Children, Youth and Family Consortium

This handout was prepared by Dr. Christenson to illustrate home-school partnership strategies to promote academic and social success of students. The handout draws upon the significant contributions of many researchers (and their colleagues), including Joyce Epstein, Don Davies, Carole Ames, Herb Walberg, Howard Weiss, Cindy Carlson, Susan Swap, Sharon Lynn Kagan, Susan Sheridan, and Jane Close Conoley, and upon the contributions of many school professionals and educational authors (e.g., Lee Canter) that have applied research findings about the positive effects of home-school collaboration by creating partnership programs with parents. The purpose of the handout is to illustrate specific home-school partnership strategies that can be used to enhance student learning. Joyce Epstein's typology of home-school collaboration has been chosen to organize the strategies. The classification of a strategy was arbitrary. In some cases, strategies may represent more than one category. Finally, Howard Weiss has coined the term climate-building activities to illustrate the importance of a welcoming and trusting climate between parents and educators. Preliminary evidence in my research suggests that climate building activities are a prerequisite for many home-school collaboration strategies to be successfully implemented. Therefore I also describe examples of socialization experiences between home and school. Should you have any questions about these strategies, please contact me at: Phone (612) 624-0037; FAX (612) 624-0879; Address: University of Minnesota, School Psychology Program, 350 Elliott Hall, 75 E. River Road, Minneapolis, MN 55455.

Home-school collaboration is an attitude not an activity. It occurs when parents and educators share common goals, are seen as equals, and both contribute to the process. It is sustained with a "want to" motivation rather than an "ought to" or "obliged to" orientation from all individuals. Therefore, it is not: (a) parents only in schools as volunteers, who are directed by the school's agenda, (b) parents serving on advisory councils and educators not listening to their needs, (c) parent-teacher conferences that are a one-way exchange of information, (d) school to home contacts when a student is failing, (e) the availability of programs sponsored by non-school organizations in the schools, and (f) parent education programs determined by educators to be important for parents. Home-school collaboration is not the delivering of services to parents. Home-school collaboration is establishment of a mutual goal between educators and parents to create an ethos for learning. Home-school collaboration occurs when parents are seen as key resources who work to improve their own children's education and the education of all children.

2. The degree to which parents and educators engage in perspective taking and nonblaming interactions.

3. The degree to which the elements of collaboration, especially two way sharing of information, are present.

5. The degree to which the goal of home-school collaboration is to enhance the educational success of children.

I. Climate Building Activities (Weiss) or Socialization Experiences Between Parents and Educators (Finding New Faces in the Crowd)

Note: Several of these strategies are drawn directly from: Epstein, J.L. ( 1992). Leadership roles for school psychologists. In S.L. Christenson & J.C. Conoley (Eds.), Home-school collaboration: Enhancing children's academic and social competence (pp. 499-415). Silver Spring, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.

Type 1 -- Basic Obligations of Families refers to the responsibilities of families for their children's health and safety, parenting and child rearing skills at each age level, and positive home conditions for learning at each grade level.

Type 2 - Communications from the School refers to the responsibilities of schools for communications from school-to-home about school programs and children's progress in forms and words all families can understand, and for options for home-to-school communications.

