Schools and Families: Creating Essential Connections for Learning

How can schools and families work together to raise the bar for student performance? What is the optimal role for families in educational problem solving and decision making? This practical volume is designed to help school practitioners and educators build positive connections with families and enhance student achievement in grades K-12. Beyond simply getting parents involved in schoolwork, the book describes processes by which professionals and parents can work together collaboratively to socialize and support young people as learners. Grounded in theory and research, the book features case examples, self-reflective exercises, and discussion questions in every chapter. Provided are strategies and tools--including a useful self-assessment inventory--to help professionals both evaluate school-home connections that are currently in place and develop new, more productive practices.

"Invaluable as a classroom text and practitioner guide. Although many books espouse the importance of parent involvement, this book is unique in emphasizing the enormous responsibility educators have to empower families to engage in partnerships with the school. The book's thesis--that creating home-school partnerships can protect against risk and promote health--will be exciting and challenging to professionals from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. Superbly written, this book provides guidelines that are extremely helpful to practitioners in promoting family-school partnerships." --Thomas J. Power, PhD, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania

"School psychologists are in a great place to develop partnerships between the people at home and the people at school to benefit children's learning. The strategies described in this book were implemented in our school last year, and we can see the difference. When parents request to continue as partners, when teachers volunteer to participate and recruit other teachers to become involved--that's when we know the processes and systems are working! This book is an important tool for school psychologists, teachers, and administrators." --DeAnn Currin, PhD, Principal, Elliott Elementary School, Lincoln, NE

"The major challenge of 21st-century schools is to involve families effectively in students' education. This is the best book I have read on school-family partnerships to enhance children's academic, social, and emotional growth. With great scholarship and wisdom, these scientist-practitioners use theory and current research to inform educators about systematic actions and innovative strategies to develop family-school connections for learners. If more educators, policymakers, community leaders, and parents were to implement the authors' scientifically based principles and practices, countless more children would experience school success each year. A very important book." --Roger P. Weissberg, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago; Executive Director, Collaborative to Advance Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL)