Clark County Family Engagement Plan

Family Engagement Plan
Studies have shown that parental involvement has a significant impact on a child’s learning outcomes (Battle-Bailey, 2012). This text seeks to develop a school social worker’s plan for engaging and involving parents in their students’ learning at a high school in Clark County School District in Henderson, NV. Clark County School District student demographics indicate that a majority (46 percent) of the students come from Latina families, with 25 percent and 14 percent coming from white and African-American families respectively (Great Schools, 2020). Further, 67 percent of high school students are from low-income families (Great Schools, 2020). The strategies selected for the family engagement plan need to take these demographic factors into account to be more effective.
Home-Based Family Engagement Activities
One positive strategy for enhancing home-based family engagement is the development and implementation of home-learning toolkits for families (Floyd & Vernon-Dotson, 2009). The kits could be designed for different study areas such as math, creative writing, reading, language, science, music and art among others. Given the large population of students from Latino families, reading and writing toolkits that integrate both English and Spanish materials would be relevant. Digital toolkits provide access to a wider range of material than physical toolkits. To increase access to digital content, kits could provide links to online sites such as Learning Ally, CommonLit, and MyOn, which provide access to a wide array of curriculum-aligned literature, textbooks, and audiobooks that allow learners to not just read, but also create content online and share the same with colleagues. To make digital content in provided toolkits more affordable for learners, the school could pay the subscription beforehand so that learners have free access to the same once they log in. To make the toolkits more engaging for families, teachers can include resources to guide parents on how to support their children at home and how to select the most effective resources for their children’s holistic development.
Interactive homework could also be a crucial strategy for home-based family engagement (Battle-Bailey, 2012). There are several activities that teachers could undertake to make homework more interactive. First, they could design home literacy bags, where every week they send home quizzes and assignments requiring the collaboration of learners and parents (Battle-Bailey, 2012). Teachers could add a section to these home assignments that encourage learners to demonstrate a skill that they have learnt or share information on what they have gained with their parents (Colorado Department of Education (CDE), n.d.). Parents, on their part, could be encouraged to engage their children in natural conversations in regard to completed homework, take notes on these conversations, and then hand the same over to the teacher, for compilation in a class library (Battle-Bailey, 2012). Another interactive homework strategy would be to create a skill chart that parents could use to monitor and record how well or how often their children make use of skills acquired through homework assignments (CDE, n.d.). This allows parents to measure the progress of their child, identify their areas of weakness, and devise ways to help them strengthen these weak areas.
Two-Way Communication
A good communications strategy for family engagement is one that helps to keep parents informed in a timely manner using engaging and user-friendly techniques. A promising strategy for two-way reciprocal communication is the home-school-journal (CDE, n.d.). In this case, the teacher creates a journal that is used to share questions, concerns feedback and comments between educators and families (CDE, n.d.). An educator could share information in the journal on classroom policies and guidance, thereby guiding a parent on the best way to monitor their child’s reading habits at home. The parent, upon receiving the same, could write feedback to the educator explaining their observations and propositions to enhance the child’s learning. The journal thus provides an effective framework for two-way communication on a child’s performance and progress. A second reciprocal mode of two-way communication is regular report-card sharing forums and group meetings held between educators and parents (CDE, n.d.). These face-to-face discussion forums provide means for parents to be acquainted with classroom procedures and to work collaboratively with their educators in goal-setting and problem-solving to enhance learning outcomes for their children (CDE, n.d.).
A third possible communication strategy is the use of parent-teacher conferences (CDE, n.d.). Although they do not allow for individualized communication, such conferences also provide effective means for parents to engage in problem-solving and goal-setting (CDE, n.d.). They give parents an opportunity to identify with, and assess the classroom policies and learning techniques that educators employ and then give their ideas on how to enhance learners’ outcomes.
Parents and Guardians as Decision-Makers
Families are likely to be motivated to pursue the family engagement plan if they feel valued and believe that their opinion and ideas regarding their children’s education are taken into account. There are several strategies that social workers could use to realize this. The first strategy is to train them parents on children’s stages of development, age-appropriate modes of teaching, and the most effective teaching/learning strategies (CDE, n.d.). Such training could be offered through parent-teacher conferences or through monthly/weekly newsletters providing them with practical tips on how to promote learning at home (CDE, n.d.). Training places parents, and families by extension, at a good place to make positive educational decisions for their children. A second strategy is to invite parents to visit and volunteer within classrooms to better understand how teaching is done, or to attend class events and celebrations to increase their familiarity with educators and classroom. Such invitations communicate respect and appreciation for parents and present them as active participants in their children’s learning. The third strategy is to include parents’ representatives in the engagement plan’s decision-making organs such as the advisory boards and governing committees (CDE, n.d.). This communicates that the organization values the ideas of parents and families as key decision-makers in their children’s education.
Parent Education Strategies
Parent education is crucial for ensuring that they (parents) are in a good position to develop effective education plans for their children. One promising strategy for parent education is home visits. In a typical home visit arrangement, the social worker visits a learner’s parents in the home environment or any other location that may be preferable to the family (Grant & Ray, 2018). Home visits provide a framework for social workers and educators to assess the home environment, and its potential impact on student learning. By identifying the environmental stressors in the home environment that could either impede or enhance the learning process; the social worker/educator could educate the parents on how to capitalize on the positive factors or mitigate the negatives to ensure effective home-based learning (Grant & Ray, 2018). The effectiveness of home visitation programs, however, depends on the level of trust and confidence between educators and families (Grant & Ray, 2018). Parents and families are only likely to behave naturally if they trust the social worker/educators making the visitation. Otherwise, they are likely to pretend, leading to false conclusions.