Establish a structure and routine for discussing with parents test scores, report card grades, student behavior, and other indicators of progress.
Establish print and nonprint methods of communicating about meetings, school programs, facilities, and other events and opportunities.
Establish procedures to evaluate the "readability" of all memos, notices, and other communications, and the clarity of all print or nonprint information that goes home, with sensitivity for parents who do not speak English well, not read well, need large type, etc.
Design a useful structure and schedule for conferences. Work with teachers to improve c the content of conferences so that some time is spent discussing how each teacher involves parents as partners each year, and so that some time ~s spent discussing parents' observations and expectations for their own children.
Improve communications with non-English-speaking families, families with less formal education, and other groups that are often ignored by the schools.
Establish parent-to-parent options for sharing information, raising questions, and other communications.
Establish procedures for two-way communications so that families can contact school, teachers, counselors, administrators for information, and so that families can provide information or observations about their children that may help the school increase responsiveness to individual needs.
Develop the leadership of administrators, teachers, and parents so that they can continue effective two-way communications and other Type 2 practices.
Teach or consult with parents to develop a home-based study skills program (e.g., "how to create a good study environment").
Teach parents how to structure learning opportunities in the home (e.g., learning experiences, completion of homework).
Contact a "mass media" campaign about the importance of parent participation in education at home. Offer a parent in education (PIE) night; serve pie and discuss how families can facilitate (vs. families as determinants of) children's school performance. Content includes parental expectations and attributions, discipline/parenting style, parent-child relationships, structure for learning at home, and parent participation. This can be thought of as sharing the curriculum of the home with parents.
Host monthly parent-teacher contact lunches and discuss topics of mutual interest: child/adolescent development, curriculum, homework issues.
Parents shadow their children to experience a typical school day.
Develop an Academic Booster Club or Adopt a Family for Educational Excellence or Home facilitator Program.
Offer regular parent-teacher interactive workshops or parent groups to provide information on how to facilitate life skills in children (Megaskills, Dorothy Rich) or specific strategies to assist children's school learning.
Create monthly newsletters or Parent Idea Cards on tips for parents and teachers to increase student success with school work.
Create the Parent Hour -- where parents call to speak with educators on radio, cable TV).
Provide public service announcements about the importance of parents as facilitators for children's school performance.
Highlight the Family of the Week on a school bulletin board where parents share their ideas for assisting student learning.
Provide a parent involvement activity on a calendar (e.g., Monday: Read most of a story. Have your child make up the ending. Tuesday: Follow your child's exact instructions for making a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich).
Use a school bulletin board to highlight positive home-school partnership ideas; work with parents to help create these ideas and develop a handbook for school-wide distribution.
Develop a lending library for parent resources.
Directly teach and discuss home conditions that support a child's achievement in school: A child's schedule for studying, school supplies, diet, sufficient sleep, and rules governing recreation, TV, and homework hours important for educational progress.
Electronic technology, including the Transparent Model, Dial-A-Teacher, homework hotline.
Establish a routine phone calling/person contact schedule so all parents are contacted.
Provide good news phone calls from teachers to parents and students to parents; encourage parents to provide good news phone calls and notes to teachers.
State of Class message - Have students create a school to home newsletter or engage journal writing about what is being learned at school.
Increase contacts with parent about school work. Call parents prior to the school year to introduce yourself as the teacher; reinforce your ideas about the importance of parents and teachers cooperating to facilitate the child's success.
Contact parents at the first sign of a concern. Encourage parents to contact school at the first sign of a concern. Establish a contact time by the first week of school.
Conduct a group orientation meeting the first week of school. Use a collaborative problem solving approach to identify mutual goals: teacher goals, parents goals, and students goals for what is to be learned in a class. Emphasis is on making this the student's best year. Request parents to convey an important message: 1) you have a good teacher because she or he wants it to be your best year; 2) your teacher cares about you and thinks I'm important for your school success; and 3) we have agreed to work as a team. Follow up orientation night with individual parent-teacher-student meetings to get to know each other and to set learning goals (early school conferences).
Contact parent whose child is considered a potential problem (Canter). Teacher indicates to parent that he or she wants the student to have a great year in school. Ask for parent input about last year and then about current school year. Reinforce belief that parents and teachers need to cooperate to meet children's needs. Express confidence about making this a positive year for the student's learning.
Survey parents to identify what they need (information, resources and support) to help their child be successful in school.
Share with parents Principals' and Teachers' Hot Hits: selection of books for adults on topics of schooling, child and adolescent development.
Have students generate a series of flyers on why parent involvement in schools is both needed and wanted; ask uninvolved parents.
Monday Folders: parents get once a week report of events, assignments, graded work, missing assignments, student behavior, announcements. Notebook between home and school -- used system wide.
Annual school report: meeting to give parents information about achievement rates, grades, attendance, school concerns, parent concerns.
Develop a school-to-home and home-to-school form to enhance two way communication.
Ask uninvolved parents to participate.
Find out why uninvolved parents remain uninvolved.
Communicate regularly with parents about: 1) classroom learning activities (goals, plans, curriculum, materials), 2) child's progress (accomplishments, improvement, effort), and 3) how to help children on learning activities at home.
Communicate school/teacher expectations to all parents with students present; include homework policies, course requirements, grading practices, and discipline.
Establish "satellite centers" in communities for parents to learn about school and school functions.

