These short communications available on Iowa Public Television can be sent to your families to provide a consistent message around the following topics:  involvement, early years, talking and teaching, reading strategies, positive expectations, media literacy, and general messages supporting education.  The family messages are available in both Spanish and English.  You can download multiple copies (6 per page) and then print on paper, card stock, or labels.  

The Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) is a great site to access the latest research and sign up/access the latest and greatest in the engagement of families.

• FINE:  The Family Involvement Network of Educators:  Join the Family Involvement Network of Educators (FINE) and become part of a community of thousands of educators, practitioners, policymakers, and researchers dedicated to strengthening family-school-community partnerships. As a FINE member, you will gain access to the latest and best information about family involvement, receive regular email updates about new resources, exchange ideas and insights with other FINE members, and learn about evaluation methods for continuous improvement. There is no cost to become a FINE member.
• The Evaluation Exchange:  The Evaluation Exchange is a periodical that contains new lessons and emerging strategies for evaluating programs and policies, particularly those focused on children, families, and communities.
• Out-of-School Time Program:  The Out-of-School Time (OST) Program Research and Evaluation Database is a compilation of profiles written by HFRP of research studies and evaluations of OST programs and initiatives. It provides accessible information about research and evaluation work on both large and small OST programs to support the development of high quality evaluations and programs in the out-of-school time field.  
• Family Engagement Teaching Cases:  Teaching cases are a valuable tool in preparing teachers and school administrators to engage effectively with families. Because the case method presents a story in practice, it offers an active learning opportunity. Teaching cases involve real world situations and consider the perspectives of various stakeholders, including teachers, school leaders, parents, students, and other community members. Through case-based discussion, educators enhance their critical thinking and problem-solving skills and consider multiple perspectives.  

Help parents know what to ask their kids about school after they have asked, "How Was Your Day?"  Reproduce these booklets for your families so they can use good questions to get better answers:

• Questions to Ask Your Kids After, "How was your day?" (Ages 3 to 5) English  
• Questions to Ask Your Kids After, "How was your day?" (Ages 3 to 5) Spanish  
• Questions to Ask Your Kids After, "How was your day?" (Ages 3 to 5) Bosnian  
• Questions to Ask Your Kids After, "How was your day?" (Ages 6 to 12) English  
• Questions to Ask Your Kids After, "How was your day?" (Ages 6 to 12) Spanish  
• Questions to Ask Your High School Kid After, "How was school today?" English  
• Questions to Ask Your High School Kid After, "How was school today?" Spanish  

This booklet, Parents and Learning, addresses what parents can do to help their children do well in school. It has been prepared for inclusion in the Educational Practices Series developed by the International Academy of Education and distributed by the International Bureau of Education and the Academy.  

This booklet focuses on parents - the child's first and most powerful teachers. The author is Sam Redding, who has served as the executive director of the Academic Development Institute and editor of the School Community Journal.  

The booklet focuses on aspects of learning that appear to be universal in much formal schooling and thus seem likely to be
generally applicable throughout the world. Even so, the principles need to be assessed with reference to local conditions, and adapted accordingly. In any educational setting, guidelines for practice require sensitive and sensible application and continuing evaluation of their effectiveness.

Barbara Wells, Hoover Elementary Principal in Mason City, shares the following regarding building and sustaining school-community partnerships:

Schools today are very complex organizations. We are all very aware of the multitude of responsibilities that are assumed by teachers and administrators along with the challenging and often daunting expectation of annual increased student achievement. As we work daily with students' diverse academic and behavioral needs, complex family structures and financial concerns, we are continually searching for new avenues of support and assistance to help us reach our goals.

We cannot do it alone. In my experience, we have never been able to - nor should we try. Having been raised in a small, rural community my acclamation has always been to partner with individuals, families and businesses within the community when needs have arisen. The hub of my community was Allen Central School. This northern Ohio township school served K-8 students during the day and community groups in the evenings. Local organizations held their monthly meetings, dinners and occasional dances there. Many members of these organizations were teachers and/or parents of school children and through these connections individuals were continually made aware of classroom and building needs. As a result, a cadre of volunteers was always at hand at school to assist and support. Every year a summer migrant program was held at the school. Transported by district busses, migrant workers' children, infants through adolescents, were picked up in the early morning and delivered late in the afternoon to the fields where their parents were working. Community volunteers, along with paid school personnel, offered day care, meals and schooling to these children. Other community volunteers offered, throughout the summer, free tutoring and activities to resident school children in the public park that adjoined the school property. These activities were funded by community organizations. Families within the community assisted one another when needs arose, from women helping one another with childcare to farmers helping one another plant and harvest crops. It was both a priority and an expectation in my community for individuals to build and maintain trusting relationships with one another and local businesses, churches and our schools through clear and concise communication, goal setting and identifying individuals' strengths, interests and willingness to serve. The young helped the old; the old helped the young. All of the above played key roles in the success of our school-family- community partnerships.

