ANNOUNCEMENT: REPORT RELEASE
California requires school districts and charters to use self-reflection tools to measure and report progress on state priorities known as local indicators and family engagement is one of them. School districts and charter schools completed the Tool in 2019 and 2021 to rate their implementation of 12 promising practices in family engagement. We analyzed these responses and identified some achievements and challenges in the field. Why this is important now: Because of lost classroom time due to the pandemic, school districts and charters are grappling with ways to accelerate learning, while increasing safety and addressing student social-emotional needs. Family engagement is key to achieving these student goals.
Family Engagement in California: Achievements and Challenges Identified from the 2021 Priority 3 Self-Reflection Tool

The Parent Organization Network (PON) and Transformative Inquiry Designs for Effective Schools and Systems (TIDES) partnered for this research project and analyzed school district rating and narrative responses to the 2021 Priority 3 Self-Reflection Tool. The Tool is focused on three areas: building relationships between staff and families, building partnerships for student outcomes, and seeking input for decision making. Click the image to download the report.
Key Takeaways:

Achievements
  • 50% of the 213 districts reviewed indicated a higher level of implementation on the 12 research-based family engagement practice. A T-test showed this increase was statistically significant on 11 of these practices.
  • 55% of the 115 district narratives reviewed use virtual tools to stay connected to families, including parent-teacher conferencing, providing parent education on how to support children’s learning and social-emotional needs, and linking families to community resources.
  • 28% of these districts explicitly mentioned their efforts in addressing issues of equity in student learning during the COVID pandemic.
  • Districts reported hiring new counselors, social workers, and bilingual outreach staff. Partnering with other agencies was also a strategy to meet growing family needs.
Challenges
  • The Dual-Capacity Framework represents new thinking about how parents and teachers can be engaged to enhance student learning, however, few districts have embraced the framework.
  • Family Engagement can and should play a role in closing student learning gaps, but there must be more professional development for teachers on how to examine instructional practices for bias and how to build partnerships with families focused on student achievement.
  • LCFF Priority 3: Family Engagement was not abandoned and, in many cases, was enhanced during COVID-19; however, to close the learning gap, more coordination is needed between Family Engagement activities and the other LCFF priorities.
“Student learning was deeply affected by the sudden interruption in classroom learning due to the closure of schools since the COVID outbreak in March 2020 through the 2021-22 school year. As the pandemic deepened, it became evident that low income and minority families were the most vulnerable groups and the pandemic had widened the existing educational inequities and exacerbated the learning gaps and social-emotional needs of staff, students and families. While communication between families and schools did increase during the pandemic and many schools provided resources to address the emerging learning and social- emotional needs of students, family engagement has yet to be fully implemented and school practices need to be re-examined using an equity lens with a focus on closing the student learning gaps."
- Margarita Zaske, TIDES Research Director
“It is encouraging to see growth in school districts' self reports regarding family engagement practices, especially those focused on relationship building and seeking input in school decisions. However, it is clear the field still does not see a direct connection between family engagement and learning outcomes; it's missing in Tool narratives, LCAPs, and school plans. Building educator capacity to include high-impact family engagement activities in plans and implement these well, is a must to improve equity and student outcomes." - Araceli Simeón, PON Executive Director
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Funding for this publication was provided through the generous support of the California Community Foundation and The California Endowment.