Type 3 - Volunteers refers to those who assist teachers, administrators, and children in classrooms, parent rooms, or other areas of the school; to those who assist at home; and to those who come to school to support student performances and events.

Type 4 - Learning Activities at Home and Connections to Curriculum refers to parent-initiated, child-initiated, or teacher-initiated ideas to monitor, discuss, or assist children at home on learning activities that are coordinated with children's classwork.

Help teachers understand how to implement effective and frequent communications about homework. This includes homework policies, how to monitor homework and ways to discuss schoolwork in each subject. Surveys show that most parents want to know how to help their own children at home. They want to know how to influence their children to work hard, do their best in school, and stay in school.
Help teachers to organize other curriculum-related connections to families. This includes assisting teachers to understand, design, and implement interactive homework such as TIPS (Epstein, Jackson, Salinas, & Associates, 1991), or assisting administrators, teachers, parents, or others to understand and organize family math, science, reading, or other curriculum related events with families.
Also, help teachers across the grades to provide parents with information about course requirements, grading processes, course choices (Useem, 1991), program decisions, and other curriculum-related decisions that have important consequences for children and for their families. In the earlier grades information on grouping procedures and their consequences should be shared with families.
Develop the leadership of teachers so that they can continue effective practices to involve families in their children's learning activities and other curriculum-related Type 4 activities.
Identify specific topics needed by specific groups of parents (usually based on students' needs/behavior in school) (e.g., not completing work, at-risk for academic failure, behavior problems). Conduct teacher and parent sessions in which teachers and parents are learners and teachers.
Offer classes where parents and students can work together on particular projects related to curriculum.
Conduct workshops that allow parents (and students) to participate in a reading or math lesson, observe a variety of teaching techniques, gain insights into the complexity of the learning process, make learning activities to be used at home, and form a support network for interacting with other parent).
Saturday school: group sessions at school or weekly home visits.
Establish a Parenting University - parents learn and earn degrees as they help with child (GED).
Develop home learning activity packets that are keyed to specific instructional objectives -be sure to make "family user friendly".
Train parents to tutor children in basic skill areas or to monitor child progress; parents can train other parents (an aspect of a volunteer program).
At-home meetings with neighborhood parents to discuss specific topics identified by parents.
Parents as Partners: invite parents to visit the classroom for observation and direct teaching to parents about what child is learning and how parents need to reinforce the skill at home or assist with a project (e.g., writing a report).
Create and distribute to all parents a school-family contract that outlines the school's academic goals and objectives, roles and responsibilities, and states expected performance standards. Parent-teacher generated. Parents can monitor collection of the contracts.
Use learning contracts, signed by parents, teacher, and students. Specific roles and responsibilities are delineated.

Type 5 - Decision Making, Committees, Advocacy, and Other Leadership Roles refers to parent participation in decisions in PTA/PTO, advisory councils, other committees or groups at the school, or independent advocacy groups.

Type 6 - Collaboration and Exchange with Community Organizations refers to school actions and programs that provide or coordinate student and family access to community and support services. Also collaborations with businesses, cultural organizations, and other groups to improve school programs for children, services for families to support their child rearing and guidance of children as students, and to improve the effectiveness of the other types of involvement.

