1. Devon Minch *, Mario Montesino, Lisa Bateman, & Cheryl Duong NASP 2011 San Francisco, CA *contact us: dminch@.usf.edudminch@.usf.edu

2. Rationale for family-school partnerships Overview of best practices for developing FSP Systems change framework for developing FSP within RtI models FSP practices at each Tier

3. Improved student outcomes Critical element of successful reform and improvement efforts Schools need support to develop positive family-school partnerships as part of systems change and RtI implementation

4. Family-school partnerships have been found to be related to student achievement, attendance, and behavior at school (Henderson & Mapp, 2002) Parents report that home support for interventions is a significant predictor of goal attainment (McNamara, Telzrow, & DeLamatre, 1999) Parental involvement leads to increased student outcomes for various measures of achievement (e.g., standardized tests, GPA) for minority students and may be particularly beneficial for African American and Latino students (Jeynes, 2003) Parental involvement is still critical even for students in secondary school, regardless of race (Jeynes, 2007).

6. School-community collaboration, in which there is a mutual understanding of roles and specific goals are set for improvement, is critical for school improvement (Abrams & Gibbs, 2000) One of the nine characteristics of high performing schools is a high level of family and community involvement (Shannon & Bylsma, 2007)

7. Districts requests for technical assistance and support Florida Problem-Solving/Response to Intervention Project, 2009

8. Preventative, solution-oriented focus Belief in shared responsibility for educating and socializing children Emphasis on the quality of the interface and ongoing connection between families and schools Student-focused philosophy Systems orientation (Christenson & Sheridan, 2001)

9. Systems Change, Family-School Partnerships, and Response to Intervention Consensus Infrastructure Implementation (Florida Problem-Solving/Response to Intervention Project)

10. What does consensus look like? Leadership support Support through collaboration Support through resources Support through policies Stakeholder buy-in Collaboration and resource buy-in of a significant majority Positive beliefs of family-school partnerships Shared goal and plan Shared vision Systematic and ongoing collaboration Curtis, Castillo, and Cohen, 2008; Ferguson, Jordan, and Baldwin, 2010; Higgins, Young, Wiener, and Wlodarczyk, 2009-2010; Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler, 1997; Huffman and Kalnin, 2003; Kurns and Tilly, 2006; McGlinchey and Goodman, 2008; Sarason, 1990

11. How to build consensus? Leadership support Build rationale Leadership team involved in implementation Stakeholder buy-in Establish goal desired for consensus Evaluate level of consensus Professional development Build core beliefs of family-school partnerships Shared goal and plan Integrate into school vision commitment to family-school partnerships Plan for building and maintaining positive family-school partnership beliefs Maintain ongoing collaboration among leaders and stakeholders on goals desired Curtis, Castillo, and Cohen, 2008; Ferguson, Jordan, and Baldwin, 2010; Henderson and Mapp, 2002; Henderson, Mapp, Johnson, and Davies, 2007; Higgins, Young, Wiener, and Wlodarczyk, 2009-2010; Hoover-Dempsey, Walker, Jones, and Reed, 2002; Huffman and Kalnin, 2003; Kurns and Tilly, 2006; McGlinchey and Goodman, 2008

12. Parents want what is best for their child Parents can support their childrens learning Family-school partnerships are equally collaborative, respectful, and reciprocal Responsibility for building family-school partnerships rests with the school staff and its leaders Henderson, Mapp, Johnson, and Davies, 2007

13. Our school is committed to being family-friendly and to working as partners with our families for the success of all students. Including encouraging and helping families be: Teachers at home Supporters of our school goals Advocates of their children Decision makers in school policies and practices

14. What does infrastructure look like? Leadership and stakeholder team The same as the team implementing RtI but with added family- school partnership component Gap identification and action planning Ongoing training component Ongoing system in place for data collection Ferguson, Jordan, and Baldwin, 2010; Kurns and Tilly, 2006; McGlinchey and Goodman, 2008

15. How to build infrastructure? Leadership and stakeholder team Must have membership with content beliefs, knowledge, and skills Policy should influence hiring and evaluation practices Gap identification and action planning Disseminate information on gap to leadership and stakeholders Establish action plan on training, implementation, and data collection Ongoing training How often depends on the need Coaching should be available Ongoing data collection From all stakeholders on practices related to family-school partnerships Ferguson, Jordan, and Baldwin, 2010; Kurns and Tilly, 2006; McGlinchey and Goodman, 2008

16. Maintain consistency between home-school environment Including parents in evidence-based instruction implementation Involvement in prevention/early intervention Involvement in assessment and progress monitoring Involvement in team meetings

17. FAMILY-SCHOOL PARTNERSHIPS ACROSS THE TIERS

18. Tier I: How to Form Family-School Partnerships The Four As (Adelman & Taylor, 1999; Christenson, 2004; Christenson & Sheridan, 2001) Approach adopted towards the role of families Access, voice, and ownership Approach Families and educators values and perceptions about family-school relationships Attitudes School climate for families and educators Atmosphere Strategies to build shared responsibility Actions

