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Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Episode 84: Uniting Home, School, Community
In this episode of the Compass PD Podcast, Dr. Carrie Hepburn is joined by Dr. Ted Huff, founder of Leading with Parents, to explore what it truly takes to unite schools, families, and communities in support of students. With parent engagement declining nationwide, Ted shares why authentic partnership—not just participation—is the key to improving attendance, strengthening achievement, and building trust. Through practical strategies, powerful insights, and decades of experience, Ted reminds us that when schools honor parent voice, tap into community strengths, and meet families where they are, everyone wins. This conversation offers hope, clarity, and actionable steps for districts ready to rebuild meaningful connections.
- Weston Kieschnick’s 10 Second Truth vlog: https://x.com/Wes_Kieschnick/status/1973094385941393639
Leading with Parents website: www.leadingwithparents.org
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Compass PD podcast where we dive into evidence-based practices and research-driven strategies that empower educators and leaders to make a lasting impact. I'm Dr. Carrie Hepburn, your host, alongside my good friend Dr. Ted Huff, the founder of Leading with Parents.
SPEAKER_00:Welcome, Ted. Hey, uh good afternoon, Carrie. It's so nice to be with you, be with you here today.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Can you just give our audience a little bit of information about yourself?
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, absolutely. So a little bit about myself. So I am a former uh teacher uh and principal. So I taught high school theater for 10 years, then I transitioned into administration. And I was in the administrator role for 21 years, 10 years as an assistant principal, and then 11 years. Oh my gosh, 11 years as a building principal. I just had to think about that. Yes. Um, and then so after retiring, I began working for the St. Louis Regional Professional Development Center, the St. Louis RPDC. Uh, and they facilitate professional learning here in the St. Louis metropolitan area. Then in 2024, I founded Leading with Parents. So Leading with Parents supports the work of our parent organizations at both the school and district level. And that's where I am right now, Carrie.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. What a career, right? When you think about your legacy and the impact that you've made in education, like you're looking at three decades, right? In education, serving as a teacher, as an administrator, and then going out and serving school districts and helping them with all the important work that they're doing.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, absolutely. I wouldn't have done it any other way.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I don't think sometimes people realize what a gift being an educator is. Like how much it can fill you up and it fills you up for life. Like just you walk away and you're like, wow, I changed some lives, and and some lives changed me.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my gosh, Harry, that is so true. And you know, and when we see former students come back or you know, parents come back and talk to us and share with us, you know, how we impacted their children, then I come back and tell them, oh, you don't understand what your child did for me and how they impacted my life and helped me become a better person or better educator. You know, and um they don't always think about that, but that's true. They impact us in so many ways.
SPEAKER_01:They really do. Well, I really wanted Dr. Huff to come visit today because I feel like we're in a time where we're seeing engagement dip, the engagement of our community and of our parents dip in our schools and our school districts. And I thought this is the perfect time for Ted to come and highlight his work with Leading with Parents. So, what many of you may not know is that he did, he did tell us that he founded Leading with Parents in 2024, but he's really been doing this work for decades in education. And this is really the the heartbeat of who he is is connecting parents and communities with their schools. He eats, sleeps, and breathes this work, even as he's supporting principals and as he's been supporting school districts and working with standards. This is this is his his um passion in education. So um, did I kind of outline that okay, Ted?
SPEAKER_00:Because that was I was like, wow, is that is that me? Oh my gosh. That was scary.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks, thank you, because I just thought, oh my gosh, not everyone loves parent and community community engagement. Like sometimes people really shy away from it because it can be scary and it's um unpredictable, you know, scary and unpredictable because parents are unpredictable, and not in a bad way.
SPEAKER_00:No, no, so you just have to be ready for that.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yes, so it can feel really scary. So I want to kick off like with my first question for you. When you think about family and community engagement, what does that mean to you?
unknown:Dr.