Fast forward these principles that my community lived by in the 50's and 60's to today's environment. Although technology has totally changed how we live and work, it has not changed the fact that our complex schools have a greater need than ever for community support and assistance. In a different way and for different reasons from past decades, we still cannot do it alone. The good news is that community support is available. The challenge is learning how to tap into it, promote it and sustain it.  

Relationship building is the key, and that doesn't happen overnight, by sending out a flyer or two seeking help, or even by making a phone call. Relationships are built over time through personal contact and taking interest in getting to know and understand individuals, organizations and businesses. Relationship building involves giving as well as receiving. There are many ways that administrators, students and teachers can assist in the community as well as benefit from community resources. Whatever your school's needs are, consider the type of support you are seeking, and the individual(s), organization(s) or business(es) that you are interested in seeking support from. Make personal contacts. Invite individuals to your building and have introductory conversations over coffee. Give them a tour of your building and invite them to visit with teachers and students. Explain your vision, goals and what you and your staff have already done to meet the need. Be specific and realistic in what you are asking. Explain how the support or assistance will help the students/school reach a specific goal. Honor the individuals you visit with by sending thank-you notes from you and also from students and teachers. Continue to make contact with them. Ask the local paper to write an article regarding the support that the individual, organization or business has given- free advertising goes a long way in building lasting relationships!

As an experienced administrator, I completed last spring my first year as building principal of a Pre-K-4 elementary school. As I began my duties last July, I soon realized the need not only for cosmetic changes throughout the building, but also for cultural changes that in time included a revolving door policy whereby community members continually were in the building supporting students and teachers in a variety of ways. I developed a survey that explained our vision, goals and projects that were scheduled on a monthly basis, and asked school parents and grandparents as well as other community members and local businesses and organizations to complete the survey, indicating time, talents and other resources they were willing to give to our building, students and teachers. We held coffees, trainings, informal gatherings and sharing sessions with a variety of community members and, with their support, accomplished the following:

• Twenty-five individuals, including teachers, parents and community members, painted a large, multi-purpose kindergarten room over Labor Day weekend. All of the supplies were donated by a locally owned business.
• Six Rotarians read with/to students on a monthly, weekly or biweekly basis throughout the school year. Many times they would eat lunch with the students as well as attend special classroom programs. This program began four years ago and will be expanding to include individuals from another community organization in the fall. This is a district-wide program.
• A retired individual who lives in our school community is an excellent woodworker and has volunteered many hours completing projects that have enhanced our building. He is a regular on Tuesday mornings for coffee and to inspect what project might be next on the forefront. He is very proud of his work and has encouraged other retirees to volunteer their time and expertise to our building projects and programs.  
• Individuals representing a local nursery, landscaping company and lawn maintenance company donated materials and labor to help a cadre of teachers and parents prune and weed an overgrown courtyard that is surrounded by our building. The manicured courtyard will now be used as an outdoor classroom where students can learn in an environment that includes trees, prairie grasses, wildflowers and a pond.
• Twelve new conference room chairs were donated to us from our local hospital after administrators were informed that we were painting and repurposing our conference room to include not only a comfortable area for holding parent conferences and meetings, but a professional library as well. In addition, a local bank donated two oversized chairs to use in the library area.
• A local family that is a second generation school family owns and operates a home decorating business and has given us the gift of a new staff lounge - they removed the old materials and replaced them with new wall and base cabinets, countertops, and a sink. A cadre of teachers painted the entire room in preparation for the installation of new materials. The family's gift honors the work of our teachers and staff over time.  
• A local family that owns and operates a printing business and is passionate about technology has aggressively sought out other business owners, encouraging them to financially support our building technology program. With their help and support, we will be able to purchase twice the amount of technology that we have been able to purchase with Microsoft settlement dollars.

From the above examples I hope that the message is very clear: our communities have tremendous resources to offer and they come in a wide variety of sources, talent, time allotments and interests. No matter how busy we as teachers and administrators become with our day to day responsibilities and obligations, unless we take the time to build and sustain relationships with our community partners, we will not benefit from their potential support. On behalf of my school, students and staff I am not willing to take that risk or to try to do it alone......... are you?

Here are a few other sites that provide valuable information to increase parent engagement:

• Ages and Stages:  Iowa State University Extension and Outreach provides the Ages and Stages publications to share information geared to the specific age of a child from one month to 11 years. Learn about physical, mental, and social and emotional development of children. 
• Directory of Iowa Parent Information Resource Center:  This site connects you with internet resources from A to Z:  everything from tips on advocacy, financial aid, scientifically based research, to reading and math strategies. 
• Learning First Alliance - Family Engagement:  This site provides both resources and stories for success of families in schools.  
• Parent Involvement Matters:  This website shares the resources of many individuals, groups,and organizations working toward the goal of increasing family engagement through positive youth development.  They are also the home of ParentNet, a research-based parent-led program that brings parents together at grade level to learn from one another and build community.