Family engagement in K-12 education: a focus of EducateNKY

School districts in the river cities — and most everywhere else — frequently talk about something called family engagement.

It’s more than running for school board or attending school-based decision making council meetings and sporting events. The Kentucky Department of Education calls it “families and school staff work(ing) together to support and improve the learning development and health of students.”

That could be parents showing up for parent-teacher conferences, talking or texting with a teacher to ensure a child is making progress, or parents and schools working together to ensure a student has the resources (books, computers or games) they need to learn.

At its best, family engagement helps students earn better grades — better student performance, in other words — and increases graduation rates, based on national data. It also saves taxpayer money. 

“Schools would need to increase spending by more than $1,000 per student to gain the same results as effective family engagement,” according to a policy brief from the National Parent–Teacher Association.

However, being involved in a child’s education can be challenging — particularly in school districts like the river cities where there are measurable socioeconomic barriers to parental engagement including homelessness and a lack of affordable housing, according to data from education group EducateNKY.

Without reliable housing, families often have to move and children must frequently change schools. That moving around — also called transience — can impact family engagement and student performance, according to the data. 

Family engagement “is a proven vehicle to transform the educational experience and academic outcomes, especially in communities with larger proportions of students with economically disadvantaged backgrounds,” according to EducateNKY’s website.

Right now the group is looking at how family engagement — one of five priority areas eyed by the organization to improve NKY education outcomes — can be developed as part of the group’s strategic plan, set to be released later this year.

The organization’s consultant, Cheye Calvo of C Squared Strategies in California, is helping to develop the plan.

Calvo spoke to LINK nky last week about strengths and challenges the river cities face when it comes to family engagement.

“All the schools in the river cities care about family engagement and want to see greater family participation,” Calvo said. “They all have approaches they are working to improve on to get them more involved. I think the challenge is, it’s one more thing loaded on to teachers to do. So they’re trying to build up their capacity to do it better.”

Struggling most with homelessness and transience in the River Cities, according to the most recent data, are Covington, Dayton and Newport independent school districts. Those districts had student transient rates of at least 12% and homeless rates of at least 10% for the 2022-23 school year, per EducateNKY data.

Districts with the highest rates were Covington and Newport. Both had at least one school with an overall “lowest performance” rating (including issues with student academic performance) that year on the Kentucky School Report Card, a state accountability measure.

Dayton did better with overall student performance that school year according to its report card. While it’s difficult to identify the exact reason why, district changes to family engagement in Dayton that year are notable.

In early 2022,  Dayton schools superintendent Jay Brewer announced his district would step up family engagement for the upcoming school year. Changes included shifting three instructional days to “positive parenting partnership days,” where staff met with parents and families three times a year to reflect on how the year went. The goal?

“Improve communication and trust through conversations and listening,” Brewer told state officials and school leaders in a Kentucky Department of Education “EdCamp” session on family engagement in 2022. 

Brewer, a member of EducateNKY’s advisory council along with other river cities district superintendents, said engaging parents in those conversations is the school’s responsibility. 

“We often see that schools have this factory model,” Brewer said. “Kids come in, kids go out – there’s not this whole partnership wrapped around the child. That’s what we’re after. At Dayton Independent, we are making the building of parent partnerships a top priority.” 

So how do districts like those in the river cities get parents more engaged in their child’s education to improve student outcomes? Addressing housing instability is one way, Brewer said.

“An area of focus is to support students and families that lack the stability and means to remain in one home, one community and one school,” he told LINK.

The district engages parents through home visits and school meetings to learn about the student’s strengths and needs. Additionally, Brewer said the district coordinates assistance, guidance and support for students and families who are homeless, living in a multi-family household or in a shelter.

“At the core of our efforts to partner with families is building trust,” Brewer told LINK. “Successful partnerships with families present themselves as improved student attendance and academic performance.  This year our school attendance improved by 1.2%.”

Not all barriers to family engagement in school are as draconian as housing instability. Across the board statewide — including in NKY — the top obstacle is a busy family schedule. The Prichard Committee, a Kentucky education advocacy organization, says a majority (72%) of Kentucky families polled on overall family engagement in a recent study identified a busy schedule as more of a challenge than any other issue.

Some of that busyness is work-related, but not all.

“Some attribute it to athletics, extracurricular activities their kids are involved in,” Prichard Committee Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership director Laura Beard told state officials during a state-led session this year. “If it’s a two-parent household, both parents (may) work so any time after work is considered valuable time and people are collectively needing to do less.

“Everyone feels a little taxed right now. I don’t know where to contribute all that to, but we know families have overloaded schedules,” Beard concluded.

Whatever the obstacles, Calvo said the data shows that the earlier parents get involved in their child’s education, the more potential there is for success. So engagement is key. Getting that engagement is the challenge.

“It’s how do we build that muscle?” Calvo said.