Authors: Rachel Renbarger and Felix Fernandez
Doing broader, systems-level change is hard. As we spoke with numerous district leaders in the course of our research, they told us about how they struggled to move the needle on establishing authentic family and community collaboration (FCC) in ways that would be systemic and sustainable for the foreseeable future. They spoke about their commitment to transforming from a one-way communication approach aimed to keep parents informed to a model that incorporates two-way dialogue and shared power, such as transforming teacher-led parent-teacher conferences into a dedicated, collaborative approach that everyone in the district is invested in and cares about.
Our new recent book chapter, “Moving From Parent Engagement to Family Collaboration: Reconsidering K-12 Educational Systems for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” within Volume X: Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Education from Information Age Publishing discusses findings from interviews and focus groups we conducted with K-12 leaders across the country to figure out how they made FCC a core part of their district while centering equity so that all communities in their district- those facing housing insecurity, immigration concerns, racism, and more – could fully engage and thrive.
Many of the issues of inequity are structural issues, such as racism that is woven into the fabric of the country and our school systems. To get rid of something that runs so deep, we knew we wanted to look at systemic change frameworks to make sure the change was not just surface-level. We looked at what systemic change means, how district actions can align to improve FCC, and what is required to ensure a district is successfully embracing the three Ps of system change: Policy, public awareness, and programming.
- Policy: Districts must have plans and actions in place to make sure funding, space, staffing, and programs are available to support FCC. Districts we spoke with created policies that highlighted new FCC goals and programs and provided the resources (e.g., funding, staffing) needed to make sure they were done well. When district leaders saw promising school-level policies in place, they worked to test them in other schools and, if proven replicable, turn them into district-level policies. For example, when one school started a wellness center that provided clothing and food to families, the district funded a coordinator to oversee it, expand it to include other important services (e.g., laundry, mental health services), and ensure all families could use the resources. District leadership worked to write in job descriptions that FCC was a part of everyone’s job – not just teachers!
- Public awareness: Districts must align their strategic goals with community goals and commit to promote equity within these goals. Successful FCC leaders we spoke to focused on telling the community about what it means to make equity a part of their FCC work and weaving this commitment into all their administrative guidelines. This can be seen in districts that changed their vision and mission statements to communicate this FCC value, guide their strategic planning process, and make sure community partners had similar goals.
- Programming: Change hearts and minds at the individual level (e.g., overcoming biases) or provide resources to marginalized people (e.g., tutoring). Many districts’ programming included educating staff, teachers, family members, and community partners on how to adopt an asset-based mindsets and recognize the strengths and wisdom different partners bring, rather than viewing anyone or any group as not having value they can bring to the table. Some examples included offering paid fellowships to caregivers so they could learn best practices in FCC and take a leadership role in the partnerships and creating task forces that included students, family members, and community organization members who would collaborate in the solving of key district problems.
This blog is just a small snippet from our book chapter. Please check it out and share it with your networks!