Critical insights and strategies for engaging parents in school from "Innovative Voices in Education: Engaging Diverse Communities," based on presentation to Natl Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education. For more information see http://www.InnovativeVoicesinEducation.com . Contact Eileen about engaging students and families from diverse backgrounds at EKugler -at- EmbraceDiverseSchools.com

1. INNOVATIVE VOICES
IN EDUCATION:
Engaging Diverse Communities
Eileen Gale Kugler,
Executive Editor
Ekugler@EmbraceDiverseSchools.com
703-644-3039
January 2012 NCPIE:
National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education
www.InnovativeVoicesinEducation.com

2. 17 CHAPTERS
19 CONTRIBUTORS
Each with a distinct voice
Documenting work in:
• California
• Illinois
• Maryland
• Minnesota
• Montana
• New York
• Texas
• Virginia
• Australia
• Canada
• UK
• Pakistan
© 2012 Rowman & Littlefield Education

4. Puts research into real-world context –
How innovators applied and expanded upon research

5. FINDINGS ON FAMILY ENGAGEMENT:
Families are diverse
Beyond labels
such as minority,
immigrant,
or ―new.‖
Who is us and
who is them?
How do we
empower the
marginalized?
Ancestor dolls by author Karen Keenan‘s 2nd grade

6. Parents play a critical unique role
 Jesse Bethke Gomez – Ch. 14
―As educators we must begin with the
assumption achievement gaps are not
limitations to learning by any sub-population
group .... (They are) indicators of sub-
optimization of our true productive potential of
our schools, our community and our society.
Any effort to eliminate achievement gaps
requires stakeholders to contemplate two
powerful truths:
1) All children and adults have the need and
infinite potential to learn, and; 2) The family
system is the primary human social
organization that prepares the next generation
of people who become members of society.‖

7. Traditional parent involvement
leaves gaps & impacts
achievement
 Graciela Rosas – Ch. 6
By learning about my students I became very
aware that many students had little to no support
in their homework at home. Parents typically
were working late and even if they were at home,
the homework is at a higher level of
understanding than most parents‘ education or
language. Their educational level may be at the
elementary level or below and their children are
learning more complex information, so
unfortunately, even when the parents try to help
their children, their best intentions are thwarted.
The pitfall for these students is that instead of
getting help from peers, family, or teachers, they
just don‘t do the assignments.

8. Parents care, but feel isolated
 Shriya Adhikary – Ch. 2
―My mom comes from a culture that has certain
(limiting) expectations of women... Regardless of their
own limited education, my parents have continually
reiterated the importance of education in their
children‘s lives. Unfortunately, the cultural differences
hinder my mother‘s ability to understand how things
work in America.
―I never consulted any of my teachers (except my
newspaper advisor) about the issues with my mom in
terms of getting my work done. Many teachers were
generally encouraging and supportive. Yet, most of
my classes were International Baccalaureate courses
and I was surrounded by students who didn‘t have
any such similar issues. The teachers didn‘t
distinguish between the few immigrant students in
this cluster of students, and I was expected to get my
work done. No questions asked. I honestly did not
know how to approach my teachers about this, and

9. One teacher can be the connection
 Waliha Gani – Ch. 2
―Throughout my high school years, my
relationship with my mother only deteriorated. We
could not see eye to eye on anything. My father
literally begged me to quit my journalistic
aspirations altogether to ‗save everyone at home.‘
However, I was fortunate to have an incredibly
understanding newspaper advisor, Alan
Weintraut, who attempted to help my mother
understand my participation in the paper. He
spoke in person to her whenever she came to the
publications lab during our long deadline nights,
explaining exactly what we did as a staff.
Fortunately, this dialogue between Mr. Weintraut
and my mother did help my mom understand to
some extent. Most importantly, thanks to Mr.
Weintraut‘s patience, my mom received some
consolation during my late hours by calling his