A second plausible strategy for parent education is the use of academic parent-teacher teams (APTT) tutorial videos developed by schools and districts. In this case, the APTT tutorial by Myrtle Tate School in Clark County could provide valuable insights for parents on effective strategies of home-based learning and how to reap maximum benefits from the same among students in Clark County (WestEd, 2020). These tutorials provide a range of educative resources and practice activities that parents could use to enhance their children’s learning outcomes.
Finally, educators could encourage learning through apprenticeship, where parents are given opportunities to volunteer in the classroom and participate in lessons or other classroom events to observe how lessons are taught (CDE, n.d.). This way, they could obtain crucial insights on effective teaching and learning, and could apply the same at home.
Available Community Resources
Resources at the county and state levels provide support towards family engagement. Clark County hosts one of the four Family Engagement Resource Centers (FERC) that target underserved teens at high risk of dropping out of high school in Nevada. Through the FERC, disadvantaged teens and their families can obtain access to resources that they could use to strengthen the levels of engagement at the family level and hence, keep at-risk learners on course to graduation. Still at the county level, parents and families can access the Community-Based Agenda, a program that focuses on engaging volunteers to tackle deep-rooted issues such as poverty and high-school drop-outs (United Way of Southern Nevada, 2017). The Community-Based Agenda provides among other things, support for parents on family engagement, development, and parenting skills to enhance their ability to maximize academic outcomes for at-risk learners (United Way of Southern Nevada, 2017).
At the state level, the Nevada Department of Education, through the office of Parental Involvement and Family Engagement, provides outreach to families with limited proficiency in English and other at-risk families such as single-parent homes, teaching them how to maintain effective family engagement. The Office of Parental Involvement holds biennial summits to deliberate on best practices of family engagement and strategies for improving the same. The Office’s annual reports and publications can be a crucial source of information for parents, educators, and social workers targeting family engagement across the state.
School-Based Family Engagement Activities
It is prudent to develop school-based strategies to complement the home-based strategies identified earlier on in this plan. One of the crucial school-based strategies required for the successful implementation of the family engagement plan is the hiring and training of volunteers and other personnel tasked with the primary role of implementing the plan (CDE, n.d.). The team is headed by a family-engagement coordinator, who is responsible for overseeing the development, implementation, and evaluation of the plan (CDE, n.d.). The volunteers provide technical assistance to the engagement team and serve as the liaison point between the school and families. Developing a team that is fully responsible for the family engagement plan communicates the importance of the same among learners, families, and educators, and provides a basis for financial commitment (CDE, n.d.).
Besides hiring an implementation team, there is a need to put in place a school-wide advisory board whose role is to engage in planning and decision-making as well as promoting communication (CDE, n.d.). As a best practice, the membership of the advisory board needs to be representative of all of the school’s stakeholders, including the principal, social workers, the family engagement plan coordinator, educators, parents, and student representatives (CDE, n.d.).
The final school-based strategy is to create a resource center or family room, furnished with adequate material on proper family engagement and the importance of the same on learners’ outcomes (CDE, n.d.). The space needs to be open to both parents and students, with the overall goal of educating and familiarizing them with the concept of family engagement in education (CDE, n.d.).
Conclusion
Family engagement is a crucial driver of positive academic performance among highs school students. This plan sought to develop a plan for the effective engagement of families in the learning process in a school in Clark County. The plan develops strategies around sis primary areas: home-based learning, school-based learning, two-way communication, parents as decision-makers, parent education, and available community resources.












References
Battle-Bailey, L. (2012). Review of Research: Interactive Homework for Increasing Parent Involvement and Student Reading Achievement. Childhood Education, 81(1), 36-40.
Colorado Department of Education (CDE) (n.d.). School-Family Partnership Strategies to Enhance Children’s Social Emotional and Academic Growth. CDE. Retrieved from https://www.cde.state.co.us/cdesped/school-familypartnershipstrategies
Floyd, L., & Vernon-Dotson, L. (2009). Using Home Learning Toolkits to Facilitate Family Involvement. Intervention in School and Clinic, 44(3), 160-66.
Grant, K. B., & Ray, J. A. (2018). Home, School, and Community Collaboration: Culturally Responsive Family Engagement (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Great School (2020). Clark County School District. Great Schools. Retrieved from https://www.greatschools.org/nevada/las-vegas/clark-county-school-district/#students
United Way of Southern Nevada (2017). United Way Community-Based Agenda. United Way of Southern Nevada. Retrieved from http://communityconnect.uwsn.org/resource/102509__2017%20Community%20Based%20Agenda%20FINAL.pdf
WestEd (2020). Family Engagement: Academic Parent-Teacher Teams. WestEd. Retrieved from http://communityconnect.uwsn.org/resource/102509__2017%20Community%20Based%20Agenda%20FINAL.pdf