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Teachers who engage: advancing the movement toward successful parent partnerships in K–12 education

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Teachers who engage: advancing the movement toward successful parent partnerships in K–12 education

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Content A PARENT PARTNERSHIP MODEL 1
Teachers Who Engage
Advancing the movement toward successful parent partnerships in K-12 education
Heather Teter, MSW, LSW
Capstone Project
Doctor of Social Work
USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, University of Southern California
December 2021
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Acknowledgment
“Every accomplishment begins with the decision to try” (unknown author, n.d.). I want
to thank my mom, who has supported me through the ups and downs of life and championed me
as I decided to take on this latest challenge. Mom, you shared this quote and I have kept it next
to my computer, reflecting on it often as I have balanced the expectations of being a full-time
professional, mom and doctoral student. To my beautiful daughters, Madison, and Emma. You
are the brightest lights in my life. Thank you for being your true unique selves and bringing joy,
humor, intrigue, challenge, love, and for being my champions along this journey! Don, you are
patient, kind, and generous of heart and soul. I could not have made it through the last two years
without you by my side. Thank you for being willing to take this journey with me; now we can
go build our dream house, travel, and enjoy all that life has in store!
Thank you to my faculty advisors, Dr. Lewis, Professor Fatouros, and Dr. Blosnich for
your guidance and support as I put together my prototype and developed my implementation
plan. I have taken wisdom and guidance from each of you that has improved my product and has
helped prepare me to successfully launch and establish myself as an expert in my area of study.
To Dr. Susan Mapp, my colleague and friend. You have offered your support and
guidance throughout this process. Thank you for helping me learn to be a student again after
many years on the other side! Your wisdom, patience, and insight have been a blessing. I want
to say a special thank you to my colleagues at Milton Hershey School who have championed me
along the way and will help me celebrate at the finish line!
I have met many amazing and inspiring people on this journey, who have challenged my
thinking, opened my mind up to new ways of looking at problems and have helped to advance
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my solution. To each of the members of USC DSW Cohort 11, I am inspired by your work and
the solutions you will offer the world. Your work inspires me to take my solution out into the
world and breathe life into it. Ryan Burwell from Twenty One Toys, who knew a chance
meeting in Davos, Switzerland would result in an inspiring collegial relationship. I appreciate
your gracious enthusiasm to hear my pitch and offer your insights. Dr. Tyler Smith, Dr. Devon
Minch, and Dr. Andy Garbacz, I sincerely appreciate your insight and input that helped to further
my research, challenge my thinking, and confirm that I am making a difference. Finally,
Romunda, Janelle, Kathryn, Amy, and Alexia, this experience would not have been possible if
we had not done it together! I look forward to continuing our journey as life-long peers,
colleagues, and friends. Fight on!

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Executive Summary

Poverty is a distressing problem ingrained into the culture of American life. Poverty can
be traced throughout American history, and the impact on children is far and wide. One in six
American children lives in poverty, making them the poorest age group in this country today
(Children’s Defense Fund, 2021a). Living in poverty can be complicated by other forms of
trauma resulting from geographic location, family stressors, and the COVID-19 pandemic
(Bruner, 2017; Felitti et al., 1998; Save the Children, 2021). Children who grow up in poverty
experience higher incidences of health problems, as well as educational and social challenges
including higher incidences of school dropout, juvenile justice involvement, and lack of school
readiness (Bruner, 2017; Felitti et al., 1998). COVID-19 has brought new challenges to
impoverished youth who were already experiencing the stressors and hardships of living in
poverty, including food insecurity, lack of internet access, and difficulty paying bills (Save the
Children, 2021).
Payne (2019) describes generational poverty as being in poverty for two generations or
longer and that two things are needed to help one move out of poverty, education and
relationships. Educators have received minimal training to prepare them to work with families,
and many educators and families have not been exposed to positive examples of family
engagement (Mapp & Bergman, 2019). Many schools serve students from generational poverty,
making this project, which is designed to build positive relationships between parents and
teachers, essential for creating the conditions to build effective family-school partnerships to
support student achievement.