SPEAKER_00:Hepran, that's a great question because it means so many, it can mean so many things. So, family and community engagement is empowering parents and families to work alongside the school and district to support students and staff. So, you couple of this with including community businesses and organizations, we can provide a culture that supports the entire community, Carrie, which is huge. Also, empowering parent voice as a support system is paramount. If we want to transform our parent organizations as authentic support systems. So, if we want that to truly happen, we need to think about how we want to engage our parents. And that is by empowering their voice. Also, if we think about the schools as a whole, making time to understand the mission, vision, and values of the school, and parents can support the school improvement plan. We don't think about that. But parents are integral and they can help us understand different components of the school improvement plan as it relates to their students and student achievement. You know, it really is. And they can serve as allies in an alliance. Think about that. Sometimes we think parents may want to come in for you know an alternative motive, but really parents want what's best for their child and what's best for the school because that's gonna help them. And also, if we tap into skills, leadership, knowledge, and experiences of our families and parents, Carrie, that's a win-win opportunity for all of us. I mean, there's so many talents and skills that the parents have that if we tap into those, that's gonna help us make our jobs a lot easier. It really, really is. Something else I think is important is our parents, staff, administrators, and community members, they all benefit from family engagement, professional development. There's not a lot of that out there. And so leading with parents provides um professional development in those areas for administrators, teachers, parents, uh, in the community.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. I don't think there's anything out there regarding professional development with our parents and our community. Um, that's unheard of.
SPEAKER_00:Right. I'm not I'm not seeing I'm not seeing that out there.
SPEAKER_01:I will tell you that I remember when I was in the classroom. So this is I'm dating myself a little bit, um, but probably around 2008 or so, we had started um professional learning communities. So I was on the leadership team, met with DeFor and Bob Eker, and I was the PLC leader for our team, and we were doing RTI. We were getting started. Um, one of the things that we were doing was intervention, and we were trying to do intervention, and you know, you you have all these kids that need help, and there's only so many people. One of the things that our team did was we asked parents, like, who could help us uh be work with some of our kids that were not in intervention, intervention, but kind of on the bubble, and then even for kids who needed extension. And so we did like a little parent PD, and it was the first time somebody, and these were parents that were very involved, but like nobody had showed them how to use the copier or how to you know navigate the binding machine that we used to have, but but how to sit down with a kid and have a conversation and the kinds of questions to ask, and how to to to show them how to use a book or do like some math support. And we we did that and we got so much feedback from parents just saying, thank you. Like this helps me not only helping you guys, but I can use this at home. So I love that your your students we used to call them our pit crew. I think we stole that from your school.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I know now that I think about it. Rachel Griffin started the whole piece with um National Network of Partnership Schools. I think Amy Johnston named ours the pit crew.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, I think we sold the pit crew and got the t the parents all like little t-shirts and stuff. It was it was a big deal. It was a big deal. Big deal. So um thank you for that. I love the idea of professional learning for the staff and professional learning for the community and the the parents that will be supporting you. Okay, so now when you think about being a former administrator, how did how did you start getting your parents and your families and the community engaged in your schools?
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so so Carrie, it started when I was a theater teacher back in the 20th century. And uh oh my gosh. Yeah so uh so as a theater teacher, you know, I needed um things for the for the productions. And so I had a couple parents step up and started doing things, and so we formed the the you know uh the drama parents group, and so they just started supporting our work, and I thought, oh my goodness, I'm engaging parents in taking care of you know the cast parties, they're taking care of helping with different events and the nights of the shows, uh, taking us to the conferences and supporting that. So that that's where I got started. So then I transitioned. Um, I started working in Francistown in 2006, and as you mentioned, the pit crew. So Amy Johnson had the pit crew already established, and so that was kind of rolling along, and the pit crew really let out uh, you know, they had book studies, we had a we had a lending library um for the parents to you know receive literature. And so then in 2014, Carrie, Dr. Joe Mazza, back when Twitter chats were popular, okay, he started the PT chat, parent teacher chat, and that was a 30-minute chat. And so Joe and several parents, and you know, every week we were on the PT chat. And then we started a book study called Beyond the Bake Sale by Karen Mabbin and Henderson. And it's my favorite here, here it is my favorite go-to book.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my gosh, thank you.
