Family Engagement Plan for High School Social Workers

Introduction

Studies have shown that parental involvement has a significant impact on a child's learning outcomes (Battle-Bailey, 2012). This paper develops 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 students come from Latino 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 in order to be 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 subject 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 particularly 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 platforms such as Learning Ally, CommonLit, and MyOn, which offer access to a wide array of curriculum-aligned literature, textbooks, and audiobooks that allow learners not only to read but also to create content online and share it with peers. To make digital content more affordable, the school could pay subscription costs in advance so that learners have free access once they log in. To make the toolkits more engaging for families, teachers can include resources guiding 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, sending home quizzes and assignments each week that require collaboration between learners and parents (Battle-Bailey, 2012). Teachers could add a section to these home assignments encouraging learners to demonstrate a skill they have learned or to share with their parents what they have gained (Colorado Department of Education [CDE], n.d.). Parents, in turn, could be encouraged to engage their children in natural conversations about completed homework, take notes on these conversations, and hand them 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 apply skills acquired through homework assignments (CDE, n.d.). This allows parents to measure their child's progress, identify areas of weakness, and devise ways to help strengthen those areas.

Two-Way Communication

A good communications strategy for family engagement is one that keeps 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 model, the teacher creates a journal 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 helping a parent understand the best way to monitor their child's reading habits at home. The parent, upon receiving the journal, could write feedback to the educator explaining their observations and suggestions for enhancing the child's learning. The journal thus provides an effective framework for two-way communication about a child's performance and progress. A second reciprocal communication mode is regular report-card sharing forums and group meetings held between educators and parents (CDE, n.d.). These face-to-face discussion forums give parents opportunities to become acquainted with classroom procedures and to work collaboratively with educators on 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 always allow for highly individualized communication, such conferences provide effective opportunities for parents to engage in problem-solving and goal-setting (CDE, n.d.). They give parents an opportunity to familiarize themselves with classroom policies and learning techniques that educators employ, and to offer their own ideas on how to improve learner outcomes.

Conclusion

Family engagement is a crucial driver of positive academic performance among high school students. This plan sought to develop a framework for the effective engagement of families in the learning process in a school in Clark County. The plan develops strategies around six 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

Floyd, L., & Vernon-Dotson, L. (2009). Using home learning toolkits to facilitate family involvement. Intervention in School and Clinic, 44(3), 160–166.

Grant, K. B., & Ray, J. A. (2018). Home, school, and community collaboration: Culturally responsive family engagement (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Great Schools. (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