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Position
Statement on
Home-School Collaboration:
Establishing Partnerships to Enhance Educational Outcomes
The National Association
of School Psychologists is committed to increasing the academic, behavioral
and social competence of all students through effective home-school collaboration.
In essence, home-school collaboration refers to families and schools developing
relationships as collaborative partners. Such partnerships involve families,
educators and community members working together to support students' educational
and mental health needs. Unlike traditional "parent involvement" activities
that emphasize passive support roles for parents, home-school collaboration
involves families and educators actively working together to develop shared
goals and plans that support the success of all students.
Benefits of Collaboration
When families are involved
in education, there are significant benefits for students, educators, and
families. Students demonstrate more positive attitudes toward school and
learning, higher achievement and test scores, improved behavior, increased
homework completion, greater participation in academic activities, improved
school attendance, and fewer placements in special education. Educators
report greater job satisfaction, higher evaluation ratings from parents
and administrators, and more positive associations with families. Parents
experience enhanced self-efficacy, better understanding and more positive
experiences with educators and schools, improved communication with their
children, and better appreciation for their role in their children's education. These
positive outcomes have been documented across families from diverse cultural,
ethnic, linguistic, and socio-economic backgrounds.
Key Components for
Collaboration
Key components for
developing positive home-school collaboration include considering: (a)
a framework for interaction with families; (b) the values and perceptions
held about family-school relationships; (c) the climate in schools for
families and educators; and (d) strategies for building shared responsibility.
Families and educators
often differ in their expectations, goals, and communication patterns,
sometimes leading to frustration and misunderstanding among students, families
and educators. When these differences are not recognized and addressed,
a lack of communication between home and school further divides and separates
the two most vital support systems available to the student. Effective
family-school collaboration needs to move beyond only addressing these
barriers to include discussing and determining the rights, roles, responsibilities,
and resources of families, school personnel, and students. Using a problem-solving
approach to overcome barriers and build mutual trust is important. Open
communication is essential in order for educators and families to understand
and respect each other's perspectives.
Establishing Effective Partnerships
The role of schools
Parents and educators
working together toward shared goals with shared power is the essential
characteristic of effective home-school collaboration. The process requires
ongoing planning, development, and evaluation. It also requires the allocation
of adequate resources to assist families and educators in fulfilling their
partnership roles. Schools must take the lead in providing opportunities
for collaborative partnerships to be developed and sustained through:
Providing a positive
environment: It is the school's responsibility to provide an environment
and culture that is welcoming for all families. The school must send consistent
messages to families that their contributions towards forming effective
partnerships are valued. Efforts are made to work collaboratively with
all families, including those whose primary language is not English and
those with limited literacy skills.
Supporting the efforts
of families and educators: Family participation increases when such participation
is promoted by the school. Schools can encourage collaboration by eliciting
and understanding families' perspectives and expectations. Multiple options
for participation, as well as systematic forms of collaboration, should
be made available, with the recognition that individual families and families
from diverse backgrounds will support their children in different ways.
Schools should foster an open dialogue between home and school and should
provide opportunities for families to develop partnership roles in their
children's education, including having decision-making roles in school
governance. Resources must be provided by the school to support the collaborative
efforts of families and educators (e.g., release time for teachers to meet
with families in the community, development of a family support room in
the school).
Working with families
from diverse backgrounds: Effective home-school collaboration is also needed
to support students from diverse populations. Families come in many shapes
and sizes with multiple perspectives, expectations, and communication styles.
Schools need to provide education to staff and families that encourages
understanding and celebration of diverse family forms, cultures, ethnicities,
linguistic backgrounds, and socio-economic status. Seeing diversity as
a strength that provides multiple perspectives and information about a
child becomes valued. When schools and families make the effort to understand
and educate each other, they often find more similarities than differences.
Collaboration is based in the assumption that families, children, and educators
are doing the best they can; efforts are made to understand others' behavior
and intentions rather than judge them as right or wrong.
Promoting a view of
education as a shared responsibility: Home-school collaboration is not
an activity; it is a process that guides the development of goals and plans.
When collaboration is characterized by open communication, mutually agreed
upon goals, and joint decision-making, education becomes a shared responsibility.
Together, families and educators can discuss expectations for student achievement
and their respective roles in helping students meet these expectations;
they can develop programs to promote effective home-school- community partnerships
that support positive academic, behavioral and social competencies in all
students; and they can engage in efforts to increase mutual respect, understanding,
caring and flexibility among families and the school community. When problems
arise, they are addressed jointly by families, students, and educators
in a respectful, collaborative, solution-focused manner. In sum, the more
continuity between home and school, the greater success children are likely
to experience.
