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Family School Linkages Project: Building Better Relationships Between School Personnel & the Families of their Students
By Dianne Ferguson
About the Difference Between Parent Involvement and
Family/Community Linkages?
School personnel have long talked about the need for parent involvement. In recent years the language has shifted slightly
to family involvement in order to honor that many other family members siblings, aunts and uncles, even close friends and
neighbors support and nurture children and youth and may play significant roles in their education. But the meaning of
involvement or even participation or partnership has changed only a little among school personnel.
Yet most school personnel will admit with little prodding that only modest numbers of their students family members
participate in many of the activities they offer. Sometimes schools find that families come to celebration events in large numbers,
but rarely come for meetings or other events that focus on how family members might support their childrens learning at home.
Other schools find that only a small core group of family members seem to come to whatever is offered.
Involvement Has Traditionally Meant . . .
For many school personnel the notion of family involvement means parents or family members getting involved in the
schools efforts to teach their children and youth. Different authors describe it differently. Some outline 6 ways for parents to
become involved in schools and the work of schools (for example, Joyce Epstein and colleagues at the center on Family, School,
and Community). Others list 4 or make distinctions between parents being active in getting in touch with school personnel,
coming to school, or asking questions about what happens at school or parents being passive and responding only when
schools ask. One way to summarize these various definitions, at least in their most traditional version, is into three roles and
responsibilities that teachers describe for family members:



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Coming to the school for meetings/conferences, special assemblies or events, volunteering in classrooms, helping with field
trips, participating in fund raising events for the school, or joining school councils or other decision-making groups.
Supervising homework and helping students with school assignments and projects at home, making sure they have time set aside to do
schoolwork and generally taking an interest in students schoolwork when they are at home.
Making sure students are ready for school and learning by making sure they are well fed, clothed, and get enough sleep.
This approach to defining involvement makes a lot of sense from a teachers point of view. Parents not only help teachers
do their jobs by working on school things at home, but they also actively help the school through some of their volunteering and
other activities. The work of teachers and what students learn in school is how most teachers begin thinking about families.
Parent involvement, in this view, must serve both schools and student learning at school.
Why Involvement Hasnt worked Very Well
First, it leaves out too many famil es in several important ways. Some families may have not had good experiences with
school when they were young, or may not have even finished high school. Going to school may be uncomfortable and the school
may feel strange and overwhelming. Busy offices, empty hallways, people rushing around without taking time to stop and greet
family members who come to the school combine to make many families feel unwelcome, even intimidated. If family members
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speak Spanish, Russian, Mandarin or some other language than English and there is no one at the office to greet them in their
own language, the problem only gets worse. These same parents may also have trouble helping their children with schoolwork
that is largely in English even if they want to and try.
Some families from other cultures and experiences may have different ways of thinking about schools and teachers. For
example, in some other cultural communities, working together and helping the community may be more important than
succeeding on your own. But schools rely on individual success and being competitive which may conflict with some families
cultural values. Some families may believe their role is to teach their children about their family and culture and the teachers job to
teach the skills that schools usually emphasize. Coming to school and helping out may feel inappropriate to some family members
like they are not giving the teacher enough respect.
Just getting to school or being available when its convenient for teachers may be nearly impossible for many families. More
and more families rely on all the adults in the household working and sometimes working more than one job. This is especially
true for families who have recently immigrated. The work of earning money, caring for other family members, and keep a home
together may leave no time for coming to school for meetings or events. On top of this, many families in urban communities
may not have easy transportation or childcare. Even busses can take more time than family members have to give.
Second, its a narrow definition. There is little in the definition that speaks to ways family members might be involved in
their childrens lives and learning without coming to school and that are not very often noticed by school personnel. Family
members might still hold education in high value, talk to their sons and daughters about learning, and create a variety of
opportunities for them to learn outside of school. Gerald Lopez found, for example, among the migrant families he studied in
Texas that families worked hard to be involved in their childrens educational lives by teaching them the value of education
through the medium of hard work in the fields and making sure they understood how not doing well in school would limit later
opportunities. Although these family members rarely went to school, even when invited, their involvement supported their
childrens graduation in the top 10% of their classes.
The traditional way of defining parent involvement also largely limits involvement to activities that relate to the parents child.
There is some broader encouragement of involvement in school events, but there might be many more ways family members
could contribute to the mission and activities of a school both inside and outside the building and the learning of other children
and youth.
Third, it just goes one-way. The focus of the definition is on parents, and recently, other family members, doing things at
and for school, but not very much on what schools might be able to do for families that would support their efforts to create safe,
stable, and nurturing family lives. Many urban and rural families need a variety of supports that schools could provide, and some
schools have begun to do so. These include classes on parenting or language when needed, access to other social services on site,
use of the school for community events or recreation. Schools current focus on standards and accountability threatens to
undermine or even eliminate some schools modest accomplishments in this direction. Nevertheless, there is growing evidence
that school are successful in involving family members in their own agendas when they get involved in meeting families needs
and agendas
The Alternative of Family/School Linkages
Some people would expand our phrase of family/school linkages to include community and talk about family and
community connections with schools(for example, the National Center for Family and Community Connections with Schools). We
support this direction and include it in our notion of linkages. Schools are located in communities, but they have often been
isolated from those communities, especially in urban communities. Teachers in many urban schools do not live in the
neighborhood, but come in from other communities and so dont know the schools community very well. The idea of linkages or
connections is about creating the relationships between school personnel and those that live and work in the communities
surrounding schools that will help both the schools and the communities be more successful.
Family/School Linkages mean that school personnel go out into the community to visit families at home, to get to know
the business people and how they might be able to create learning opportunities for students. School personnel link with other
community organizations where families and students might be involved and try to include those organizations work into student
learning experiences. Linking with the community might mean in some schools that health, social, mental health, counseling, and
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other important family services become available at the school. When family members do come to the school, they come for
things that are not only interesting to them, but also helpful and supportive of their familys life and efforts.
Family/School Linkages create a broader set of activities for family members in the school building increasing the number
of adults in the building providing care and guidance to students. Some of these activities might be possible for family members
who work during school hours, but could contribute their talents and support after school hours or on the weekend.
For example, family members might come to school to:
Help maintain and improve the school physical plant and grounds
Provide assistance in the office or cafeteria
Create and maintain supports for families (e.g., food and clothes lending closet)
Plan community events with other community groups
Teach and co-teach special interest classes or regular subjects
Supervise students at lunch and recess
Assist teachers to design integrated, project-based curriculum units
Work as classroom assistants
Meet, orient, and support other families when they come to the school
Provide translation for family members who dont speak English
Assist in decision-making through committees and councils