10. Parents‘ perspective must be valued
 Jeff Scanlan – Ch. 8
―I was reading (a passage from Mark Twain‘s Tom
Sawyer) to the class. One student went home and
reported (that I had been reading) Tom Sawyer‘s
melodramatic thoughts of death. The next day her
mother came in to complain to me about what I was
reading.
―I wondered how a parent could complain about the
reading of classic like Tom Sawyer? But then I
thought, ―I need to respect this lady, this mother. Here
she is with an interest in her child‘s education. It is not
for me to judge her negatively for this complaint.
―As we talked it was clear there was more to this than
I had realised. A family member not too long ago had
committed suicide and that death was still very much
in their thoughts. How often is it the case that when
we feel aggrieved there is more to the situation than

11. Outreach can‘t be limited to
parents who find it easy to
connect
 Stacie Stanley – Ch. 9
―I‘ve learned from many African American,
Latino and some underprivileged white parents
that the school setting isn‘t always a welcoming
place... My staff and I have made efforts to
engage families by first meeting with parents in
their neighborhoods. ... We provided
transportation for events at school and worked
to help parents get to know one another through
low process activities related to what they had
in common—a visceral desire for their children
to succeed. The more we responded to the
needs and requests of our historically
marginalized families, the more we garnered
their trust.”

12. Involved parents can be valuable
collaborators
 Nardos King – Ch. 10
―The challenge before me was to strengthen our
school so that no child would fall through the
cracks. I began having conversations with
members of my administrative team,
teachers,(and) students …I spoke with many
parents including those in the Parent Teacher
Student Association (PTSA) and the Academic
Boosters Organization, Inc. I shared my story
about John and expressed to them that we
needed to find a way to make sure all students
in this school were receiving the attention they
needed. I shared with them my belief that we
needed to come up with a schedule that would
help us catch students before they fall.‖

13. Connecting with parents from
day 1
 Ashley Harris – Ch. 8
―The sense of community is manifested in the
frequent communication from school to home
and vice versa which starts before a student
even sets foot on a YES Prep campus. YES
Prep provides a home visit to each incoming
student prior to the start of summer school.
…(Also) cell phones for teachers are provided
by the school. Students and parents have the
opportunity to call teachers until 8:00 or 9:00
PM with questions or concerns. .. Teachers are
required to make five positive phone calls to
parents per week and faculty are also
encouraged to reach out personally to
families.‖

14. Linking families to learning
 Roni Silverstein – Ch. 11
―A warm environment is important, but we also
needed parents to understand our work. We
had Study Circles where parents could explore,
through a MCPS program, each other‘s
backgrounds, histories, struggles and hopes
and dreams for our school. Parents were
trained to be volunteers; they participated in a
second grade reading program, helped in our
classrooms and worked with our teachers to
translate parent newsletters.
We developed a Hispanic Parent group where
parents could learn about our state testing, how
to work on math at home with household items,
how to teach their young children to read, how
to encourage students to do their homework.‖

15. Community collaborations that
increase family engagement
 Andrea Sobel and Debra Fulcher – Ch. 13
(After participating in collaborative
Neighborhood School Readiness Teams,)
―schools began seeing more children registered
for school in the spring before they begin
kindergarten than in previous years. Team
relationships enabled programs and schools to
get the word out to more families, sooner.
Immigrant families received information through
their childcare providers as well as county
childcare specialists. Families were reached
through relationships among team members and
invited to school events before their children
began school. More families attended
kindergarten orientation, where they were
provided help, often in multiple languages, to

16.  Jesse Bethke Gomez – Ch. 14
―The Learning Together Program is able to
replace isolation (of newcomer families) with
community connectedness (through a series
of group classes). One father thanked us for
helping him work with his children. He was
just beginning to learn to read in English
himself. His children brought English-
language books home from school and
began to read them. He learned he could sit
together with his child, and sound out words
that he saw on the page. His child also read
to him the words that he did not know. This
was a collaborative experience. He realized
that language does not have to be a barrier
to working educationally with his children.‖