Roles parents could play in schools include: Parents as partners, parents as supporters (e.g., assistance to teachers/schools), parents as advisors/co-decision makers, parents as audience (attend school functions), and parents as collaborators and problem solvers. The first four are represented in Epstein's typology in II of this handout. The role of parents as collaborators and problem solvers are typically used when children are having difficulty. Examples include:

1) Christenson: Parent-Educator Problem Solving (PEPS)
2) Weiss: Family-School Problem Solving meetings
3) Sheridan's Conjoint Behavioral Consultation
4) J. Brien O'Callaghan's School-Based Consultation

Home-School Collaborative Problem Solving
Key characteristics of the parent-educator problem solving process are: a) an emphasis on school-based concerns with parent-based concerns added, b) use of specific, observable language about child behavior and performance, c) a competence-based orientation where educators' and parents' concerns are expressed as learning goals, and d) application of a problem-solving sequence in a conversational, comfortable style. The process can be used to handle conflictual situations and to involve parents in a problem-preventing way.

Program descriptions are drawn from the Home-School Connection: Selected Partnership Programs in Large Cities by Carter H. Collins, Oliver Moles, and Mary Cross. This publication can be purchased from the Institute for Responsive Education, Boston, MA. In general, the programs were successful in accomplishing their objectives. What is most apparent about the programs is that each is more than a program ... each is based on the concept that collaboration improves children's success in school. Also, the programs are based on the philosophy of empowerment, which means that all individuals can be successful, and that if individuals are not responding successfully it may be that they lack knowledge about how or resources to do so. Professionals understand that their role is in part determined by parents' needs, and their job is to increase individual's access to needed resources. A major goal of these activities is to build competencies in all individuals. The programs represent four home-school collaboration activities: ( 1) contracts and mutual goal setting, (2) parent education about schoolwork, (3) home visiting and (4) communication.

Partnership: San Diego Unified School District: San Diego, CA
The objective of this program is to help students achieve academically, socially, and personally in an integrated partnership. To help students achieve academically, the parent, teacher and student work as a team to set goals and objectives, discuss the means to achieve objectives, and systematically review the student's progress. Parents participate in a series of classes to help them develop effective tutoring techniques and become more familiar with materials and methods used in the classroom. To promote the social and personal development of the student, parents participate in programs to increase their understanding and support for race/human relations efforts and/or multicultural activities which help them to accept and respect cultural diversity.

Project ACT: Duval: Jacksonville, FL
The main objective of the program is to reduce disruptive behavior among students by teaching parents, teachers and students positive behavioral change strategies. An ultimate goal is improved achievement of students. Overall goals of Project ACT include: (a) a reduction in the rate of suspensions for participants; (b) a decrease in the rate of referrals of participants for disciplinary actions; (c) a decrease in the number of corporal punishment incidents; (d) an increase in the promotion rate of participants; and (5) a reduction of the disproportionate rate of suspensions and corporal punishment of minority students.

Parents as Reading Partners: Bronx, NY
The objectives for this program are: (a) to improve reading achievement; (b) to bang the home into interaction with the school; (c) to teach parents to value the contributions of children in education; and (d) to teach children to value the contributions of their parents in education. Parents reading 15 minutes a day with their own children. Parents and children complete a signed contract, setting a reading schedule.

Partners in Learning: Dallas, TX
To join parents, teachers and community in a program of shared understanding and responsibility for student learning in reading, writing, and math. The dominant feature of Partners in Learning is the parent/teacher conference which is held in the fall and spring each year. The student progress form, covering all of the basic skills area, is thoroughly discussed with the parent and a remedial strategy worked out. Teaching/learning materials are provided to the parent to be used at home for tutoring student in areas of academic weakness. In many schools, conferences are held in the evenings to accommodate those parents who cannot attend during the day. Prior to the conferences there is an extensive campaign waged by the teachers, principals, and the Community Relations Division urging parents to attend. For students at risk of failure, parental attendance is mandatory at the conferences.

Institute for Parent Involvement: Chicago, IL
To improve student performance, especially in math, English language skills and academic motivation, and to increase parents' understanding of their children and teachers' awareness of the student's needs. Pre-service training/planning sessions for teachers, aides and parents which familiarizes them with resources of the Institute, the school and community, and helps to develop a plan for utilizing resources to maximize the parent-student partnership. Prescriptions and materials to match individual needs in reading and math are given for homework -workbooks, educational games, reading lists for library books, and bilingual materials are given as needed. Resource kids for parents containing workshop materials, ideas for games and activities, articles about parent involvement in education. Again bilingual materials are available.

