Cultural Curriculum Chat with Jebeh Edmunds

Season 7 Episode #6 Beyond Involvement: How Educators Can Truly Engage Parents as Essential Partners

• Jebeh Edmunds • Season 7 • Episode 6

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The magic happens when educators and parents join forces as true partners in a child's education. Gone are the days when "parent involvement" meant simply attending conferences or helping with homework. Today's inclusive classrooms demand meaningful engagement where families are recognized as essential collaborators in student success.

Have you ever wondered why some teacher-parent relationships flourish while others remain strained? The answer often lies in intentional communication. As a classroom teacher for ten years, I discovered that establishing positive connections before challenges arise creates a foundation of trust that transforms the educational experience. My simple strategy of scheduling "celebration calls" to a few families each week ensured every parent heard good news about their child multiple times throughout the year.

The CARE framework provides a roadmap for building these crucial partnerships: Communicate Intentionally, Access and Activate Resources, Respect and Respond to Diversity, and Engage in Shared Decision Making. This episode unpacks each element with practical strategies you can implement immediately. From maintaining a 3:1 ratio of positive to challenging conversations to providing multilingual resources that honor diverse family backgrounds, these approaches recognize a fundamental truth: the parent is the expert on their own child.

Research consistently shows that when parents and teachers collaborate effectively, students experience higher academic achievement, improved behavior, enhanced social-emotional skills, and increased self-advocacy. Yet many families—particularly those with diverse learners—feel disconnected from schools due to previous negative experiences, language barriers, or overwhelming information. By acknowledging these challenges and implementing thoughtful engagement strategies, educators can create classrooms where every child and family feels valued, understood, and empowered. Ready to transform your parent partnerships? Start with just one strategy this week and watch what happens!


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Speaker 1:

Welcome back again to another episode of the Cultural Curriculum Chat podcast. I'm your host, jeva Edmonds, and today we are tackling a crucial topic how educators can build meaningful partnerships with parents to create truly inclusive classrooms. We know that when parents and teachers collaborate effectively, student success skyrockets. If you've ever struggled to engage parents or felt like communication barriers were in the way, or you just wanted a stronger connection with families, this episode is for you. I've been a classroom teacher for oh my gosh, I was in the classroom for 10 years, and eight years in a leadership role with the African-American Cultural Center, and just by the cadence of getting to know your students' families, having that open communication is so important. You just build relationships with the family as a whole and not just building relationships with just your student. So I cannot wait to give you some best practice strategies, as well as some fun tips that I had up my sleeve that I used when I was a classroom teacher. So let's get into it.

Speaker 1:

Research shows that parent involvement is one of the strongest predictors of student success. Yet many teachers find it challenging to establish these strong partnerships. Why is that? Some of the biggest barriers include communication gaps, cultural misunderstandings, limited time. Are you with me there, yeah, and unclear expectations between parents and schools. So today we're going to think about solutions that will help you overcome these obstacles and create lasting, meaningful engagement with our families. Inclusive education thrives when schools and families work together. This is why parent engagement matters in inclusive education. Parents are not just supporters of education, they are our essential partners, and when educators embrace collaboration, students benefit in multiple ways. The research is there there's higher academic achievement and motivation, improved behavior and social-emotional skills, increased confidence and self-advocacy in diverse learners and stronger trust between schools and their families.

Speaker 1:

I can remember just this parent engagement that my parents instilled in me. They were both teachers and so they knew how education was so important for their daughters. And I remember going to parent-teacher conferences with my mother, and it wasn't when people think about, when we're talking about parent-teacher conferences, only when a child is struggling. It's also when a child is celebrated as well. So I was at all of those parent-teacher conferences with my mother and listening to the teacher and having that open communication. My mother had questions already prepared. She wanted to see the evidence of the work that I did. And again, having that face behind that name of a parent that you're calling is so important.

Speaker 1:

I love sending celebration emails to families and scheduling them out, so it wasn't in the middle of my contract time, it was right after, so parents would get it, probably on their way home from work, left a message. I only picked like a couple students a week to make sure that they had something good that I could share. I wasn't calling my whole roster every week, but I picked two or three every week and made sure that I was able to cover all of my students in my roster before the end of the year. I made sure I had it at least two or three times before the end of the year to send a celebration phone call or celebration email communication. With that it builds that trust with your families. Your families are like, wow, they're not just calling me or communicating with me when my child is in crisis or my child, you know, needs redirection. They're actually calling me to share that, something that they noticed that needed to be recognized. So that's something that's even more critical.