17. Valuing each student and family
 Sean Grainger – Ch. 17
―A balance is struck in culturally diverse
schools when students realize that being
different isn‘t a quality reserved for others,
but rather a state that describes each one of
them. When students learn how to celebrate
this balance in support and recognition of
each other, the gap of ignorance between
them narrows, and they begin to function as
interdependent learners on their way to
becoming well-adjusted, high-functioning
peaceful global citizens of an intercultural
society.‖
www.InnovativeVoicesinEducation.com

18. Highlights from Two Chapters
Young-chan Han – Ch. 12
From Survivors to Leaders: Stages of
Immigrant Parent Involvement in
Schools
Eileen Gale Kugler – Ch. 3
Valuing the Individual by Breaking
Through Assumptions

19. NCPIE
Survivors to Leaders- Immigrant
Parent Involvement in Schools
Presented by:
Young-chan Han, Family Involvement Specialist, Maryland
State Department of Education
yhan@msde.state.md.us
(January 25, 2012)

20. Stages of Immigrant Parent Involvement
Cultural
Leader
Cultural
Connector
Cultural Learner
Cultural Survivor

21. Stages of Involvement
Cultural Survivor
• Parents in this stage may be homeless, refugees,
recent immigrants, illiterate in their native
language, etc.
• Focuses on meeting the basic survival needs of
family.
• Enrolls their children in schools with the help of
relatives, bilingual friends, community members, or
school staff.
• May work two or three labor-intensive jobs to
support the family.
• Physically absent at home.
• Attends parent-teacher conference only if leave is
granted from work and if an interpreter is available.

22. Cultural Learner
• Parents in this stage begin to attend school
functions with the support of interpreters or
bilingual liaisons.
• Relies heavily on translated documents and
foreign language interpreters or bilingual
liaisons to gain knowledge about American
schools.
• Participates in parent-teacher conferences
with the support of interpreters or bilingual
liaisons.
• Attends language specific parent programs.
• Gains basic understanding of American
school culture and how to navigate the
school/system.

23. Cultural Connector
• Parents in this stage continue to attend school
functions and meetings and become a voice for
Cultural Survivors and Cultural Learners.
• Regularly attends school functions and
meetings.
• Seeks out more than basic information.
• More easily navigates the school system.
• Develops greater familiarity with the school
system, educational terminologies, policies and
procedures.
• Feels comfortable with both the language
specific programs/events and the English-only
programs with the help of interpreters.
• Encourages and empowers other Cultural
Survivors and Cultural Learners to become

24. Cultural Leader
• Parents in this stage become an advocate for
Cultural Survivors, Cultural Learners, and
Cultural Connectors.
• Participates in leadership programs and trainings.
• Seeks and becomes involved in leadership
opportunities in school and district: PTA or other
Parent-Teacher Organization, School
Improvement Team, Parent Advisory Council,
District Parent Advisory Committee, etc.
• Communicates the immigrant families‘ needs to
school staff, school district, community members
and agencies/organizations.
• Advocates for children of all families, especially
the immigrant families.

25. Key Points:
Immigrant families are a heterogeneous group.
 Years of residency in the US does NOT
determine the stage of involvement.
 Parent involvement stages are fluid.
 Support to immigrant families should be
determined by their stages of parent
involvement.
 Cultural survivors need more intense support to
meet basic needs.
 Workshops and outreaches to parents need to
look different at each stages.

26. Moving Beyond Assumptions
Eileen Gale Kugler –
Embrace Diverse Schools
EKugler@EmbraceDiverseSchools.com
 Many educators study the cultures of their students.
 But rarely examine their own culture
 Each of us has a complex ―culture‖ –
◦ Web of interconnected factors, beyond race & ethnicity
◦ Prism through which we view the world
◦ Others view us through their prism.
◦ Helps determine what is ―right‖
 Need to examine our culture and the assumptions that
go with it.
 Who is ―The Other‖?

27. © 2012 Eileen Gale Kugler

28. • Detailed table of contents
• Bios of contributing authors
• Testimonials at:
InnovativeVoicesinEducation.com
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