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Parental involvement is significantly correlated with positive student educational
outcomes, including scores on achievement tests, report card grades, attendance, behavior, and
post-secondary plans (Epstein et al., 2019; Fan, 2001). Parents want to be involved and
influential in their child’s education, and students want their parents involved in meaningful
ways. When schools reach out to include families, more of them will become involved. Thus,
building a partnership with families will support both the students and teachers through the
educational process. If schools can build a positive relationship with parents and caregivers of
their students, the overall support system will be strengthened to empower families to achieve
their goals of helping students transform their futures, evidenced by living productive, self-
sustaining, and fulfilling lives.
Teachers Who Engage is a curriculum designed to ensure healthy development for all
youth, one of the identified Grand Challenges for our society by the American Academy of
Social Work & Social Welfare (2014). The ongoing problem is parents’ lack of involvement at
the school, home, and community level during a child’s K-12 educational career due to
socioeconomic barriers prevalent in impoverished families. Specifically, the issue to be
addressed through this Grand Challenge is the idea that behavioral health problems in childhood
and adolescence take a heavy toll over a lifetime, with significant negative impacts on rates of
economic independence, morbidity, and mortality. The link between this project and the Grand
Challenge is that it seeks to address the wicked problem by ensuring that teachers have the
knowledge and skills necessary to effectively engage all parents, regardless of their
socioeconomic status, in a child’s educational journey. Two identified goals guide the work on
this Grand Challenge. First, this project will increase infrastructure to support the high-quality
implementation of preventive interventions by infusing a new curriculum into professional
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development for current educators. Second, this effort will ultimately ensure that undergraduate
education students receive this curriculum as part of their educational journey better to prepare
them for successful parent engagement throughout their careers. (American Academy of Social
Work & Social Welfare [AASW&SW], 2014).
The purpose of the project is to close the gap between the research-based best practices
for parent involvement in education and the lack of preparation for teachers to enable them to
engage successfully. There are decades worth of research on parent engagement and parent
involvement in education resulting in the development of numerous programs, guidelines, and
frameworks. Organizations such as the Family-School-Community Alliance, the National Parent
Teacher Association, the National Network of Partnership Schools at Johns Hopkins University,
and the Flamboyan Foundation have made commitments to address parent engagement,
involvement, and partnerships with schools; however, their efforts have not generated a universal
solution to this issue. These organizations provide valuable and necessary resources and
programs for schools to help develop family-school partnerships. Resources include webinars,
leadership development, grants, and training programs for teachers. There are also research-
based resources available to schools to aid in forming school-family partnerships. The challenge
for these organizations is the inability to ensure implementation of the admirable resources they
have made available to schools and educators (Family-School-Community Alliance, 2020;
Flamboyan Foundation, 2018; National Network of Partnership Schools at Johns Hopkins
University, 2020; National Parent Teacher Association, 2020).
Following a review of the curriculum and core competencies for teachers pursuing an
undergraduate degree in education (Pennsylvania Department of Education [PDE], 2012), it
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became apparent that there is a gap between the expectation for teachers to engage with
caregivers and families and the skills to do this effectively. This project, designed to be delivered
either in-person or virtually, will engage educators in an interactive, skill-based professional
development curriculum to close this gap and enhance parent engagement in education. The
long-term impact of this engagement will be an improvement in the quality of education for
students and in student outcomes.
The use of a human-centered design process was an essential component of the
conceptual framework necessary to guide the development of this project. Designing followed
observations of numerous parent and teacher interactions that occurred in various settings over
multiple years and provided a better understanding of the challenges experienced by both the
teachers and parents. These observations included the personal experience of the researcher as a
parent engaging with teachers. This project included a complete large-scale review of literature,
focusing on the impact of parent engagement and involvement in education and the issues and
consequences for children living in poverty. This project included interviews with parents
experiencing poverty to help further define and better understand their experiences with the
education system and interactions with educators working with these families. Finally, a
complete landscape analysis was completed to understand better the types of programs currently
addressing parent engagement in education and their successes and shortcomings.
An innovative curriculum was developed to accomplish two main objectives after
reviewing the data collected through observations, interviews, literature reviews, and landscape
analysis. The first objective is to provide professional development to teachers currently in K-12
education to increase knowledge of issues families face when living in poverty, practice skills for
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improving communication, and enhance interdisciplinary collaboration within school systems.
