Effective partnerships with families are essential to creating and sustaining high quality schools, but family engagement is not easy. Research indicates that when parents are actively involved in supporting their children’s learning, no matter their income level, social status, language, culture, or race, students have more positive attitudes, better attendance, higher test scores, higher graduation rates, and greater enrollment rates in postsecondary education (Henderson & Berla, 1994; Henderson & Mapp, 2002). 

Family engagement is a key component of GEAR UP and each of you address it in some way.  As a community, we are eager to learn about what you are doing in this space and encourage you to share your work at the 2020 Annual Conference.

Don’t be timid! Let others know what family engagement looks like for your grant and how they might use the same practices with their families.  

To generate that solid proposal, pause and consider the following questions:

• What data inform your programming?  
• How did you first create and implement your family engagement efforts? What have you learned from your work? What would you do differently?
• What does your evaluation entail?  
• What does parent recruitment look like for your grant?  
• What do you consider to be your best communication and outreach strategies?

GEAR UP is not only a community of practice that encourages constant learning from one another, it is also a group of generous individuals willing to share strategies, lessons, and information. So, get ready to submit a proposal and share what you know about the critical topic of family engagement.