Home-school partnerships
- Families are their children’s first and continuous teachers; therefore schools should support parents’ goals for helping their children be successful.
- An effective partnership between families and schools through authentic, respectful dialogue and collaboration is essential and takes multiple forms that should be supported, appreciated, and nurtured, especially for African American, Latino, and low-income families.
- A variety of data from multiple sources and methods should be gathered in order to build on children’s strengths, understand their behaviors, and better address their socio-emotional, cognitive, academic and cultural needs.
- Schools need to be intentional and proactive in gathering data from families who are African American, Latino and low income since they are too often not considered in school decisions and practices. These data then need to be used to inform the design of the curriculum, teaching strategies, school-wide events, and all aspects of school governance.
- Both families and school personnel need opportunities for dialogue and inquiry about the data gathered to help children, especially African American, Latino and low-income children, be successful.