The second objective will be to provide this training to undergraduate students who intend to
pursue education as their career choice to better prepare them for the job requirement of parent
engagement. This curriculum will first focus on changing teacher behavior with a long-term
outcome of improving student academic outcomes because of improved parent involvement in
their educational journeys.
Components of this curriculum have been piloted in small segments in various settings.
The knowledge-based component received positive feedback from pilot groups. Teachers and
researchers who were part of the pilot test group reported increased empathy for families’ issues.
Piloting the skill-based component tested in various settings indicated that when used in
combination with the knowledge-based component, teachers increase their skill set for engaging
families, ultimately increasing the likelihood of parent engagement.
The Teter Consulting Group has finalized the curriculum and aligned the objectives with
the Danielson Framework, a critical component for Act 48 credits necessary for educators to
receive their continuing education credits. The Teter Consulting Group has established a
partnership with Elizabethtown College, a licensed professional development location for
educators in Pennsylvania. This training curriculum can be offered through the Elizabethtown
College Act 48 provider’s license. In addition, the final steps to launch the curriculum include
establishing the Consulting Group that will oversee this program’s delivery, finalizing the
marketing materials, establishing initial outreach to local school districts, and selecting a date to
launch the training in the state of Pennsylvania.
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Parents today are inundated with emails, text messages, and phone calls from schools, but
none of these solutions truly “engage” parents in their child’s educational journey. There is more
than 20 years of research on parent engagement, but the lack of parent engagement remains an
issue for many families, especially those who are living in poverty. Meaningful conversation
requires a teacher to understand what a parent needs to best help their child be successful, and
this curriculum will provide that knowledge. The implications of implementing this curriculum
at both the professional development level and the undergraduate education level is a long-term
positive change in parents’ involvement in schools and their children’s education. Taking this
project to scale nationally would begin to shift families’ view of school systems when teachers
can genuinely and sincerely engage with families.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................ 4
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ................................................................................................. 12
PROBLEM STATEMENT ............................................................................................................... 12
PARENT PARTNERSHIP DEFINED ................................................................................................. 14
Parent involvement ................................................................................................................ 14
Parent engagement ................................................................................................................ 15
Social capital ......................................................................................................................... 16
Family-School Partnerships .................................................................................................. 17
THEORY OF CHANGE .................................................................................................................. 18
THE LOGIC MODEL .................................................................................................................... 22
PROBLEMS OF PRACTICE AND INNOVATIVE SOLUTION .............................................. 23
STAKEHOLDER PERSPECTIVES .................................................................................................... 23
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPOSED SOLUTION ............................................................... 24
PROTOTYPE DESCRIPTION .......................................................................................................... 25
OVERVIEW OF THE TRAINING DAY ............................................................................................. 27
Before the day begins, ........................................................................................................... 27
The introduction .................................................................................................................... 27
Part one ................................................................................................................................. 28
Part two (a) ............................................................................................................................ 28
Part two (b) ............................................................................................................................ 28
Part three ............................................................................................................................... 29
The end of the day .................................................................................................................. 30
Prototype Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 30
OPPORTUNITIES FOR INNOVATION .............................................................................................. 31
DESIRED IMPACT AND GOAL FOR THIS INNOVATION .................................................................. 32
PROJECT STRUCTURE, METHODOLOGY, AND ACTION COMPONENT........................ 34
MARKET ANALYSIS .................................................................................................................... 34
METHODS FOR PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION INCLUDING OBSTACLES .......................................... 35
METHODS OF ASSESSMENT ........................................................................................................ 39
FINANCIAL PLANS AND STAGING ............................................................................................... 39
