How School Leaders Can Use Positive Outreach to Engage Families

Guest article by Ari Gerzon-Kessler

There is a Japanese proverb that says, “One kind word can warm three winter months.” When we develop positive communication systems that lead to celebrating our students and proactively engaging with their families, relationships and trust rapidly accelerate.

One of the most meaningful and effective ways for school leaders and staff to improve rapport with families is by contacting them with positive news about their child. As I write in my new book, On the Same Team: Bringing Educators and Underrepresented Families Together, positive communication systems are one of a handful of high impact practices that can help us build more cohesive and trusting school communities. 

Make Time for Positive Outreach

There are a host of benefits when school leaders proactively carve out a small and consistent amount of time each month for staff to engage in positive outreach. For instance, making positive phone calls is both a proven pathway to strengthen relationships with families and one of the best strategies to increase student learning. At one school that I coach, the principal “cancels” the last 15 minutes of a monthly staff meeting and instead designates the time for all staff to make three or four positive phone calls. These 15 minutes alone, which grew out of a Families and Educators Together (FET) team meeting at his school, produce more than 100 family contacts in just a quarter of an hour. 

In my professional learning sessions with principals, I highlight research from the Flamboyan Foundation that shows positive phone calls and personalized communication are the relationship-building best practices that most significantly affect student learning. Recent studies also show that frequent communication increased the likelihood students would complete their homework by 40 percent and decreased teachers’ need to redirect students’ attention to tasks by 25 percent. Yet nearly six in 10 public school parents reported never having received a phone call home from their children’s school during the previous year.

Looking back on my nine years as a principal and assistant principal, making positive calls was the most impactful practice our staff engaged in to enhance ties with families and motivate our students. My commitment to carve out 10-20 minutes on my calendar each Friday to make five positive phone calls added up to more than 190 families delighting in a surprise call from their child’s principal.  These students returned to class feeling affirmed, their peers were motivated by seeing a classmate recognized, and families felt greater trust and connection to me as their school leader and to the staff that wrote these “positive office referrals.”

And it doesn’t need to be a phone call—in my current role leading the family partnerships department for a district with 56 schools, I’ve seen administrators engage in positive communication in a host of dynamic ways. Some school leaders I know send positive emails or give their staff time to write positive postcards. At one school I regularly support, the principal made time each month for staff to write positive postcards, and by the end of last school year, 1,490 families had received this unexpected and uplifting communication. It is easy for principals, assistant principals, and deans to send a positive email message to a student’s family in the moment during a classroom observation in which that student has stood out. 

Prioritize “Two-Way Communication”

As educators, we often say that we communicate regularly with families. But are we communicating on their terms or ours? In our language or theirs? Is communication a one-way street, or are we fostering ongoing two-way communication? To help your staff be more culturally responsive and build stronger bridges with families, guide your staff to implementing the use of two-way communication tools that provide seamless translation (TalkingPoints is one example of an app I’ve used) to ensure that all families have an opportunity to communicate effectively with the school. 

In recent years, a majority of families from underrepresented communities have shared at Families and Educators Together gatherings across 28 schools that they rarely read emails from their child’s teacher or principal, and that their preference is to receive shorter communication via text message. School leaders are in position to drive meaningful change by honoring parents’ communication preferences. Sharing timely information through multiple communication mediums makes it easier for families to respond with their inquiries. Instead of relying primarily on email, draw upon video messages, texting, and prerecorded audio messages, and highlight important information at in-person events.

Create Space for Parents to Share their Input

Establish ongoing, team-based structures, such as the Families and Educators Together model, so that underrepresented families in particular build stronger relationships with school staff, regularly have seats at the decision-making table, and consistently feel seen and heard. If you are not ready to build a team to focus monthly on strengthening school-family partnerships, you can solicit meaningful input and feedback from families through quarterly or biannual in-person gatherings in which staff asks questions and primarily listens to families. You can also lead small focus groups or craft a survey that will reveal ways for your school to improve its communication systems.

Communicate Academic Updates

One of the most consistent comments I hear from middle and high school families is that they want to have a better sense of how their child is doing academically. On the same note, teachers convey that they find it difficult to communicate regularly with their students’ families. In a 2022 survey, 52 percent of teachers stated that it was not easy to communicate about difficult academic or behavior issues and 43 percent said it was difficult to “establish strong relationships with families” (Mapp & Bergman, 2021). At a host of schools where I coach educators and school leaders committed to enhancing family engagement, they have proved that a different outcome is possible. Here are a few quick examples:

• At one elementary school, teachers regularly provide succinct academic updates via apps such as Seesaw and TalkingPoints
• At a middle school, since one mother commented at a FET team gathering that she was outraged to find out in April that her son had an F, the principal gives staff 15 minutes a month at a faculty meeting to text the families of five students who have a D or an F.
• At one high school, teachers provide a snapshot of each student’s academic progress prior to parent-teacher conferences so that the brief conversation can be focused more on questions and building rapport (instead of a data dump that often overwhelms the parents or caregivers) 

The Benefits for Educators

Recent studies show that partnering with families is the area teachers feel least confident about, in part because of how little training they have in this realm. In fact, less than one in five teachers received training on family engagement in their pre-service programs. In addition, our colleagues might feel unsure how to reach out to families from linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds different from our own. 

Research shows that educators are more likely to stay at schools where they have strong partnerships with families and remain in the profession longer. Moreover, fortifying connections with families is one of the five keys to moving from good to great schools. So, why is it that we don’t devote more time to this vital realm of our roles as educators?

Try Now

I encourage you to choose one of these five high impact strategies to try out before this school year concludes and then turn it into a consistent practice for your staff next year:

• Build in 10-15 minutes once a month for staff to engage in positive phone calls, texts, or postcards to their students’ families.
• Train staff on how to conduct relationship-centered home visits. Provide time for them to do the visits or offer them additional compensation for doing so.
• Implement the use of a two-way texting app
• Provide time for staff to send academic updates to students’ families
• Offer trainings or book studies around family engagement best practices that translate into concrete next steps and easily achieved small wins

For the colleagues that we serve, having time built in to engage in best practices enhances their capacity to more effectively partner with all families. When there is trust and collaboration between educators and families, children feel it. They feel accepted and valued. They feel known. Then, school and home are like parentheses, with children nested inside a community that feels connected rather than fragmented. In that kind of quality learning environment, it is safer and more enjoyable to learn.

About the author

Ari Gerzon-Kessler is the coordinator of family partnerships for the Boulder Valley School District in Colorado and is a sought-after speaker and professional learning provider working with schools and districts committed to forging stronger school-family partnerships. Ari is the author of On the Same Team: Bringing Educators and Underrepresented Families Together. Previously, he served for 16 years as a principal, assistant principal, and bilingual teacher.