclusive benefits associated with mothers, fathers, and caregivers being engaged in their child’s education.
• Many schools that experience intensive struggles in all areas of education, especially with student achievement, student behavior, and parental visibility and engagement are preoccupied with other initiatives that do not place family engagement at the forefront of their priorities. What some educational entities think is family engagement is simply structures that keep parents informed. But what these educators fail to realize is that engaged parents will help resolve the large number of negative issues that remain pervasive within these schools.
• Some educators remain indifferent to family engagement because they view it as parental control. These misinformed educators do not understand that family engagement empowers parents to have the confidence to work with their child’s educational providers at school and at home to support their child’s overall learning experience.

Even though there are reasons why many educators do not have positive relationships with parents, many possess certain attitudes and behaviors that block family engagement. A detailed description of these indicators follows.

1. While school safety must prevail these days and the concept of an open-door policy can no longer exist, some schools are not welcoming to parents. When it is appropriate for parents to report to a school, some schools maintain a cold interpersonal climate with some parents. Mothers, fathers, grandparents, and guardians feel the chill when they encounter distant and unfriendly school personnel. When parents call these schools, they are met with the same type of aloof coldness, too. And sadly, school and teacher avoidance become the mantra of these parents.
2. As noted in my family engagement definition, mutuality between educators and parents is important. This includes respect. It is the responsibility of school personnel to take the lead in modeling respect. The instances of some teachers, secretaries, principals, counselors, and other school employees disrespecting mothers, fathers, grandparents, and other caregivers are heartbreaking. Example of disrespect includes educators condescendingly speaking to families, using a communication style that reflects dominance and authority over parents, talking down to parents and yelling at them, and refusing to listen to parents or acknowledge or take ownership of their concerns. More examples include refusing to offer assistance or trying to calm parents who may be passionately disagreeable or loud or failing to diffuse the encounter by using basic conflict resolution strategies. (Part 2 of this series will address parental responsibilities.) Ultimately, educators who simply do not want to deal with upset parents may refuse to talk with them, hang up on them, or have them physically removed from school.
3. Some educators discriminate against some parents implicitly. Such culturally biased school workers may stereotype parents from diverse racial, economic, religious, gender, linguistic, ethnic, or age groups and place unfair, erroneous, and unacceptable nonverbal labels on them. Unfortunately, some educators treat parents according to the cultural perceptions that they have of them.
4. There are some educators in many schools who blame parents for their lack of engagement at school and home. These educators fail to see their engagement deficits because they find it easier to place exclusive blame on mothers, fathers, and caregivers.
5. A harsh and brutal reality exists. Some educators do not like the population they serve. Not only does this include their students, but it also includes their parents. These teachers and other educators, merely tolerate parents. And parents can easily figure out when school personnel put up with them instead of accepting and respecting them.
6. The concern of being politically correct remains very real for many professionals within school structures. Boldly calling parents out for their need to become more accountable for their child’s education at school and home involves professional courage. As a result, many school leaders willfully accept the full range of responsibilities related to educating students without including sustainable efforts to enforce family engagement. Although they realize that parents need to be engaged in their child’s educational life, these fearful educators are forced to remain silent.

Educators everywhere must be willing to overcome their family engagement deficits.

Eight Recommendations for Educators

For classrooms, schools, and school districts to develop goals to increase family engagement, they must become willing to transform pervasive negative mindsets and behaviors that prevail. The following recommendations provide school leaders, teachers, and other educational professionals withguidance placing value on the components of family engagement.