STAKEHOLDER INVOLVEMENT ................................................................................................... 40
JUSTIFICATION OF THE INNOVATION ........................................................................................... 40
COMMUNICATION, MARKETING PLAN, AND STRATEGY ............................................................. 42
CONCLUSION, ACTIONS, IMPLICATIONS ........................................................................... 43
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................. 43
LIMITATIONS AND RISKS ............................................................................................................ 44
NEXT STEPS IN IMPLEMENTATION .............................................................................................. 45
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REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 47
APPENDIX A: LOGIC MODEL ................................................................................................. 54
APPENDIX B: PRE-POST TRAINING ASSESSMENT ............................................................ 57
APPENDIX C: OPERATING BUDGET ..................................................................................... 61
APPENDIX D: PROTOTYPE ...................................................................................................... 63

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Poverty is an issue that affected 34 million Americans in 2019 (United States Census
Bureau, 2020). The challenges resulting from poverty that families face directly affect children’s
experience with their schooling. The ongoing problem is parents’ lack of involvement at the
school, home, and community level during a child’s K-12 educational career due to
socioeconomic barriers prevalent in impoverished families. Teachers often view parents as
challenging to engage, and due to barriers directly related to poverty, parents find themselves
unable to be involved in their child’s education. Much research on parent engagement in
education has been conducted and many programs and models for encouraging parent
engagement have formed. These programs are based on research and designed for success;
however, they miss the critical element of teacher preparation. To better prepare teachers to
build relationships with parents to overcome these barriers, we must start with the teachers’
education. Preparation for teachers must include knowledge about diverse families, issues
families face, communication skills, and interdisciplinary collaboration challenges. When
teachers have this knowledge and these skills, we will set families and students on a path to
meaningful relationships with the education system and, ultimately, lifelong success.
Conceptual Framework
Problem Statement
Poverty can be defined as a “chronic experience resulting from an aggregate of adverse
social and economic risk factors” (Jensen, 2016, p. 6). Chronic stress and lack of emotional
support that commonly impact children growing up in poverty can negatively impact a child’s
educational success (Jensen, 2016). The impact of the negative experiences associated with
living in poverty on a child’s educational journey can be evidenced by low cognitive
development, decreased language ability, inadequate social skills, reduced abstract-reasoning,
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deficient problem-solving skills, reduced self-esteem, shortened attention spans, and little
impulse control (Dupper & Poertner, 1997; Jensen, 2016; Witte et al., 2021). As of fall 2017,
more public-school students attended high-poverty schools than low-poverty schools (25 vs.
21%). A public school is a high-poverty school if more than 75 percent of the students are
eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (Institute of Education Sciences: National Center for
Education Statistics, 2020).
Children living in poverty are vulnerable to risks that impact their environment,
education, health, and safety (Forum on Child & Family Statistics, 2021). In 2020 one in six
children are now living in poverty, making them the poorest age group in America (Children’s
Defense Fund, 2021b; United States Census Bureau, 2020). Given the well-known limitations of
the poverty measure, many more families than this struggle to sustain a living standard. The
COVID-19 pandemic is significantly impacting children, and these impacts have more
tremendous implications for children living in poverty. The impact on long-term poverty rates is
unknown, but the demand for services such as food assistance has jumped. Children
experiencing poverty are dealing with hunger, a lack of reliable technology resources for remote
learning, and families having trouble making ends meet (Save the Children, 2021; Wilson,
2020). Children from rural areas, impoverished families, and communities of color are more
likely to experience food insecurity, are disproportionately affected by the digital divide, and are
likely to experience the most significant learning loss (Save the Children, 2021). Poverty is an
essential issue to address for the immediate short-term effects and longer-term impacts, including
homelessness, mental health issues, increased crime rates and incarceration, substance abuse,
food insecurity, and poor education outcomes.
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When exploring the specific connections between poverty and the chronic stress resulting
from these ongoing unfavorable events in a child’s life, there are negative effects on these
children’s educational experiences. Research has shown that students from low socioeconomic
backgrounds score significantly below students from wealthy socioeconomic backgrounds on
reading and math standardized achievement tests (Berliner, 2013; Wilkins et al., 2016). This
gap, the economic disparities, and the resulting problems families face can impede a child from
focusing on their education.
Parents experiencing poverty can become disengaged from the educational process of
their children due to many factors. These factors can include lack of school outreach to families,
parents feeling overwhelmed by the numerous stressors they are experiencing in their own lives
or parents’ own negative experiences with their educational journey.