SPEAKER_00:So um it's I love it, Beyond the Bake Sale. And so we did on on Voxer, we did a book study on Voxer starting in the June of 2014. Boxer 2015, and we had questions every week, and we would go on, and yeah, so we did our Voxer chat. Okay, so then Joe says in the spring, he says, guys, I wanted to go to the NAFSCA National Conference. That's the um National Association of Family and Community Engagement. And so we and so in June of 2015, we went to the conference in Chicago and we presented on Beyond the Bake sale and an engagement. And that was transformational for me. So I came back to Francis L Middle School that summer and I met with my assistant principal who was over the PTO, PTO president, and she just said, Ted, we are in trouble. I said, What's going on? She said, Ted, we're dying on the vine. I'm like, what do you mean? She said, Well, back it up. I thought PTO was about fundraising, and my pit crew was about parent engagement, parent learning, parent studies, you know, book studies. And then my PTO president said, Ted, no, PTO does everything, but you've relegated us to fundraising, and so we're just we're not it's not we're not being successful. So we merged the pit crew and um okay, so we became face, family and community engagement. So they became the face of our school. It was one group leading out uh fundraising and also um family engagement. So that's how that started. Um and so what I did was, I mean, we were all ex official members, the admin team, we were ex official members of the face face team because they made all the decisions. We just attended, we were there to get their support, but they made the decisions, they set the calendar, they set the agenda, they created all the events. I mean, they came up with you know, they started the craft fair, they started the um the um holiday rap uh in December for staff. Uh they you know let out the um the adult trivia night, the family trivia night, um, just different things along those lines. And they just started just doing all these different things, you know, for the school community. So that's kind of that's kind of where it started. And so what we learned from Karen Mapp and Ann Anderson and Beyond the Bake Sale is that you have to meet parents where they are. And we don't think about that. And so I took it one step further. You know, they said we have to meet parents where they are, and I added on, and not where we believe they are. Because we have a perception of where our parents are based on our first impressions, and so we have to think, no, we need to we need to find out who our parents are, where they are, and then start helping them wherever they are, and that could be, you know, um helping them with things at home or helping them understand um the educational system, whatever that is, and bring them into the fold, and then we can start having them join and do different do different things, you know. And for me, it's about knowing my parents. I'm I'm big on names, and so I needed to learn my parent, the parents' names. So I tried to learn all of as many parent names as I could, you know. And then um my middle son Ben, I asked him one day when he was in sixth grade. I said, Ben, and he, by the way, they went to my school, they had a boundary exception to go uh to to Francis Middle School, and I said, Ben, how's school? He goes, Dad, it's okay. I said, Ben, what do you mean it's okay? He goes, Dad, don't take this the wrong way, but nobody loves school like you love school. I'm like, what? He goes, seriously, dad, I mean, you're crazy about school. And um, I'm just not. It's okay, Dad. It's okay. But um, I'll be fine. And he's fine, he's fine. He graduated from college and he's a good, you know, but it made me realize that the lens with which I viewed school was skewed. And I had to realize that everyone else has their own lens in which in with which they view school, as a parent for their children or as a parent at their own experience. So that helped me. So it was important for me to figure that out. Okay, so then if I could share something, uh Carrie. So Weston Keichnich, uh, Weston Keitsnich is an educator, he's a keynote speaker, um, and so he has something called his 10 second truth vlogs, 10 second truth vlogs. So most recently, uh and I added that link into the um the um show notes. Nice. Um he said he said this. He said he spoke on our highest performing schools. He said schools are successful when the school has a highly invested parent population. Schools only work when they have a handshake agreement between schools and parents where schools say we will do ABC, parents say they will do D E and F. So he said it's not he said, You have an incredible staff, you have incredible PD, you have an incredible community. He said, but when you have that invested parent group, he said, that's when you're gonna soar.
SPEAKER_01:So that's so powerful, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I was like, I immediately uh messaged West Tebec and said, Weston, I said this is this is gold, thank you.