Family/School Linkages make connections for families between what students are learning in school and the kinds of
things that going on in families homes or in the community that might offer good opportunities to further that learning.
Teachers, for example, might send home ideas for activities that can be done on the weekend or in the evenings in the normal
course of things that would also help students understand fractions by helping to cook, or discover more examples of seeds in
pods at the local gardens or grocery store, or even learn more about the Depression and World War II by interviewing older
family members. Once teachers understand more about students lives outside of school, the possibilities grow for making
learning outside of school in other parts of students lives link and connect to the learning that schools can provide. Student
learning will be deeper and more lasting when it connects to their lives outside of school in real and meaningful ways. In this way,
even family members who cant or are uncomfortable coming to the school building can be actively engaged in further their
childrens learning

Family/School Linkages most importantly emphasize the relationships, trust, and shared understanding that must develop
between families and teachers. When teachers and parents get to know each other and share their ideas about students, they are
more likely to be able to work together to improve not only students learning, but also the communities around schools. When
family members and school personnel get to know one another, and trust that each other share some common goals and values
regarding growth and development for children and youth, then the misunderstandings, even conflicts that can occur will be
resolved more easily. When relationships develop, all parties benefit. Family members are more likely to feel genuinely welcomed
and find their ideas and help are needed, not just tolerated. Teachers are more likely to gain a deeper understanding, and ability to
honor different cultural values and practices. Differences in culture, social class, and feelings of power or lack of power can better
be managed within the context of genuine caring relationships between family members and school personnel.
Sources
Epstein, J.L. (2001). School, Family, and Community Partnerships. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Henderson, A.T. & Mapp, K.L. (2002). A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family, & Community Connections on Student
Achievement. Austin, TX: National Center for Family & Community Connections with Schools, Southwest Educational
Development Laboratory.
Lopez, G.R., Scribmer, J.D., & Mahitivanichcha, K. (2001). Redefining parental involvement: Lessons from high-performing
migrant-impacted schools. AERJ, 38(2), 253-288.
Lewis, A. & Forman, T. (2002). Contestation or Collaboration? A Comparative Study of Home-School Relations. Anthropology &
Education Quarterly 33(1): 60-89.