Parent Partnership Defined
Parent involvement is referred to as parents’ work with schools or their children to
benefit their children’s educational outcomes and future success (Hill et al., 2004). Parent
involvement in children’s education can be a unique aspect of a child’s educational experience
and can come in many forms. Parent involvement can come in the form of parents volunteering
in the school, parent-teacher conferences, attending school events and activities, involvement in
academic-related activities at home, communication with teachers and school administrators or
staff, conversations with students about experiences at school, and discussions with older
students about their long-range plans (Hill et al., 2004; Lee & Bowen, 2016).
Researchers have examined parent involvement from various angles, including
socioeconomic status, parents’ academic achievement, and race/ethnicity (Fan, 2001; Hill et al.,
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2004; Jeynes, 2007; Lee & Bowen, 2006). Findings from these studies show that parents from
different backgrounds may show differing levels of parent involvement. Researchers have found
that the impact of parent involvement for families with lower parent education levels can
increase adolescents’ educational and career aspirations as they desire upward mobility.
However, they also found that their involvement does not change school behavior or
achievement for these same families and family engagement declines as children move into
middle and high school (Reinke et al., 2019). Families’ lack of involvement with schools could
result from attitudes, perceptions, or previous experiences with the educational system (Hill et
al., 2004; Lee & Bowen, 2016). Parents with low levels of education might be less involved
based on a lack of confidence in their ability to communicate with staff, to understand the
education jargon, or perhaps they had a negative experience with the education system (Lee &
Bowen, 2016).
Parent engagement involves parents and teachers working together in children’s
educational and learning process (Sheridan & Moorman, 2015). For parents, the vital difference
between involvement and engagement is participating in educational activities with their
children. The parent is engaged with their child by taking them to the library, reading with their
child, doing homework with their child, and are engaged in a relationship with the teacher to
enrich their child’s performance (Gonida & Cortina, 2014; Sheridan & Moorman, 2015). Parent
involvement and parent engagement are often used interchangeably, which often complicates the
definition.
The new concern of COVID-19 has further highlighted the socioeconomic disparities for
marginalized families, including parental engagement. Schools across the country closed their
doors to visitors for over 18 months, impacting how parents engage with their children’s education
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and how schools interact with parents. Parents are attempting to manage their children’s schooling
in a COVID-19-induced educational environment while possibly managing the stress of working,
caring for a sick family member, or facing financial strain due to the pandemic. Parents in
marginalized communities may be facing other disparities, including lack of internet access or the
lack of a reliable device for their child to remain engaged if their school pivots to a virtual learning
classroom (Office for Civil Rights, 2021). Schools are attempting to stay in touch with their
students through the current COVID-19 induced educational environment. The impacts of the
social disruptions resulting from the pandemic on children and families and the resulting increase
in psychological distress levels for caregivers can impact their ability to care for children and
support their educational needs (Prime et al., 2020; Sime & Sheridan, 2014; Strauss, 2020; Wilson,
2020).
Social capital refers to the connections and relationships individuals develop resulting in
mutual support that can make one’s life more productive and provide opportunities for linkages
that help parents work through challenges (Feiler, 2010). Social capital can be obtained through
visits to the school. It can include receiving information or participating in upcoming events or
enrichment opportunities, obtaining skills such as homework help or parenting tips, access to
resources like books or study aids, or social control such as a behavior agreement or learning
plan to support educational needs. Parents who volunteer at school can engage and interact with
other parents who volunteer at school, forming natural support groups to share resources, skills,
and information. Families living in poverty may find that these networks are unavailable due to
time constraints, inability to take time off work to volunteer, feeling unaccepted at school by
middle-class parents who volunteer, or other barriers (Lee & Bowen, 2016; Sime & Sheridan,
2014). Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has limited visitors from entering school
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buildings for these types of volunteer opportunities, restricting the in-person social capital
opportunities for parent engagement.