The role of families
Child-rearing is both
complex and difficult. Individual families face multiple challenges with
unique sets of resources, skills, and preferences. Therefore, it is unrealistic
and potentially damaging to family-school relationships to take a "one
size fits all" approach to collaboration. Roles for families should
be broadly conceived, but individually applied. That is, educators and
families should work together to develop an array of opportunities for
families to participate meaningfully in their children's education. Such
opportunities should be offered with the knowledge that families will differ
in their choices; these differences must be understood to reflect individual
families' needs and preferences. Potential avenues for family participation
may include, but are not limited to:
- Active involvement in school decisions and governance
- Participation at school as volunteers and committee
members
- Participation in leisure reading with their children
- Participation in school functions, athletics, and
other extra-curricular activities
- Monitoring homework completion
- Regular communication with school personnel about
their child's progress
- Frequent communication with their children about
academic and behavioral expectations and progress
- Participation as fully informed, decision-making
members of problem-solving teams (e.g., IEP teams)
- Participation in adult educational opportunities
offered by the school
- Active support of the school through communication,
sharing resources and seeking partnership with educators
The role of the school psychologist
NASP encourages school
psychologists to take part in national, state and local efforts to define
parent involvement in education as true collaborative partnerships among
homes, schools and communities. School psychologists need to advocate for
increased home-school collaboration and identify strategies to encourage
family participation by:
- Recognizing and promoting the need to address concerns
across the different contexts within which a child exists
- Implementing
systematic, evidence-based models for home-school collaboration
- Establishing school-based teams consisting of parents,
educators and community members that assess needs, develop priorities
and plans, and implement joint efforts to improve educational outcomes
for students
- Serving as a liaison to support communication
among homes, schools and communities
- Ensuring the
meaningful participation of families in special education processes
by providing decision-making opportunities for families in
assessment, intervention, and program planning activities
- Providing
direct service to families regarding strategies that promote
academic, behavioral and social success across environments
- Working
with administrators to ensure that sufficient resources are
allocated to family-school collaboration efforts
- Pursuing
and promoting continuing education on topics such as family interventions,
multicultural issues, models of home-school collaboration and parent
education
Summary
Home-school collaboration
leads to improved student achievement, better behavior, better attendance,
higher self-concept and more positive attitudes toward school and learning.
Parents and educators also benefit when true partnerships are established. Successful
home-school collaboration is dependent upon educators, families and community
members working together to understand each others' perspectives and to
develop shared goals. NASP is committed to supporting collaboration among
families, educators and community members to promote positive educational,
behavioral, and social outcomes for all children and youth.
Resources
Christenson, S. L. (1995). Supporting
home-school collaboration. In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best practices
in school psychology III (pp. 253-267). Washington, DC: National Association
of School Psychologists.
Christenson, S.L. (2003). The family-school partnership:
An opportunity to promote the learning competence of all students. School
Psychology Quarterly, 18(4), 454-482.
Christenson, S. L., & Sheridan,
S. M. (2001). School and families: Creating essential connections for learning.
New York: The Guilford Press.
Henderson, A., & Berla, N. (Eds.). (1994). A new generation
of evidence: The family is critical to achievement. Washington, DC: National
Committee for Citizens in Education.
Minke, K. M., & Vickers, H.S. (1999). Family-school
collaboration. In S. Graham & K. R. Harris (Eds.), Teachers Working
Together: Enhancing the Performance of Students with Special Needs (pp.
117-150). Cambridge, MA: Brook Line.
Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. (2003, December).
Building trust with schools and diverse families: A foundation for lasting
partnerships. Retrieved August
31, 2004, from http://www.nwrel.org/request/2003dec/textonly.html
Pianta, R., & Walsh, D. B.
(1996). High risk children in schools: Constructing sustaining relationships.
New York: Routledge.
Salend, S. J., & Taylor, L.
(1993) Working with families: A cross-cultural perspective. Remedial and
Special Education, 14, 25-32.
Swap, S. M. (1993). Developing home-school partnerships:
From concepts to practice. New York:
Teachers College Press.
Note
"Parent" is
defined as any adult who fulfills a parenting role for a child; it should
not be interpreted to mean only birth parents. "Educators" is
used to emphasize that collaboration involves the entire school community,
not just teachers.
- Original version adopted by
NASP Delegate Assembly, April 1999
- Revision adopted by NASP Delegate
Assembly, April 2005
© 2005
National Association of School Psychologists, 4340
East West Highway, Suite 402, Bethesda MD 20814 - 301-657-0270.