SPEAKER_01:As you were chatting, a couple things I I made really strong connections to were when you said dying on the vine and having your PTA, PTO, and then your pit crew. I do believe that we're getting community meeting, committee meeting out. And so what a brilliant idea of joining those two committees, and it really is a nice way of using the gifts and talents. Everyone wants to serve and help, but they can't do all the things. And you want to feel like you're you're doing some good work, you know. So fundraising is kind of a it's it's an necessary evil, I guess, you know, that we have an education. Nobody else in the business world has to fundraise to, you know, buy books and things like that. But um, we have to in education. So if you can have one meeting a month versus two, you're going to get more buy-in from your staff, getting them to become part of it, and then from parents, and parents are busy. So um they can commit though to a couple days a couple hours a month, they can likely commit to. So I love that.
SPEAKER_00:And we can't make can we can't make fundraising the the focus. Um, that has to be a part of it. And so when I when we go when when leading with parents goes in, we talk to them about you know the parents and the engaging the parents, bringing parents in, and then building those relationships, helping the parents support the school, and then we bring in fundraising as as needed, but we tell them that that's not our primary goal. Our primary goal is to support um with volunteerism or different things, but also when when the time comes, we we add in fundraising, but that's not the BL end all.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and I know there's research. I don't have it cited right now, but I will look it look it up that the more involved our parents are, just like what Mr.
SPEAKER_00:Um uh what oh Key Snitch, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, just just mentioned Key Snitch mentioned about how our highest performing schools have highly invested parent populations. So um I think all parents want to be involved and they want the best for their kids. Sometimes we just have to think about how it looks and it might need to look different based on our community. So we just get creative with that. This feels to me like it's more important than ever. Can you discuss your four primary like links of engagement?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, absolutely, absolutely, Carrie. So um there are there are four key links that link schools, parents, and the community. That's stakeholder voice, okay, family connection, beyond the boundaries, and level leadership. So stakeholder voice that's empowering all the stakeholders within your community to share their voice on a committee, um, on a special committee, um, hiring staff, teachers, and administrators, um, getting their voice and ideas. And then what's important though is when you survey the parents and you get their voice, it's important to let the parents know how you use their voice, their information and your decision.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Because they feel like that's how you're gonna get stakeholder buy-in, is when stakeholder voice is used as a catalyst to build the school, to move the school forward. So that's that's a key piece there, is that we need to make sure that we're using their their voice um and their information to make those decisions. And then family connection. So how are we connecting um with the parents? Are we are we personally inviting them to join you know one-on-one when they're at school? Are we um having home visits? Um, are we um does our parent does our parent organization connect with the community? So how are we connecting the families to the school? How are we connecting the families to the community? What are we doing to bring them in? Um that's that's huge, is that family connection piece? And are we including all of our families? Are all family groups represented in our school on our face team or your parent organization? Right. And if they're not, why? Right. Because every parent matters, and so we just need to make sure that, and a couple of parents told me that they said, Ted, you know, we need to make sure we're including all parents, um, you know, all parent groups, um, all their voices. I said, You're you're right, you're right. So again, making sure that they're all there. And then beyond the boundaries, that's where we're going out into the community. Uh, so we're taking the the students, the parents, the and um the leaders, and we're going out into the community. We could it could be service learning, it could be community service. Um, but what are we doing? Are we going out and volunteering in the community? Um, are we going are we bringing the community into the schools? Because the parents have so many community connections that they can help bring the community back into the school. And so, you know, what are we doing with that piece? Because that's that's missing out. And so when we want, so when the school wants to wants a tax levy or a bond issue and you have connection with the community, you already have that grassroots organization that's supporting you.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And so if they're a part and if they're part of that, and if the community is part of your school improvement plan, if they're sitting on committees, they know what you're doing, they're gonna they're gonna have a great, you're gonna have a greater opportunity to get their voice and their support for whatever initiative you need. And level leadership. Are parents taking on leadership roles? Are they taking leadership roles in the district? Are they are they chairing a committee? Are they leading out a cause? What are they doing in leadership? So there are different opportunities for them to lead out. They could lead a subcommittee, they could lead a committee, but what are we doing to um empower them? You know, we had um um career career day lunch, and I forget the actual name of it. And so we had a parent that kind of organized that. So once a month, we had parents come in during lunch and they would speak about their careers, and kids would grab their lunch. Well, maybe it was a lunch and learn. They would come in, the kids would come into the library for lunch, and a parent would speak on their career. And so we had a couple parents organize that. And so it's you know, using their talents to um support the school.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. So I have a couple of points and a couple follow-up questions regarding this. If you don't know, so thinking about these links of engagement that you're talking about. So you have the four primary links of engagement stakeholder voice. One of the things that we see a lot of people not highlight how they use the data in their decisions, and so it feels disconnected. So they're like, they asked for my opinion, but they didn't use it to do anything. So we try to, I you know, and that's frustrating, right?