1. Educators must endeavor to understand the true meaning of family engagement. Developing and prioritizing systemic and top-down family engagement structures district and school-wide will change the culture within educational organizations, schools, and classrooms. Family engagement professional development programs along with building educator accountability so that it officially becomes prioritized will transform schools so that parents and caregivers become authentic educational partners.
2. School leaders and teachers must take the lead in fostering authentic and sustained efforts to increase family engagement in classrooms, schools, and within the home.
3. Educators must open their hearts to become more compassionate and empathetic as it relates to the families they serve. This will enable them to build their capacity to understand the real-life obstacles that prevent many parents from being as engaged as they need to be. For example, some parents may experience engagement limitations because they exist in a survival mode and work multiple jobs. Some parents are unable to move beyond the negative school experiences they had when they were young and cannot emotionally work with their child’s school. Once educators understand the lives that their parents live, they will stop blaming them for their engagement deficits.
4. Teachers and other school personnel should take bold steps to build trusting relationships with parents. The home visit is one way of demonstrating this and connecting with parents. When educators meet parents in their homes or a designated location within the community to get to know them, extend their support, and fulfill their school-wide mission of the home visit, relationship-building opportunities blossom.
5. Educational leaders have got to be courageous as parental expectations are communicated to mothers and fathers as well as to the community at large. School personnel has got to stop tip-toeing around the urgent need for mothers, fathers, and caregivers to use appropriate parenting skills in the home that teach their children behavioral boundaries, self-management, and social skills required for appropriate conduct at school (and within the global village). In schools that struggle with parental engagement and student behavior, school personnel must make parents realize that they are their child’s first teachers and that learning begins at the home. Parents cannot wait until children enter school before structured learning takes place. Educators must have the freedom to expect parents to work with them as an active member of their child’s educational team. Finally, educators have to help parents and other members of society realize that they cannot continue to provide everything that students require educationally and as it relates to their social, emotional, and mental health well-being. Parents have got to be a part of all processes with their children.
6. School leaders must also prioritize cultural competence as an important professional development area. With adequate and continued training, educators will overcome their cultural barriers and release the implicit biases they possess that interfere with the capacity of authentic parent partners from emerging in schools.
7. Many schools everywhere provide parents and caregivers with genuine strategies for growing their engagement in their child’s education at home. However, some schools do not use seamless techniques. Herein lies the problem. Some schools must stop thinking that superficial means to merely increase parental attendance, participation, and involvement at school events represent enough professional effort with parents. While thematic events like Muffins with Moms and Donuts with Dads and required events like Open House are productive efforts, they are simply not enough if the purpose of these functions is to give parents general and watered-down information about the school. Efforts must be made to get to know the families and build respectful partnerships with them. Humanistic qualities must manifest through listening and caring. Only then will parents be embraced as valued members of their child’s school team. Good news exists for schools that not only share information about student progress during Parent-Teacher conferences but also give parents strategies for helping their children at home. This opens the door for continuous communication between home and school and grows the capacity for parents and teachers to build their relationships for the benefit of their student’s success.
8. Parental apathy is a critical concern within some learning environments. Simply stated, some mothers, fathers, and caregivers do not care about their child’s education. Because of this, educators are forced to navigate all processes associated with educating the impacted students without parental support or visibility. In this case, educators must develop a long list of strategies to expand their capacity to engage with these absent parents. They cannot give up reaching out to these parents, connecting with them, and building their relationship with them. Educators must be relentless as they fight to support the impacted students. Whether it making home visits, visits to the parent’s worksite, using varied methods of communication, or involving dedicated school personnel like the social worker or the home school visitor, a demand must be made on apathetic parents. The most devastating thing is that parent apathy sometimes exists among students who possess the highest level of need. Depending on the depth of the student’s need and how severe the case is, unresponsive parents could be reported to child protective services. Other times, if parents refuse to report to the school when they must, depending on the relationship that the school has with law enforcement, a police officer could go to the home to encourage the parent to report to the school. If the students of these absent parents work with mental and behavioral health providers who are also authorized to work with the school on the student’s behalf, parental intervention may be able to be initiated and performed so that the parent responds to the school.

Conclusion

Students must remain at the heart of family engagement efforts in education. This is further substantiated by the benefits of educators, parents, and caregivers working together as a team.

Many schools throughout the United States as well as in other countries do not experience struggle in the area of family engagement. This is true because the education of their children became valued at their child’s earliest beginnings. These engaged parents realize that they must support their child’s formal learning at school and home. They realize that they have a place at the engagement table among their child’s educators. Higher levels of success follow the students of the engaged parents either personally or within the confines of the school as these facilities remain higher achieving buildings.

Another narrative exists, and that is the purpose of this series. Family engagement is devalued in some environments.

Whether it is because of educator attitude, parental disengagement, student behavior struggles, or community misconceptions, family engagement within places that struggle with this problem must increase.

The first part of this series examines how some educators are responsible for family disengagement. Solutions are also provided for these educators so that they can increase family engagement within their classrooms, schools, and school districts.

Part 2 will analyze how some parents must assume responsibility for engagement deficits within the school. Recommendations will be provided for mothers, fathers, and caregivers to increase their capacity to engage with their child’s educators.

Thank you for reading the first part of this four-part series and for your interest in the topic of family engagement in education.

More detailed information about educator responsibilities related to family engagement is found in my book called “Repair the Broken Pieces: A System to Awaken Positive Relations Between the Family and Educational Provider through Engagement Fusion”. Be sure to visit my website.

Here is my golden ticket that helps me accomplish my mission.

Dr. Deborah M. Vereen is a retired Teacher and School Administrator. Her website is www.Drdeborahmvereen.com and her YouTube Channel is

Copyright © 2022 Dr. Deborah M. Vereen. All rights reserved.