Kozar 1

Hayley Kozar
EDU 234
Jan Webler
29 March 2016
Family Engagement Commentary
Family engagement is a necessity of a students success during their educational journey.
According to University of Southern Californias Education Departments article on Family
Engagement in Education, Family members help in classrooms, in the school office, and on
field trips. They tutor students, act as mentors, and translate materials for other families. They
raise funds for the school, help write grants, and organize activities to promote the school in the
community (Smith 1). This shows that families around the nation are getting involved in school
settings by helping with various aspects of students education. Having families involved in the
schools is beneficial for the families, students, and the faculty of the schools. Research has
shown that when family is engaged in their childs education, the childs school performance is
enhanced and leads to positive outcomes. A visual that the University of Southern California
added in their article shows that when parents are engaged in their childs education the student,
family, and school all benefit. Some of the student benefits include: grades, attendance,
attitude/behavior, homework completion, ability to self-regulate, and social skills. Family
benefits include: self-efficacy and empowerment. School benefits include: communication,
collaboration, ability to problem-solve, and staff morale. All of these benefits are improved when
the parents are engaged. Some negative effects on the student, family, and schools are reduced
with parent engagement. For students: dropout rates, retentions, special-education placements.
For family: reluctance to approach school for needs. Lastly, for schools: Feeling of us vs.
them and need to find volunteers for school activities. This shows that when parents are
engaged in the schools, everyone can benefit and negative outcomes are less likely to arise.
Along with this research comes Urie Bronfenbrenners theory that includes: microsystem,
mesosystem, extosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. These systems deal with an
individual and their environment. I will discuss the systems in which relate to family
engagement. The Micro system is the direct environment we have in our lives. These can consist
of our neighbors, teachers, classmates, and other people we have contact with. The mesosystem
consists of the relationships between the microsystems we have in our lives. With this, family
experience may be in direct relation with our school experience. Therefore, the mesosystem
relates to family engagement because when families are engaged, it can be positive for the
student in their schooling. I think the macrosystem can influence parent involvement in schools
because this system is the culture of the child. If the childs culture isnt valued by the school,
then the parents are less likely to be engaged in their childs education. These systems are based
on theory and correspond to family engagement. Although there are great outcomes and benefits
of family engagement, there are barriers with certain low-income, immigrant, minority, and
working-class families. Language barriers, work schedules, or just not enough money to be
engaged in the school system leads to lower levels of family engagement. It is an educators duty

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to try to resolve the low-engagement in families by figuring out effective ways to get them
involved.
University of Southern Californias Education Departments article expresses six principles for
successful and more participated family engagement. The first principle is be prepared. It is
important for the schools to address language barriers by acknowledging non English speaking
families coming to the school. The schools should give the family support and resources to better
educate their child. Schools can also provide a family coordinator for the families because they
can help engage families in the school and receive benefits from it. The second principle is be
respectful. Schools should have an open door policy to make the families feel welcome in the
school setting. It is also important to reach out to the families that need it most, like barriers in
socioeconomic status and linguistic. Another major aspect of being respectful is recognizing and
appreciating families cultural backgrounds. More and more schools are attracting in students
with different cultural backgrounds. It is important to keep these students and families in mind
and respect their traditions and values. Principle three is be specific. It is vital to be specific
regarding parent involvement because parents may not know they are welcome in the schools
and that they can participate in school related activities. Incorporating family engagement into
the school should be a mission because of all the positive outcomes that can come from it.
Providing parent orientations at the schools can make them feel welcome and able to be
involved. Parents should be partners during their childs educational experience and parent
contracts should be in agreement for the whole school year. The parent contract states what
parents should be doing with their child, for example, reading to them every night for a certain
amount of time. These contracts explain specific requirements to parents. Be strategic is
principle four which considers scheduling a major aspect. It is important to schedule times that
are good for parents to come in and participate. Many barriers can arise for families, so it is
important for scheduling to meet their availability as well. It is also vital to consider training
family members to be prepared to support their child academically. Training can lead to more
parental involvement and academic support for the child. Principle five is be flexible meaning,
offer various ways for families to get involved in the school and their childs education.
Including various opportunities for families to be engaged, provide ways for families to meet
participation requirements in schools, and incorporating leeway into their requirements are
examples of being flexible and can cause more family engagement. Be creative is principle six.
This principle includes creating spaces in the school for families, offering incentives for
participation in the schools, and assigning responsibilities to families. All of these principles
include strategies to increase family engagement. For more in depth information on the
principles, please visit the article.
Like I have previously stated, there are large amounts of benefits from family engagement, but
there also are barriers in getting families engaged. There could be lack of time and knowledge.
There could also be cultural barriers and poor teacher attitude. These are just a few barriers in
getting families engaged. Finding time to participate and be involved in their childs education is
getting more and more tough. Families now are struggling with time because the family could
have two-breadwinners, be single parents, or have a family member work multiple jobs. Families
are at a time crunch and struggle to find time to participate within the schools. It is shown that
students need help at home with schoolwork and when parents do help with the schoolwork, it
leads to greater success. Without parents help at home, the student may struggle academically.