Parent Plus: Chicago Board of Education: Chicago. IL
The three main objectives are: ( 1) to increase parents' involvement in their child's education; (2) to raise student achievement scores; and (3) to improve student attendance. A major strategy is the involvement of pupils and parents in a cooperative learning session one hour a week at home. This is intended to improve pupils' school performance especially in reading, math, and English language skills, and academic motivation. Another overall aim is to increase parents' understanding of their children.

The Parent Plus Project is designed for 60 Title I parents and their children in each school who are in kindergarten through eighth grade. Parents meet in several small groups for an equivalent of four full days each month with a teacher. At the beginning of each instruction period, the group of parents meets as a whole, and then the group is subdivided into small components in order to closely examine topics assigned by the teacher. The parents study and discuss various aspects of child development, homemaking, health and nutrition, modern mathematics, consumer education, crafts and sewing activities. The teacher also works with the parents on topics related to the academic needs of their children and the ways in which they may help their children in the at-home phase of this activity, including help they can give with specific homework assignments. These topics include word-attack skills, basic mathematics techniques, language expression, comprehension, phonetic analysis, and related skills necessary for parents to work more effectively with their children. Direct teacher instruction is flexible and is given on both an individual and a group basis as needs are observed.

Parent-Student Partnership in Learning Program: New Orleans, LA
The main objectives are to strengthen parents' educational roles and to improve student achievement in basic skills areas of reading, math, oral and written communications. Teachers instruct children in basic skill areas and test mastery with criterion referenced tests. Parents are given computerized feedback on their children's mastery in the form of a "Parent Report Form." Parents are provided with Home Study Lessons related to the skills that their children have not mastered. Parents teach and/or tutor from these Home Study Lessons. Some parents sign contracts which commit them to participate in the program by tutoring their children from the Home Study lessons.

Home Curriculum Program: Detroit, MI
Goals include: (a) to strengthen parents' educational roles and to increase student academic achievement in the basis skills (especially reading the math), (b) to develop understanding and support for the Home Curriculum Program by the school staff and the community, and (c) to establish closer bonds between the home and school through the creation of Parent Teams. The Home Curriculum Program is directed at middle school students and their parents. Students, particularly those with basic skills deficiencies, are recommended by teachers, principals and other school staff. The program has four major activity areas.
Home Parent Curriculum Workshops, which are held in the Home Training Center at each school. Training is given in the use of homemade materials for academic reinforcement, parent/child/school communication skills, and any special areas the parents request.
Home Curriculum Teams, made up of professionals and paraprofessionals who visit families which cannot come to school to offer training and assistance in the use of homemade materials. A computerized checklist for reading skills serves as one of the focuses of the home training assistance.
Community network Design, which facilitates the dissemination of information, coordination of resources and transportation, and the identification of "key" residents for program interests. The staff also prepares materials to be used by the newspapers (weekly homework lessons printed by the Detroit News), a radio series (Home Curriculum, Parents as Teachers) and television.

School-Community Identification: Chicago Board of Education. Chicago, IL
To improve pupil achievement, attendance and attitudes toward school through a closer relationship between parents and teachers. A school-community representative (SCR) at the elementary school visits homes of participating pupils every two months, guides their parents to help children function more effectively in the classroom, refers families in need to assistance to appropriate social agencies to ensure pupil attendance in school, and sponsors workshops to show parents how they may help their children develop positive attitudes toward learning.

Home-School-Community Agents Project: Columbus, OH
To help disruptive pupils make a positive adjustment to those elements in their lives that interfere with their success in school. The twenty-six special agents work intensively with 60 students each. They hold joint conflict resolution sessions with the teachers and pupils; they make frequent home visits; they do continuous guidance work with the students, and they often work along with other social agencies on the students' behalf.