SPEAKER_00:Very frustrating.
SPEAKER_01:Um, so we try to teach, you know, districts that in their curriculum cycle, part of their curriculum cycle, every single year, they should be surveying parents and students on the resources used, how engaged they felt like their child was in the material, you know, how connected they felt to the course, all of those things. Um, so that we're getting minute by minute information from our parents, or maybe not minute by minute, but you know, annual data from parents that this is how they're feeling about these particular courses or resources or materials or how it's instructed. Then when I think about so that's I wanted to make that point. I loved how you said let's get that serving. And then when I think about the family connection, um, you mentioned having parents become leaders, and that's really scary when you're an administrator to have somebody else be a leader and say, okay, you're gonna be in charge of this. What do you do to set that partnership between you and that parent or those parents up for success so that it doesn't go rogue?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, Dr. Hepburn, that's great. That's a great question. So typically, um, I wouldn't have a parent just jump in and take over a leadership role. They're gonna be with us for a little bit. I'm gonna get to know the parent, I'm gonna learn their strengths, I'm gonna learn uh their interests, and then talk to them about the parameters with which, you know, the guidelines. Um and so, for example, the the for the face team, we served as ex-official members, so we were there to kind of support. Um, I might have uh you might have another leader kind of administrator, you know, join that committee and work alongside that parent as they're leading things off.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:But again, uh you you have to set the parameters for the parent on what you want them to accomplish and and know the goals and the guidelines. So there's certain things that the parents can and cannot do because of district policies or building guidelines. So again, just um up front, you know, express to them this is this is the goal, this is the task, and then here are your parameters with with with within you need to work. And you always have an administrator to bounce those ideas off off as an ex officio person in case you have any questions, so that you know they don't go rogue or they don't you know take it in a direction that's not compatible to your goal and just stay in communication with them. And then once they once that first go around um is successful, then they can you can you know you can continue to give them a little more of that leadership piece and and just trust them. And you know, and I trusted my face team implicitly to you know to do the work once we got things grounded and they were established and they understood our expectations and the framework and our district policies and building guidelines.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, nice. I just could see several people being like, yes, I would love that. Because as you were talking about that, I kept thinking this is taking some of the heavy lifting off of your plate as an administrator and your staff who already have such full plates.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yes, you know, when you think about you know your parent teacher conferences or your open house, and then we always provide meals. Let the parent organization plan that. You know, they planned our November um uh crock pot meal, and it became one of the most popular things around, and they coordinated all the crock pots that that came in with the meals and it just you know that and the holiday wrap, they organized that. And so, you know, each staff member could bring in, you know, 12 to 15 items to be wrapped in the month of December to celebrate whatever they're celebrating a birthday, a holiday, a special event, and those were wrapped, you know, the staff had those were wrapped for them. So yeah, it's just you know, taking things off the plate or just helping celebrate.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think celebrate and just feel good about things. I know we had like a local church that would host all the teachers in our building and right at the beginning of the school year. So at the beginning of the school year, they would host like this big luncheon and they would play music and they would have all this delicious food, and then they would try to fulfill some of their Amazon wish lists. So they would come and it was kind of like Oprah, you know, like you get a basket, new get a basket. Every single staff member walked away with a certain amount of money that was spent on them for things that they needed, including paras, principals, teachers, you know, secretaries, everyone. Like if you had something that you would really love to get that you know they wanted for the school, the church organized this event and people would leave just feeling they had a photo booth, like so loved and excited about the school year. So as you're talking about um going beyond the boundaries too, the church, you know, partnered with them to do this, and they highlighted it on their Facebook, and the school highlighted it on theirs, and it really looked really nice um for both organizations, so and it felt good.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, absolutely. That's bringing the school and the community together and look at the regime of that.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, it's just really powerful. How do you do that? How do you get like your staff out in the community? So when you're talking about beyond the boundaries, how do you get them out in the community and being seen without burning people out? So I know I'm like asking you more questions, but I'm curious.