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Being unknowledgeable as a parent on how to help their child can be a barrier. Often, parents
want to be involved in their childs education, but dont know how to help. It can be helpful to
parents if teachers could host a training program for parents, so that they can better understand
their childs education and help them in a proper way. Cultural barriers seem more common now
than ever before. Families in the United States are becoming more linguistic and culturally
diverse. It is highly likely that students may not speak English as a first language in schools. It is
essential that the schools consider ELL students and help them succeed as an English speaking
student would. It is critical that teachers collaborate with culturally diverse families and support
them and their needs. Lastly, teachers must have a positive attitude towards all their students and
their academic successes. It can be likely that teachers may have low expectations for students
that are in poverty which can be a barrier. It is vital for teachers to put aside any stereotypes and
have a positive attitude for every students learning and family. Its important that all students
have the teachers support and can count on them for academic success.
Working with diverse learners in the classroom can be very rewarding for teachers. Changing a
students life for the better is a rewarding feeling and happens often for teachers around the
world. It is important that teachers prepare for diverse learners in their classroom, so that the
diverse learners will succeed and grow in a positive way. When students have teachers who truly
care about their successes and their learning, they are more capable of doing well in the
classroom. It is critical that teachers differentiate their lessons, so that diverse learners will be
able to understand and grow from what theyre being taught. Teachers often differentiate their
lessons on content, product, and process. Content is the knowledge, concepts, and skills that
students need to learn the material. You can differentiate content by showing content as a video,
or through readings. Differentiating process is another way to differentiate for diverse learners.
Process is how students make sense of the content. Teachers can form a think-pair-share or
partner talk for students to discuss material and determine if they understand the content or not.
This also helps the teacher because it is formative assessment for them. Lastly, teachers can
differentiate the product for diverse learners. This differentiation is the most common for
teachers to use in their lessons. The teacher can give choices where students pick from formats or
students propose their own ideas. There are other ways to differentiate lessons such as the type of
learners in the classroom: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. For auditory learners, the learner will
learn best through listening. The teacher may give these students the option to do oral
presentations focusing on the content because they usually lack in reading and writing. Visual
learners receive information by seeing it. Teachers should give these students outlines, graphs,
maps, and pictures when teaching them content. Finally, kinesthetic learners learn by movement
and touch. These students learn best from movement and exploring their environment. They also
may take excessive amounts of notes. Teachers should keep in mind the different learning styles
in their classroom and differentiate based on the best way their students learn. There are various
ways to differentiate lesson plans. Differentiating lessons based on the best way the students will
learn will help them tremendously. Differentiating lessons for each student is difficult and
challenging for the most part. However, it is extremely beneficial for the students when they
grasp the content, and extremely rewarding for the teacher when they see the students succeed.
Engaging families can be difficult for some teachers. However, it is extremely beneficial and
important to include families in the school and every day learning of their child. Having parents
involved in their childs education has been beneficial to their academic success. It is important