Parents in Touch: Indianapolis Public Schools: Indianapolis, IN
The overall objective is to establish lines of communication between parents and schools and to involve parents in helping to improve student attendance and achievement. Parent-teacher conferences are scheduled for one day each fall to provide an opportunity for discussing children's progress and the ways parents can contribute to their children's educational development. The conferences are widely advertised through community media to foster the idea that parents play an important parent in their children's education. Teachers and coordinators are prepared through in-service training sessions. At each conference, parents are given attractive printed materials with pleasant learning tasks to work on with their children at home.

Project Family Activities to Maintain Enrollment (FAME): Baltimore, MD
To improve school attendance and academic performance. To reduce the dropout rate of students at risk by involving their parents in activities which foster increase in school attendance and greater parental support of students' educational aspiration. To coordinate school-based resources for the identified group of students so as to maximize their continued participation in school. Over the life of the project, parent and student activities have been provided as follows:
Parent-Recreational: offering parents opportunities to participate in school sponsored activities in a non-threatening atmosphere (bus trips, luncheons, movies, bingo).
Parent-Educational: offering parents the opportunity to discuss topics relevant to the world in which they live (speakers from public agencies on alcohol, drug abuse, energy problems, etc.).
Parent Effectiveness Training: to improve parental self-concept and strengthen communication skills among family members.
Student Attendance Reinforcement: to provide a motivational incentive for student attendance (monthly perfect attendance certificates, visits by charismatic celebrities, arts and crafts sessions).
Student Self-Concept Building: students with common problems, causing poor attendance and poor self-concept, meet with one another not in a therapeutic sense, but for the purpose of strengthening self-concepts, through goal directed education.
Potential Dropout Counseling: to provide students with a stronger foundation in the decision-making and problem-solving processes.

Attendance Monitors Program: Baltimore, MD
To help implement attendance policies of the school system. The attendance monitors have clerical cubes related to attendance reporting, contacting homes by telephone and/or by letter when students are absent, and monitoring of student attendance patterns. They also make referrals to city social service agencies and attendance officer as needed.

Parent-Coordinator Aides Project: Columbus, OH
The program has three major objectives: ( 1) to interpret the school program to the parents; (2) to communicate parental concerns to the schools; and (3) to coordinate parent-school activities. Parent-coordinator aides work in the schools helping the teachers with a wide variety of activities; they work in the school office, lunchrooms, nurses; office; make home visits to help parents with home or community problems; and they perform many tasks associated with the parent advisory council (PAC).

School-Community Coordinator Service: Philadelphia, PA
Community residents work with students, parents and school staff to satisfy needs, transmit information, promote mutual understanding and encourage participation between the school and community. The School-Community Coordinators (SCCs) provide home visits, work with students in school and meet with clusters of their parents. Out of school conferences are held with parents or guardians of pupils on school or self-initiated referral basis. In elementary, middle and junior high schools stress is on pupil attendance, basic skills, work habits improvement, behavior and health of the pupils. In high school, accommodation of entry level pupils, dropout prevention, basic skills, work habits improvement and the pupil's health are stressed.

Community School Action Centers: Dallas, TX
Disseminate information; encourage parents to get involved and become a part of the life of the community by inviting participation in tutoring programs, school advisory committees; help parents to understand the roles and conditions of school life and assist in parent-teacher or parent-school conferences where needed; crisis intervention counseling designed to improve two-way communications between school and community.

Operation Fail-Safe: Houston, TX
The core of the program is a twice-yearly parent-teacher conference at the middle of the fall and spring semesters. School is recessed for two days and conferences are scheduled in the afternoon and evening at the school. At the elementary school level, a computer-printed Student Achievement Profile and the steps to be taken for improvement are the foci of the conference. In math and reading, the parent is provided specifically designed materials for home use. At the secondary level emphasis is placed upon career development and occupational guidance. To support this interest, the teacher-parent-student conference is centered upon the career interest inventory and academic record of the students. Although the program varies from school to school, at most schools the parents can combine attendance at health workshops, cultural affairs or a "coffee klatch" along with their individual conference with the teacher. A media campaign requests employers to give people one or two hours off to attend the conferences.