Speaker 1:

But here's the challenge. You know many parents, especially those children with diverse learning needs, feel disconnected in the education process. You know so many of those families feel like, well, I bring you to the school. You have the supports in place or lack thereof supports, but I am trusting that the district and the administration has my child's needs as a priority, and sometimes they probably have had too, on the opposite feeling of a traumatic school experience themselves, and so they might be struggling with connecting with their child's teacher because of how they had treatment in their own past school experience and even their struggle with language barriers or even an accent that might be hard to understand or simply not knowing how to get involved. There is so many communication that comes out, lots of email and newsletter updates and stuff, and sometimes some parents feel a little overwhelmed. Feel a little overwhelmed, and again it's not the fault of the staff or the building, but it just goes to show of probably that analysis, paralysis or overwhelm of there's just so much I don't know how to sift through it. So, as an educator, how can you step up and rise above where they understand that this is important communication? How are you going to communicate that? That's my challenge for you.

Speaker 1:

I created a framework that can help you sustain and even enhance your parental engagement. A lot of the times when we heard that old adage of parental involvement, we want to step it up a notch and call it parental engagement, because you can be involved. But are you engaged in your child's learning? So, to create a structured and effective approach to family engagement, I have developed the CARE framework and I'm going to have that link to purchase the guide in the show notes so you can get access to it. But CARE stands for Communicate Intentionally, access and Activate your Resources, respect and Respond to Diversity and Engaged in Shared Decision Making. So I'll break it down Communicate intentionally. Remember what I said before.

Speaker 1:

Start by building that relationship before a challenge arise, giving that positive feedback, talking about something that was so cool that child did in your class today before something happened. So when the parent will be familiar with your email, your cadence, your style. So when the parent will be familiar with your email, your cadence, your style, and they also know that how you could reach each other in times of challenging situations. So aim for but my favorite number is three three positive interactions for every one problem related conversation. Okay, create a welcoming atmosphere by asking parents about their child's strengths and interests before you start asking about concerns.

Speaker 1:

I usually have that set up around the first parent-teacher conferences to show and have them share their strengths and interests of their child with me. When we have open family night or an open house conversation I usually have that it is such a flurry of different families and it's just chaotic. That one-on-one time when you are talking with that family is so important to really get your clipboard ready to go and write down what they see in their child Because, remember, the parent is the expert of their own child. Let me say that again, the parent is the expert of their own child. You only get a small window of seeing and interacting with that child, but they have known that child for since they were born. So this is something that you need to respect and understand. So instead of thinking about, oh, this kid is doing all these challenges, we're just going to put that aside, no, you also need to address that.

Speaker 1:

But beforehand, make sure you know you have the things that you see about that child, because every child has something great that they have to share with our world A access and activate those resources. So many parents, like I said, they're feeling overwhelmed and activate those resources. So many parents, like I said, they're feeling overwhelmed with all the processes in our education system right now. Yep, there's a lot going on. I'm just saying like the tornado of new information is coming at us left and right when it comes to our educational system, so you need to provide clear and accessible information in multiple formats. For example, if you have multilingual families or a family that English is their second or maybe third language, make sure that your communication can easily be Google translated into their mother tongue, like we say, or their original tongue, so that they have all the information to the best that you can share, that is clear and to the point. Offering parents a simple one-page guide on how to support reading strategies at home, or a hyperlink of a YouTube video that you use in the classroom to further extend your learning All of those are really good examples of clear, concise access to resources and information.

Speaker 1:

R respect and respond to diversity. Cultural responsiveness is key. Hey, you've been hopped on this cultural curriculum chat podcast. In Mrs Edmonds' Cultural Corner we talk all things multicultural and cultural responsive tactics. So different families have different perspectives on education and acknowledging those differences strengthens those relationships. Again, we don't know other people's lived experiences in our students' cumulative file, right? So a lot of the stuff we have to learn as we go, and you and I all both know that it takes time to get to know our students on a deeper level, and also it's going to take time to understand their families. So, just by being respectful, you don't have to be an expert in their culture, but just acknowledge that your culture is not the only culture that is within your classroom, and a great tip for that would be simply asking families how they prefer to communicate, whether through phone calls, emails, in-person meetings or translated resources.

Speaker 1:

Something very simple can really be impactful in a positive way. So how do we implement parent partnerships in our classroom? You don't need to overhaul your entire system overnight, but here are some actionable steps that you can take today. Steps that you can take today, like I've shared before. Send a quick note positive note, to be exact or a message to a parent about their child's progress. Ask parents for their input before making major classroom decisions and provide flexible options for communication to accommodate different schedules and preferences. Now, it's not a very perfect system and each child will and their family are different, so definitely use discretion. I challenge you to implement just one of these strategies this week and see how it transforms your parent partnerships, and if you're looking for more resources on fostering inclusive education.

Speaker 1:

Visit my website at jebedmundscom forward slash shop, and that is J-E-B-E-H-E-D-M-U-N-D-S dot com. Forward slash shop for tools and guides designed just for you. Thank you so much for tuning into the Cultural Curriculum Chat podcast and if you're watching on YouTube, mrs Edmunds Cultural Corner, if you found this episode helpful, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share this episode with a fellow educator. Together, we can build stronger schools. One parent partnership at a time. Until next time, keep inspiring and empowering your students. Bye-bye.