Family-School Partnerships: Strategies Leading to Positive Student Outcomes Martha Blue-Banning University of Kansas Grace Francis University of Missouri—St. Louis 2014 National PBIS Leadership Forum Ocboter 29, 2014

Agenda Introductions Who’s here? What is SWIFT? Learn and Discuss What are Trusting Family-School partnerships? What does research say about Family-School partnerships? What elements characterize a school with Trusting Family-School partnerships? What strategies facilitate these partnerships? 2

Introductions Who is here? What is SWIFT? 3

POLL WHO IS IN THE AUDIENCE? Student Family Member Teacher Related Service Personnel Administrator Other 4

What Is SWIFT? Schoolwide Integrated Framework for Transformation 5

Knowledge Development Sites (gold) SWIFT Partner States (red) 6

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Discuss and Learn What are Trusting Family-School partnerships? What does research say about Family-School partnerships? What elements characterize a school with Trusting Family-School partnerships. What strategies facilitate these partnerships? 8

Trusting Family-School Partnerships Trusting Family-School Partnerships are about engaging family members within schools to form a partnership where each benefit from and support the other for the purposes of promoting the learning and academic achievement of all students.

Family-School Partnership Research Benefits: – Better grades (Goddard, Tschannen-Moran, & Hoy, 2001; Hoy & Tarter, 1997; Newman, 2005; Sweetland & Hoy, 2000) – More involvement in groups/clubs (Newman, 2005 ) – More friends (Newman, 2005 ) – Employment (Newman, 2005 ) – Better school climate (Hoy, 2002; Mueller, Singer, & Draper, 2008)

From Fortresses to Partnerships 11 Henderson & Dahm,

Key Elements of Trusting Family-School partnerships Families: – Receive information regarding school system and instructional practices (including student support and progress data for both academics and behavior), – Have opportunities to participate in decision making regarding their children’s education. All school personnel: – Understand the importance of family partnerships – Assess/monitor the quality partnership status between family members and educators/school staff – Ensure family input is solicited and utilized to make decisions about school governance – provide opportunities for families to serve on committees/teams that address school governance. National Center on Schoolwide Inclusive School Reform: The SWIFT Center (2013). Fidelity Integrity Assessment. Lawrence, KS: Author.

KDS* Strategies: Families Receive Information Individual student notes Distribute casual newsletters Your Experiences _______ Your Experiences _______ Understanding the link between standards and curriculum *KDS: Knowledge Development Sites

KDS* Strategies: Families Making Decisions Your Experiences _______ Your Experiences _______ *KDS: Knowledge Development Sites

KDS* Strategies: Importance of Family Partnerships Your Experiences _______ Your Experiences _______ *KDS: Knowledge Development Sites

KDS* Strategies: Family-School Partnership Assessment Your Experiences _______ Your Experiences _______ *KDS: Knowledge Development Sites

KDS* Strategies: Quality of Partnerships Your Experiences _______ Your Experiences _______ *KDS: Knowledge Development Sites

KDS* Strategies: Families and School Governance Your Experiences _______ Your Experiences _______ *KDS: Knowledge Development Sites

Family-School Partnership Tools SWIFT Fidelity Integrity Assessment (FIA) Parent and Faculty Surveys (Trust Matters: Leadership for Successful Schools) California School Parent Survey Others

SWIFT Fidelity Integrity Assessment (FIA)

Resources Flamboyan Foundation of-focus/family-engagement/ of-focus/family-engagement/ Harvard Family Research Project involvement involvement SWIFT website and Facebook page (information added daily!)

The National Center on Schoolwide Inclusive School Reform (The SWIFT Center) produced the data for this presentation under U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs Grant No. H325Y OSEP Project Officers Grace Zamora Durán and Tina Diamond served as the project officers. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the positions or policies of the Department of Education. No official endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education of any product, commodity, service or enterprise mentioned in this publication is intended or should be inferred. This product is public domain. Authorization to reproduce it in whole or in part is granted. While permission to reprint this publication is not necessary, the citation should be: Blue-Banning, M., & Francis, G.L. (2014, July). Building capacity for sustainable family-school-community partnerships. TASH Regional Conference, St. Louis, MO. 22