Family-School Partnerships recognize that parents, educators, and others in the
community have a shared responsibility for students’ learning and development (Epstein et al.,
2019). Family-school partnerships must be strengths-based, relational, culturally responsive, and
supported by the school administration (Mapp & Bergman, 2019). Several goals must be
accomplished to establish family-school partnerships. Teachers and families need to enhance
their skills and knowledge to support and engage one another in partnerships (Mapp & Bergman,
2019). Two-way communication needs to be established between families and schools to ensure
open dialogue regarding children’s progress. Schools should actively recruit parents to volunteer
and help at home, school and to participate in the audience at student events. Parents who
respond to the school’s invitations to volunteer and participate in school events will increase
their ability to benefit from social capital and expand their networks. Schools need to provide
tools and resources to families so parents can be active and engaged in learning at home and can
provide needed assistance with homework and curriculum-related materials. Schools should
invite parents and families into decision-making by inviting them to serve on committees or
advocate for their children to respect families’ supply of knowledge. Schools should collaborate
with community organizations to identify and integrate resources and services from the
community to strengthen programs and enable students to serve in various roles within their
communities (Epstein et al, 2019; Mapp & Bergman, 2019).
Many organizations have made commitments to address parent engagement in schools
and partnerships with schools; however, their efforts have not generated a universal solution to
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this issue. These organizations provide valuable and necessary resources and programs for
schools to help develop family-school partnerships. Research suggests that while well-intended,
many parent engagement initiatives have fallen short in truly understanding the realities families
face, including housing disparities, poverty, racism, and lack of understanding of cultural
differences throughout our nation’s communities and schools (Johnson et al., 2019). Therefore,
an examination of this issue using human-centered design thinking, systems theory, and
resiliency theory is necessary.
Theory of Change
The research question for consideration is, “How can educators identify the needs of the
families being served by their respective schools and use this information to build lasting and
sustainable relationships with parents?” The value of incorporating human-centered design
thinking as a conceptual framework with systems and resiliency theories to examine the research
question posed here will examine the users’ lived experiences across multiple systems impacted
by this issue. Incorporating both the parents’ and educators’ experiences across various systems
provides a broad view of the problem, providing a better foundation for change.
Utilizing human-centered design thinking as a conceptual framework means
empathizing, defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing ideas (Both & Baggereor, 2017).
Human-centered design thinking forces us to empathize with the users and accurately understand
the users’ lived experiences (Both & Baggereor, 2017). This empathy is instrumental in
understanding the issue of parent engagement in schools from both the parent’s and educator’s
perspectives. Using this knowledge helped develop an actionable problem statement that guides
the solution to address the lack of sustainable parent engagement in education.
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To move from identifying the problem of a lack of consistent parent engagement across
all schools to a sustainable solution that will work for parents and educators, one must ideate. To
ideate is to move from identifying the problems into exploring solutions for the users (Both &
Baggereor, 2017). Following ideation, the prototyping mode begins. The prototype allows the
user to test the functionality of the proposed solution. Prototyping in human-centered design
allows for continued empathy-building, additional exploration of solutions, testing and refining
solutions with the users, and inspiring the users by showing them the solution (Both &
Baggereor, 2017). This process was used to build and test a prototype to address parent
engagement in education.
The final stage in human-centered design is testing, which provides feedback on the
solutions. Feedback is necessary to make the solutions better, and to accomplish this, we must
gain feedback from the users (Both & Baggereor, 2017). To understand how parent engagement
impacts both parents experiencing poverty and the educators who work with them, they were
included in the conversation about the problem and the possible solutions. Feedback was
solicited from multiple stakeholders and the voices of parents, researchers, trainers, and teachers
were considered when building the prototype that was designed as a viable, sustainable solution.
Systems theory, which has had a prominent place in social work for the past 40 years,
also has a fundamental place in family engagement research to help provide the foundation to
explain the importance of family-school partnerships for student achievement (Finn, 2016; Weist
et al., 2017). Systems theory provides a framework for understanding how both the school and
family influence a child and how these systems working together or in opposition of one another
can positively or negatively impact a child’s functioning (Smith et al., 2020). When working
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with teachers and parents, it is important to ensure that a foundation of understanding is
established, and systems theory provides a framework for understanding how the environment
impacts the individual and vice versa. Understanding that a change in one facet of a system can
affect change in all other aspects of the system can be helpful when developing school-family
partnerships (Nichols & Schwartz, 2001; Sandoval, 2019; Weist et al., 2017).