SPEAKER_00:So, you know, it it so like with the same thing with uh your parents, you know, what do the parents want, what do they like? Same thing with your staff, what are your interests? Where, you know, what do you what do you like to do? Um, and um I'm working with one one district, and so we're gonna have a farm education day because there is there are two farmers that uh would like to open up their farms to the community, and so the kids are gonna go out and take a half day at each farm and visit them and and and learn. So, you know, I just tell you know, to a parent or tell you know, staff we're gonna do this slowly. And um, what are you interested in doing outside? Anyone interested in doing this piece? And then you take those volunteers first, and then they they work, um, say we want to work at the food pantry. And so we take two, three parents and teachers go out there and do that, and then of course, uh then you you take pictures and you showcase that and you celebrate that, and then you see how successful it is, and then and how much time it took or didn't take, you know, not a lot of time, and then you can share that success with the rest of the staff and just show them that you know this is this is a great thing. Um some districts or some buildings have something called a passion project where each teacher learned something new. So you could have you know each teacher look at or a group of teachers look at um a service into the community that they would like to do, and then all rally around that and they and they then leave that out. Um you know, when I was at Frankstown Middle School, our character connection classes adopted areas, and so they they adopted areas of the building, they adopted the parts of the community. Um, and so you know, you can just um build that into your school community, um, introduce it slowly introduce it because it's it's a big task, it's a big ask of your staff to go into the community. So we want to do that slowly uh and get buy in so they can kind of see what it looks like with the pilot group and then continue to expand that.
SPEAKER_01:Something I think you do really well, Ted, is You share the stories on social media. So people get the narrative of what's happening in the moment. And I think that's really important, especially in a time that more negativity is on social media and negativity regarding education. We can share our story of what is going so wonderfully in our schools and help change that narrative and that belief through some of this work. And I really love that. I think you do that really well. That's something I've always admired you for.
SPEAKER_00:Well, thank you, Carrie. If we don't tell the story, someone else will. That's what I tell all the groups that I work with. So we need to get out in front in front of that and share the story, share the message so they can see what's happening in our schools or what's happening in our community or what's happening with the work that we're doing.
SPEAKER_01:You were an influencer before influencing was a thing, I guess.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. Okay.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:What tips do you have for districts who are getting started in trying to increase family and community engagement in their schools?
SPEAKER_00:Okay, that's okay, that's that's key. So my first question is our schools and districts need to assess what they want family and community engagement to look like. Do they want it? How bad how badly there we go. Do they want it? How badly do they want it? And then what does it what what does it need to look like? Um, do they have a family and community engagement policy or guidelines established? Some districts have family engagement policies. Um I'm talking to a district right now, and so I'm working along with their policy, and we're gonna talk about some some things that we can do. Um if not, this is the first thing they need to do is the district should set up a policy and building should set up family engagement guidelines. Um also they need to set the guidelines and expectations for their parent organizations. So if they have organizations, they need to go back and then revisit their expectations. If it's not in the school improvement plan, then they then they need in the next year, they need to put family engagement in their school improvement plan. Okay. That's a progress here, that's a progress monitoring piece that helps you validate the work, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Um I'm really intrigued by um policy and guidelines. So you mentioned I don't know that I realized that we had policy, districts had policies regarding parent and community engagement. Is that a common thing?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I know of two districts. There's a very large district um that has um their their steps, um, and then there's another district that's just a little smaller, but they have they have five key pieces to their their family engagement um district policy. And so then all the buildings have to make sure that they're aligned with that policy.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. And then guidelines, is there like what's a good way to get started if you didn't have any guidelines at all? What would you what would you recommend to us? You know, we work with school districts of all kinds of sizes, but some of our school districts are teeny tiny and they don't have anything like this. How would they think about a guideline for a parent group?