19. Tier I: How to Form Family-School Partnerships Support classroom instruction: Link with student achievement goals and school standards Engage families in activities that focus directly on issues related to student learning by using a variety of communication strategies Build school culture that is inclusive and supportive of family and community involvement (Ferguson, 2004; Miller & Kraft, 2008)

20. Tier I: Strengthening Family-School Partnerships Infiltrate all practices in school with a family-school focus Explain school, home, and partnership conditions that foster students learning competence Actively pursue and reach out to parents early and across settings Include parents in PS/RtI approach by varying degrees of intensity based on student need (Christenson, 2004)

21. Tier I: Involving Parents Families want information from school personnel about the following: – Expectations, curricula, teaching strategies, child development and parenting strategies Most effective: two-way exchange of information Utilize multiple methods for dissemination and inclusion – Curriculum nights, parent-teacher conferences, PTAs, organized volunteer system, distribution of both print and non-print materials, home visits, and parent workshops Activities that does not involve on-campus participation – One-way effective – Activities available for download from the Kansas Parent Information Resource Center in both English and Spanish at www.kpirc.org (Christenson, Hurley, Sheridan, & Fenstermacher, 1997; Cox, 2005; Esler, Godber, & Christenson, 2008; Miller & Kraft, 2008)

22. Consistent communication regarding student progress (Singh, 2003) Written logs Use of technology Online portfolios (Merkley, Schmidt, Dirksen, & Fulher, 2006) Collaborative Problem-Solving Inform assessment information and problem identification Inform intervention development Intervention implementation

23. Partnerships at Tier II & III: Problem- Solving Identifying socially important and meaningful target behaviors that are mutually agreed upon by educators and families is critical to the problem- solving process (Sheridan, Warnes, & Dowd, 2004) Knowledge sharing (Geiger et al., 2002; Lawson, 2003; Miretzky, 2004; Pena, 2000) For students needing more intensive emotional and behavioral supports, the importance of understanding cultural norms related to such behavior including family values, help seeking behaviors, and communication styles is important (Cartledge, Kea, & Simmons-Reed, 2002) Research has found that (a) time devoted to the meeting, (b) a non-blaming atmosphere, and (c) input from parents and others were identified as characteristics of effective problem-solving meetings (Witt, Miller, McIntyre, & Smith, 1984)

24. Hypotheses explaining students difficulties that focus on alterable variables and are supported by data reduces blame and increases collaborative, goal-oriented problem-solving among educators and families Developing hypotheses in multiple domains lessens the focus on problems being within the child, which can be a source of tension between families and educators; especially among culturally and linguistically diverse families (Harry, 2008) Partnerships at Tier II & III: Problem- Solving

25. Intervention development, implementation, and monitoring (Fishel & Ramirez, 2005; Ordenez-Jasis & Jasis, 2004) Parental support for intervention implementation at home is associated with students meeting their intervention goals (McNamara, Telzrow, & DeLamatre, 1999) Providing parents with materials and support to implement intervention strategies at home results in higher student outcomes compared to school-only interventions (Morrow & Young, 1997) Supporting interventions and learning at home increases amount of practice with new skills and improves generalizability of skills Partnerships at Tier II & III: Problem- Solving

26. Successful Partnerships at Tier II & III: What can educators do? Successful Partnerships at Tier II & III: What can educators do? Emphasis on relationships, trust, and mutual respect among educators and families (Dunst et al., 1992; Teachman, Paasch, & Carver, 1996) Importance of effective, positive, consistent communication Giving parents information on ways they can be involved and support students learning predicts level of parent involvement (Pena, 2000) Schools efforts to partner with families should match the student and families needs, with students and families with more intensive needs receiving the most intensive outreach and educational supports in order ensure both student success and family ability to support their learner

27. Empower families to communicate with school and welcome parent participation (Barton, Drake, Perez, St. Louis, & George, 2004) Activities linked to student learning (Henderson & Mapp, 2002) # of activities involved with at home linked with short and long-term student outcomes (Miedel & Reynolds, 1999) Training parents to teach children reading skills results in student gains (Senechal, 2006) Using community-based resources and effective parent training strategies to improve parents skills to implement such interventions leads to improved parent skills, improved implementation of the intervention by parents, and improved student outcomes (Hester, Kaiser, Alpert, & Whiteman, 1995)

28. Barriers to Family-School Partnerships (Christenson, 2004; Epstein & Sanders, 2006; Muscott et al., 2008; Miller & Kraft, 2008; Noguera, 1999; Wandersman et al., 2002) Practical Logistics of parents and teachers devoting time and energy to home-school relations Personal Influence parents and school staffs individual decisions to participate Institutional Occur when resources to promote parental involvement are lacking or when the school staff is not interested in promoting parent involvement

29. Other Considerations Middle Schools Students have multiple teachers Type of involvement is different Adolescents perceptions Urban and minority populations Parental involvement beneficial (Hill & Tyson, 2009; Jeynes 2003; Jeynes, 2005; Jeynes, 2007)

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