Each adult who interacts with a child within a school system is impacted by their own
system(s). A child coming to school is potentially impacted by multiple systems with which they
are involved. The same types of systems can influence the adults in the school system in their
own lives; however, these systems may be different in the fact that they may have differing
values, beliefs and attitudes that guide them. To understand barriers to effective communication
in parent engagement, we must examine the systems and experiences of children, their families,
and educators. Using systems theory, one can better understand how these experiences and
systems may impact their attitudes, values, and beliefs toward parent engagement (Smith et al.,
2020).
Resiliency is used to describe people’s ability to cope with hardships, stress, and trauma
and build meaningful, successful lives despite these hurdles (Van Hook, 2014). Schools see
children coping with the impacts of stress and trauma in their lives because of living in poverty.
Providing tools and resources to teachers to understand resiliency can help these systems adapt to
disturbances that threaten the functioning of these systems (Southwick et al., 2014). Resiliency
theory provides a conceptual framework for understanding child and adolescent experiences,
why some grow up healthy adults despite exposure to trauma and provides a method to develop
interventions that focus and build on a family’s protective factors and improve resilience
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(Nemeth & Oliver, 2017; Van Hook, 2014; Zimmerman, 2013). Teachers must have a
foundational understanding of resiliency to help build social-emotional skills in children in the
school setting that can be carried across settings to help children function successfully (Sheridan
et al, 2019). Providing this knowledge to teachers will establish a foundation for empathetic
parent engagement, which is critical in forming sustainable relationships with families who may
have barriers to overcome prior to engaging with schools.
A well-developed program can positively impact multiple systems resulting in
equilibrium developing across systems. For parent engagement to become a sustainable
initiative, educators’ foundational skills must include communication and interdisciplinary
collaboration skills. Seasoned educators must receive professional development to ensure they
will successfully address potential barriers when communicating with families and colleagues.
Inclusion of parent voice in this initiative to understand how to meet parents’ needs and
expectations when building these relationships is essential. Children are part of multiple
systems, including their family, school, and community and culture. Interdisciplinary teams of
school and family experts need to continue to work together to identify what the community can
do to support family resilience to ensure the healthy development of all youth, especially
important given the impacts of the current COVID-19 pandemic (Southwick et al., 2014).
The long-term impact of addressing this issue and identifying a sustainable solution is
multi-layered. Parent engagement in a child’s education has been shown through research to
result in better educational and behavioral outcomes for students leading to long-term success
(Jeynes, 2007). Educators who are more engaged in their responsibilities to teach the whole
child because they now understand the child better may develop greater empathy for children’s
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circumstances ultimately impacting their school experience. Parents who feel included in
schools may feel more empowered, ultimately improving and strengthening the family system.
The U.S. Department of Education’s recently released Return to School Roadmap includes the
resource, Supporting Child and Student Social, Emotional, Behavioral and Mental Health,
encourages the inclusion of families in school planning for student supports (U.S. Department of
Education, 2021b). The U.S. Department of Education’s inclusion of families in the Return to
School Roadmap validates the importance of parent engagement in education.
The Logic Model
The logic model was developed by examining the years of research on parent
involvement and engagement in schools, barriers to parent engagement due to systemic issues
such as poverty, and the analysis of the types of educational preparation that teachers receive on
parent engagement. A knowledge gap has been discovered. Teachers are prepared for classroom
instruction, to align their course content with state standards, and teach the standards-based
curriculum. Teachers are ready to use materials and resources for instruction to help all students,
use assessment data to respond to students’ individual needs, and provide appropriate classroom
interventions to improve student outcomes (Pennsylvania Department of Education, 2012).
However, despite teachers’ expectations to maintain regular contact with parents and families,
none of these expectations address the knowledge or skills necessary for parent engagement.
This gap between teachers’ expectations and their knowledge and skills leads to the proposed
solution. Through this training, there will be an increase in teachers’ knowledge, skills, shifts in
beliefs and values, and increases in confidence to engage with parents leading to more effective
partnerships between schools and parents. The increase in effective partnerships will lead to an
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increase in student outcomes. Please refer to Appendix A for a detailed review of the entire logic
model for the proposed solution.
