Family-School Linkages

The Family School Linkages (FSL) Project of the National Institute for Urban School Improvement seeks to work together with schools and families to assist schools to think about and improve their relationships with all the families of their students. We know from a decade or more of research that family members play significant roles in the education of children and youth. A growing number of studies show that when family members talk to their children about schooling, participate with school personnel, and support their children's efforts, those students achieve more, attend more regularly, and are more motivated and engaged as learners.

At the same time we also know that many schools struggle to get parents to come to meetings and events or engage school initiated activities of other kinds. One reason is that for many family members schools may be unwelcoming and/or intimidating, especially to those whose primary language is other than English, are working hard to raise their income level out of poverty, or who may feel shy about developing relationships with teachers for some reason. Yet these reasons may not be very obvious to school personnel.

The FSL Project is designed to bring family members and school personnel together in teams that focus on better understanding the perspectives of all involved and then trying to improve the ways that families and school personnel can engage with each other to support students’ learning and achievement. The overall purpose of the FSL project is to:

• Help school personnel to better understand the families of their students.
• Assist school personnel to seek feedback from families about the school, and find out what families want to contribute to the school’s mission and operations.
• Develop responses to the information from and about families that make a difference for schools and student learning.
• Assess the impact of developing new and novel school/family linkages.

To date five school-based inquiry teams in Colorado and seven in Louisiana have participated in the FSL Project. These schools and districts represent quite a range of settings and communities. There are eight elementary, two middle schools and one high school. With only two exceptions, these schools are either urban or urban ring districts. However, only one school has fewer than 30% of their students receiving free or reduced lunch. Most are above 50% and five are above 70%. The schools have student populations that range from 379 to 1484. In four schools there are a majority of Latino students and in three others, African American students. Three schools have a majority of Caucasian students.

Each school formed an Inquiry Team that includes 2-3 teachers or other school personnel and 3-4 family members. These teams have been working together since January 2003 in Denver and since October 2003 in Louisiana. Teams are supported by Project staff to (1) complete an assets map of the school, and later, the community; (2) develop an inquiry focus in collaboration with the school’s leadership team; (3) collect, compile, analyze, and interpret data to respond to the inquiry focus; (4) share what the teams learn with other program improvement and governance structures in the school for action planning; and (5) chronicle results of efforts by the school to make changes in family/school linkages through case accounts. These case accounts as well as other Project products are available on this site.

Enter Family-School Linkages Group Space