SPEAKER_00:So then, okay, so we sit down. Um, I'm working with a very, very small district also right now, Carrie. And so we just we just sit down and we talk about what are the expectations. So the superintendent, for example, um had explicit explicit goals that he wanted to achieve for fame and community engagement. So we took that, and then you build your you know, action steps around that. So you have you set two or three goals of what you want to accomplish that year, and you set some action steps around that. You know, for example, you know, how many meetings do we want to have with the parent group? How many days of professional development do we want to offer? How many events and functions should we plan or should we support? Um, how many should there be new? For example, they may have some existing things that the organizations are doing, are supporting. So then you support those. And then do you want to add anything new, new events, or do you want to wait and just evaluate that first year? So your building leadership team can sit down and establish this and then bring in, if you don't have a parent organization, then bring in parents and say, hey, listen, let's conduct, let's conduct an audit ourselves of what we have, what do we want, get their input, and start putting a plan putting some guidelines together to establish your parent organization at the building level.
SPEAKER_01:I'm assuming that when you talk about you know putting this in your SIP plan at a district level and doing some progress monitoring with that, that that's something then we could tie directly to our CSIP at a district level. So if a district wanted to build parent and family and community engagement, they could do that at the C SIP level and then each building would create an action step for that. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. And there was a district that's doing that right now in Kansas City.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. I love that work. I think um we are spending more time than ever as an organization helping school districts build their comprehensive literacy plans, their new things, new requirements that we're seeing at multiple states. They have a lot of similarities. And one of the things that we think is really interesting is that there is a strong family community engagement expectation for these comprehensive literacy plans. We also anticipate that in the next few years we'll start to see the same thing for math, as right now we're dealing with the science of reading, and that's early childhood. Well, really, they're starting some states birth through grades 12. And then we'll while others maybe start pre-K till grade 12. But I anticipate we'll also see the same thing with math as the science of learning um starts to hit the math world too. So it's nice to see that the work that you're doing directly correlates with what we're seeing as state mandatory regulations within their um comprehensive plans that they're wanting districts to create. So um for districts that are wanting to get ahead of this curve right now, or schools that are wanting to get ahead of this curve, it's the perfect time to start thinking about your parent and community engagement. So for those of you listening, we'll make sure we have all of Ted's information in our show notes because it would be the perfect time for you to get started on this work. So you're ahead of the curve before these regulations come down and you feel really good about it. So um, yeah. So, Ted, thank you so much. I feel like our conversation has just been so powerful. I really, I really appreciate you sharing your expertise today.
SPEAKER_00:Well, Carrie, thank you so much for inviting me. This is one of my key passion areas. And if I can help, you know, one building or one district empower parents uh to help them launch greater success at their school, then it's it's all worth it. But that's it, it's you know, it's about helping the entire school community come together and support the students. And that's what this is all about is helping our students um be more successful.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I think as I walk away, like I learned that true family and community engagement just isn't about attending events, it's not just about showing up. I heard from you like authentic partnerships that are built on shared purpose and mutual respect.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:And you reminded all of us today that empowering parent voice and inviting our families into leadership roles and meeting them where they are is going to create ripple effects that really strengthen every part of our schools and the school system as a whole. So I'm so grateful for this, Ted. Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:So welcome. I appreciate you uh bringing bringing me to um join you on this podcast, Carrie.
SPEAKER_01:Awesome. Well, for those of you who are listening, please feel free to share your thoughts or experiences. We would love to hear from you. And if you found today's episode valuable, consider sharing it with a colleague who might benefit from this message. Thank you for joining us on the Compass PD podcast. Remember, at Compass PD, we believe that every educator has the power to inspire, change, and transform student learning. Stay focused, stay inspired, and keep making a difference.