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teachers accommodate to parents schedules and language or cultural differences. Teachers
should encourage parents to be active in their childs learning. They should also make sure that
when they meet parents for the first time that it is positive. Educationworld.com gives great ideas
and activities for teachers to involve parents throughout the entire school year. I believe some of
these ideas are great and will be used in my future classroom. It is critical that parents feel
welcome in the school and comfortable. Teachers should express that parent involvement is great
and that it is supported in the school. Teachers can also work with parents in setting their
students goals for the year and any concerns they may have; this shows collaboration between
the adults. This should be done at the beginning of the school year, but can be modified
throughout the school year. Since technology is so common in todays society, many apps have
been created for teachers and parents to stay connected during the school year. I think having an
app that teachers and parents can communicate can be a great idea. For example, teachers can
send parents a message with concerns about their child, or parents can do the same for the
teacher. Teachers can send pictures of what is going on in the class during the day and what
theyre learning about. Parents receiving pictures of their child is a great way to see what is
going on at school. Parents can also easily access the teacher if they need anything or have
questions. I think sending a parent newsletter home every week is great for parents to get
information about upcoming events and activities going on at the school or in the classroom
itself. Along with sending home parent newsletters, teachers can send home weekly work sheets
for parents to do work with their child during the week. This will build more of a relationship
with parents and their child, and allow them to help out with what they are learning at school.
Adding to the newsletter and the work sheets, teachers can also send home weekly folders of
students work. This will allow parents to see and understand what is going on during the week at
school. They can see their childs achievements and failures, if there are any. Seeing failures can
be great for parents, so that they can see what they should work on with their child at home.
Parent-Teacher conferences only happen occasionally throughout the school year. I think these
are important in student academic success and are great for teachers to express to the parent their
students grades, behavior, and anything else they may need to share. I think meetings between
the teacher and parent should happen more often because they can help the parents get new
insight on their childs academic success and also classroom behavior over time. Plus, these
meetings can allow parents and teachers to express concerns or any questions to one another. I
think the idea of having a homework hotline can be great for students who missed school that
day. Homework hotlines can allow parents to call in and get any missed homework or forgotten
assignments. Personally, I believe that elementary students parents would use this more often
because often times younger students forget what homework they had or may forget their
homework at school. All of these ideas are great and I am going to potentially use in my future
classroom to engage families. I think many new ideas will be found by the time I am a full-time
teacher. However, these ideas and activities would be beneficial to use. I believe parent
involvement is extremely important, so I will do everything in my power to accommodate to
parents and include them in various classroom activities. I will make sure I am positive with all
parents and consider their culture and languages. I think having an ongoing personal relationship
with parents helps the student succeed academically, so I will make sure I do everything I can to
help my students succeed in my classroom.
Overall, teachers have many challenges that come along with their career. Though challenges
occur, many benefits and rewards come from having parents involved in their students academic

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career. Having parents involved show many positive benefits of a childs education. It is
important that teachers develop a mutual relationship with the parents of their students. I have
researched and found the benefits of parental involvement. I have also found great activities and
ideas that I will use in my future classroom to engage families. I know how important it is to
have families engaged, so I will do everything possible to include them and have my students be
successful in their academics.

Sources:
https://www.usc.edu/dept/education/cegov/focus/charter-schools/publications/bookschapters/Family%20Engagement%20in%20Education.pdf
https://explorable.com/ecological-systems-theory
http://center.serve.org/tt/ktip1_barriers.pdf
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/differentiated-instruction-ways-to-plan-john-mccarthy
http://cet.usc.edu/resources/teaching_learning/docs/teaching_nuggets_docs/2.8_Teaching_in_a_
Diverse_Classroom.pdf
http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr200.shtml