As districts look for ways to sustain COVID-19 recovery efforts, investing in family engagement strategies will be critical. How can districts better engage families in decision-making processes and strategies for COVID-19 recovery? How can families better support school-based recovery efforts?
Join researchers from NWEA, the Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy, and the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution for a five-part virtual series on family engagement and COVID-19 recovery.
Across five 60-minute sessions, we will tackle some of the urgent and thorny challenges facing districts on family engagement and discuss long-term strategies for building and sustaining collective partnerships between schools and families. In each session, participants will have the opportunity to be in conversation with each other to discuss emerging challenges and strategies with family engagement in schools.
All sessions will be held via Zoom from 4pm to 5pm EST.
Framing family engagement and COVID-19 recovery
September 10, 2024 | 4:00-5:00 pm EST
The need for strong family-school partnerships has never been more pressing as educators, families, and students work to recover from pandemic-related disruptions to learning. Despite this need, many schools have struggled to rebuild connections with families and students since students returned to school in-person. During this first session, we will examine the latest research on family engagement during COVID-19 recovery and interrogate whether these findings support equitable collaborations between schools and families.
Understanding family dis(engagement)—What questions should we be asking?
September 17, 2024 | 4:00-5:00 pm EST
Because of long-standing power dynamics that shape the US public education system, educators have long struggled to build effective and equitable partnerships with families from nondominant backgrounds (or families that have been historically marginalized along lines of race, class, language, disability status, and immigrant status). During this second session, leaders from EdTrust will join us to discuss their work that aims to understand the root causes of family disengagement.
Grade inflation and strategies for communicating student performance to families
September 24, 2024 | 4:00-5:00 pm EST
Grade inflation—with report card grades indicating a more positive assessment of student learning than and standardized measures—has increased significantly since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. This phenomenon presents an acute challenge for engaging with families around issues related to COVID-19 recovery. During this third session, we will discuss innovative strategies schools can employ to help enhance families’ understanding of their students’ academic, social, and emotional development and progress.
Family engagement and early education
October 1, 2024 | 4:00-5:00 pm EST
Families play a critical role in promoting early literacy and math skills among our youngest learners. During this fourth session, researchers from leading national and local organizations will share insights on how they have partnered with families on initiatives that aim to foster a love of reading and numeracy from an early age.
Building deeper partnerships with families
October 8, 2024 | 4:00-5:00 pm EST
The work of building equity-focused, effective, and enduring family-school partnerships is easier said than done. During this fifth and final session, researchers from Brookings’ Center for Universal Education will join us to further discuss the Conversation Starter Toolkit, a set of seven tools that educators and community organizations can use to examine the landscape of family-school engagement and begin to develop greater relational trust between educators and families and stronger family-school partnerships.
- Dr. Ayesha Hashim (Senior Research Scientist, NWEA) studies the implementation and outcomes of district-level policies focused on student learning. She partners closely with district leaders to co-design studies that are responsive to district and school needs.
- Dr. Rachel Perera (Fellow, Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings) studies the implementation of state- and district- level school discipline policies and the enforcement of federal civil rights law in K-12 schools.
- Dr. Rebecca A. Johnson (Assistant Professor, Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy) studies how K-12 districts and schools use a mix of data and discretion when deciding which students need help most urgently, with a specific focus on parent rights and advocacy on behalf of students with disabilities.
- District and school leaders who are interested in strengthening family partnerships to support student learning and well-being
- Researchers who are interested in deepening their understanding of COVID-19 recovery and family engagement
- Representatives from non-profit, community-based, and other organizations with a mission of fostering family engagement in schools
- Anyone else who is interested in COVID-19 recovery and family engagement
Interested in joining us? Please RSVP using the “Register” buttons above.