(Describer) A teacher points to a pie chart.

(narrator) Schools that engage students and families as authentic partners find a variety of ways to build relationships and collaborate. Understanding a family's community, cultures, values, and lived experiences is important in supporting a child's social, emotional, and academic development.

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(Describer) CASEL Indicators of Schoolwide SEL: Authentic Family Partnerships. Melissa Schlinger .

Parents and families are our children's first teachers, and they know more about these children than our teachers will. So making sure that we have relationships that allow us to communicate and learn from each other and really better understand who our kids are-- not just when they're in our classroom but who they are in their lives-- is a really important part of developing a relationship, not just with the parent, but better understanding the student themselves.

(Describer) A parent-teacher conference.

(narrator) Educators find that it is essential to have clear two-way communication with parents or caregivers as well as an aligned vision of SEL.

(Describer) Robert Jagers

(speaker) So as you move from your family into the school, in many respects, that's a cultural shift. The norms and expectations within your family may be slightly different than those in the school. So the kinds of partnerships that we imagine would have families as co-learners, co-constructors of learning environments writ large in the school and outside the school, to create environments where young people are clear about what are the expectations and the nature of the relationships with adults that kind of shape their world and help them to achieve their goals and dreams.

(narrator) These family partnerships can be fostered in a variety of ways. But consistency and relationship remain at the heart of each strategy.

(Describer) Marc Engoglia .

The relationship that we have with our parents has been like a roller coaster. Sometimes it's awesome, other times it's not so great. But I try to preach to them that my door's always open, and it really is. We want parents to be part of the learning. And I tell them, the first time I meet them, "This is a team here. You're part of the team." When we have conferences, open houses, any parent events, and they're gonna be interacting with teachers, all the teachers are in one room. So the ninth grade teachers are all in one room, and when parents come in, they can speak to all the teachers at the same time, because the teachers are all on a team, doing the same things, preaching the same thing. And for the most part, I think the majority of our parents see that we are something that they can lean on. And just--we're not always gonna be reaching out for bad things. We want you here for the good things too.

(Describer) Melissa Schlinger .

(Schlinger) There are lots of ways to bring parents into the classroom without necessarily having parents physically in the classrooms. So there are opportunities for homework assignments that actually require conversations between students and parents for them to think about, reflect on, and bring back into the classroom. I think having calls and meetings with parents, especially when they are not specifically around grades or discipline, are really important so that the parent feels valued and their opinion feels valued, not simply contacted when there's a problem. There's lots of ways schools can invite parents in as committee members on different committees that the school has or to help them look and problem-solve together, be on hiring committees, and really just be a part of the school community in meaningful ways.

(Describer) Jim Greene, Principal.

I think the key thing is having multiple ways to communicate with families. And, you know, not only that, but just keeping track of it. With the Say Yes initiative that we're a part of now, we actually have surveys for the families as well, and they actually tell us what needs and supports that they feel their child needs. And so based off of that data, we help the families out and the children out as well. We have a school-parent organization called Principal Chat & Chew, where parents have a chance to voice concern, but most importantly, identifying what issues that the children are facing and what programs that we could do or put together to bring to the school to help address these issues.

(narrator) Without these authentic family partnerships, educators are at risk of not understanding the students' classroom performance in the context of what may be happening at home. One school in Cleveland combats this silo effect by bringing in a dean of engagement to make sure students are getting cared for in mind, body, and spirit.

(Describer) Conrad Steward.

(speaker) My role is, as the dean of engagement, is to really address the culture. And so one of the things that I definitely enjoy is a mantra that we kind of have in the building in terms of, "Once we capture their heart, then we can capture their mind." And so a lot of it comes from building relationships. We do a lot of things that are probably not in our job descriptions. It's really about meeting the needs of the students, and that's pretty much to sum it up. You know, what do they need? 'Cause at the end of the day, that's why we're here.

(Describer) Tyrone Martinez-Black.

(speaker) We need to understand that people indeed are coming from different circumstances and backgrounds, and that there is no one size fits all for the ways we learn and develop. And so an equity in education would mean that everyone has not just equal opportunities or equal access, but a completely unbarred pathway to the future that they will shape for themselves.

(Describer) Logos appear, including CASEL (C-A-S-E-L) .org ; Montgomery County Educational Service Center; and the Ohio Department of Education. Copyright 2020. Accessibility provided by the U.S. Department of Education.

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Accessibility provided by the U.S. Department of Education.