GradNation Community Summits
Family Engagement Toolkit
Guide Content
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Introduction
Resources and Best Practices (GradNation.org)
Speaker Recommendations
Additional Alliance Partners
Multi-Media and Suggested Reading
Summit Conveners
1. Introduction
Parents are a key ingredient of any dropout prevention strategy. As each child’s first and arguably,
lifelong teacher, a parent (broadly defined to refer to whoever is a child’s primary caregiver) is well
positioned to provide a child with the on-going support and supervision he or she needs to be
successful in school. Whether or not children get on the path to high school graduation in the first
place and stay on track throughout their school career is significantly influenced by the extent to
which parents are able to support them in their educational endeavors.
2. Resources and Best Practices
Visit the Family Engagement Channel at GradNation.org where you will find a large variety of
resources and best practices on this topic.
3. Speaker recommendations
Below is a sampling of speaker recommendations for this topic. If you would like to find out more
about a specific speaker or discuss additional speaker options, please contact your Summit
Manager.
Joyce L. Epstein, Ph.D., is Director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships and
the National Network of Partnership Schools (NNPS), Principal Research Scientist, and Research
Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University. She also received her Ph.D. in sociology at Johns
Hopkins University. In 1995, Dr. Epstein established the National Network of Partnership Schools
(NNPS), which provides professional development to enable school, district, and state leaders to
develop research-based programs of family and community involvement. Dr. Epstein has over one
hundred publications on family and community involvement including School, Family, and
Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, Third Edition (Corwin Press, 2009), which guides
partnership program development, and a textbook for college courses for future teachers and
administrators called School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Preparing Educators and
Improving Schools, second edition (Westview, 2011). Among recent awards, she was named a Fellow
of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in 2009 and received the 2009 Elizabeth
Cohen Award for Applied Research from AERA’s Sociology of Education Special Interest Group. Her
current research focuses on how district and school leadership affects the quality of schools’
programs of family and community involvement and results for students. In all of her work, she is
interested in the connections of research, policy, and practice. (For Dr. Epstein’s publications, see
the Publications List in the section Research and Evaluation.)
Karen Mapp, Ph.D., is a lecturer on education at Harvard Graduate School of Education, as well as
the director of Education Policy and Management Program. Her work focuses on school-familycommunity relationships in relation to academic achievement with an emphasis on school and
family partnerships. Also, she addresses the barriers that parents face when trying to support their
children.
Heather Weiss, Ph.D., is the founder and director of the Harvard Family Research Project. She is also
a senior research associate and lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her work
focuses on complementary learning by linking families, schools, and communities to support youth
in both school and life. She has expertise in evaluating the effectiveness of programs or initiatives
put in place.
4. Additional Alliance Partners
View our list of Alliance Partners for information about their work and for potential local
engagement and/or strategy development regarding your summit. If you would like to make a
connection, contact your Summit Manager at America’s Promise, who can help facilitate an
introduction.
5. Multi-Media and Suggested Reading
The ABCs of Parent Involvement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvQSGvtmuTI
Citizens Academy Parent Engagement Program:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj6f8hrtDxs
Parents Need Differentiated School Engagement, Study Finds:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-schoolresearch/2013/04/parents_need_differentiated_sc.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS2
Parent and Family Engagement Toolkit
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PBS NewsHour- Detroit Tackles Dropout Crisis By Engaging Parents, Students:
http://www.americangraduate.org/learn/national-reach/342-newshour-detroit-dropout-crisis.html
WAMU - Bridging the Gap Between Home and School:
http://www.americangraduatedc.org/content/bridging-gap-between-home-and-school
6. Summit Conveners
Becky Hoffman
Adams County Youth Initiative
beckyhoffman@acyi.org
Betsy Behrend
Say Yes Buffalo!
bbehrend@sayyestoeducation.org
Mary Bula
Erie Together
mary@erietogether.org
Jennifer Lyle
Building Blocks for Kids
jblylebbk@gmail.com
Parent and Family Engagement Toolkit
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