New Beginnings in San Diego:
Four local agencies-the County of San Diego, the City of San Diego, the San Diego City Schools, and the San Diego Community College District- collaborated to provide educational and social services to children and families at Hamilton Elementary School. Family Services Advocates (FSAs) are available to assist families with health, mental health, housing, legal, and financial issues. A feasibility study is being conducted to evaluate the interagency collaboration achieved for 1,300 children and families.

The School Development Project or Comer Process:
Begun in 1969, the Comer Process is used in over 100 schools throughout the country and all low income elementary schools in New Haven. A goal of the process is to move the school from a bureaucratic model of management to a system of democratic participation in which parents are meaningfully involved. Comer schools are based on a three-level approach: (1) broad-based participation by all parents in school functions (e.g., gospel music nights, potlucks), (2) parent participation in daily school affairs (e.g., classroom volunteering, parent stipends, parent education activities), and (3) parents in school governance (e.g., the Planning and Management Team allows parents to make shared decisions with educators). Parent-school collaboration is stressed, therefore parents share in the "ownership" of the school and educational outcomes for students. In addition to the Planning and Management Team, which is comprised of all key stakeholders at the school, a mental health team helps to maintain a developmental focus and provide support to all children and families.

The National Association of State Boards in Education study group on parent and community involvement has described well three principles of successful parent involvement initiatives:

The first principle of all programs in parent involvement is that parents and schools must maintain effective lines of communication. Communication between school and home should be predominantly positive rather than negative; that is, parents should hear regularly from teachers about classroom and school activities, not just when their child is having problems. Effective communication is also two-way: school staff should seek information and opinions from parents as well as conveying messages to the home. Schools need to move from telling parents that their involvement is important to showing them that their involvement is needed and encouraged, and then guiding them in specific ways to assist in their child's development and learning.

Second, school and family connections must take a developmental course. Although there may be different kinds of involvement at different grade levels, efforts can be initiated at every grade level to involve parents in learning activities, in school programs, and school-related decisions. Sensitivity to the stage of the child's development and schooling is necessary to determine what kind of involvement is most appropriate and effective.

Parent involvement programs must also be sensitive and respectful of the diversity of the families they will be serving. The family that includes two natural parents with the mother working at home is no longer the norm. Regardless of the family situation, families must be respected as they are and schools must accommodate diverse family schedules and time demands. Schools must construct avenues for involvement that accommodate the diversity of families in their community. They must become places where parents feel needed, welcomed, and comfortable. Research indicates that the attitude of school staff is a deciding factor in whether parents arc productive partners with the school -not the parents' education, race, or the socioeconomic background of the families. It should be recognized that all parents have strengths to share with schools. Both schools and families benefit from quality parent involvement programs.

Third, parent involvement requires site-specific development and leadership. Programs should be tailored to the nature of the school, its administrator, staff, community and its families Successful programs are planned at the school site level, they have substantial and sustained involvement of parents and staff, and they require the active support of the school principal. Only by respecting the uniqueness of individual schools and their particular constituencies will educators be able to truly tap the energy and creativity of parents.

As in all school changes and improvements, successful programs in parent involvement recognize the need for training and time commitments. Working with parents requires different skills than working with students. Therefore, teachers and other school personnel require training in how to work with and understand the parents of their students. Likewise, parents may need special guidance from teachers in how to effectively participate in their child's education. Recognizing the substantial changes that are required in staff skills and school routines and practices, planning for successful parent involvement should assume a three-year time period for full implementation. However, immediate positive benefits in school climate and student performance can be achieved as soon as parent involvement is initiated.

These initiatives speak to the importance of creating an infrastructure for education --or the altering of how families, educators, and community interact. Collaboration will not be easy, because there have been few links between these institutions, all of which are quite used to operating autonomously.

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Dr. Joyce L. Epstein, Co-Director
Center on Families, Communities, Schools and Children's Learning
The Johns Hopkins University
3505 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218

Home-School Collaboration: Building Effective Parent-School Partnerships