Problems of Practice and Innovative Solution
Stakeholder Perspectives
Parents, educators at the K-12 and higher education level, and professional trainers for
career educators were interviewed to help develop this proposed solution. Following these
interviews, evidence emerged of a gap between teachers’ training and expectations when
working with families. Teachers must become competent in the chosen subject matter that they
plan to teach. Teachers learn the basics of what is expected regarding communication with
families through classroom discussions when a professor elects to incorporate it. Still, many
students do not truly understand until they are on the job and assigned a teacher mentor in their
first year of teaching. Teacher mentors are seasoned teachers assigned to the first-year teachers
to provide support and mentoring through their first year of teaching (Institute of Education
Sciences, 2021). Their learning is then informal rather than curriculum-based. The teacher
mentor’s effectiveness depends on their ability to convey information and investment in their
mentee. A recent study found that most time between new teachers and mentors was spent
focusing on curriculum and direct instruction with little to no time spent on skills related to
parent engagement (Institute of Education Sciences, 2021).
Through the interviews with parents, it was evident that parents sometimes feel that there
is not enough communication with teachers. Through the interviews with K-12 educators, they
desire to understand how to interact with families and have better communication skills for
interacting with parents. During the interview with higher education faculty, the takeaway
focused on the areas lacking in future teachers’ education. Teachers have opportunities and need
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to increase knowledge and understanding about how they contribute to systemic oppression in
the education system by not understanding their families and their privilege and positionality
related to the families and students they interact with.
The interviews with trainers who provide professional development for teachers,
specifically on character education topics in schools, links to the proposed solution’s foundation.
Through this conversation, the discussion focused on tiered interventions in schools for behavior
management. Professional development for teachers is provided to those who feel that they
need tools for managing student behaviors. This same model can be applied to thinking about
parent engagement and involvement in schools. This solution is a phased approach that builds
relationships, assesses teacher behavior, and targets certified K-12 teachers and undergraduate
education students.
General Description of the Proposed Solution
The proposed solution will advance the Grand Challenge: Ensuring the Healthy
Development of all Youth by providing the knowledge and skills needed to build meaningful,
sustainable relationships with families to K-12 educators through professional development
opportunities. The course developed will provide knowledge, values, and skills that are essential
for successful teacher-parent engagement. The course is designed to assist participants in
developing basic knowledge to work with families from a variety of backgrounds. Course
content will include general knowledge about diverse families and activities designed to build
empathy and enhance communication and interdisciplinary collaboration skills. Three objectives
will be achieved by attending this program: Teachers will gain knowledge about diverse types of
families to increase empathy; identify barriers to communication through interactive activities,
and; learn and practice communication and interdisciplinary collaboration skills through
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interactive activities. Ultimately, this proposed solution is designed to enhance family-school
partnerships to ensure that teachers have the tools and resources to effectively engage with
parents.
Prototype Description
Epstein created a framework that builds a foundation for school and family partnerships
to address parent engagement in schools. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act explicitly calls
for parental involvement that fosters the achievement of high standards for all children (Ma et
al., 2015). The dual capacity-building framework for family-school partnerships, first
published in 2013 by the U.S. Department of Education and updated in 2019, is seen as a guide
for schools and families to set a course toward effective family engagement efforts that are
connected to student achievement and school improvement (Mapp & Bergman, 2019; Weist et
al., 2017). The dual capacity-building framework builds and enhances the capacity of both
educators and families in the areas of skills and knowledge, networks, beliefs and values, and
self-efficacy (Mapp & Bergman, 2019).
“The key to achievement for students from poverty is in creating relationships with them.
Relationships are essential for survival in poverty and can be the most significant motivator for
students” (Payne, 2019, p. 101). Teachers Who Engage was developed using the foundation of
resiliency and systems theories, the dual capacity-building framework for family-school
partnerships (Mapp & Bergman, 2019) and the school, family, and community partnership
framework (Epstein et al., 2019). The various elements from these frameworks helped to create
a solution that provides teachers with necessary knowledge and skills to increase their
confidence to engage, honor, and create welcoming environments for parent engagement with a
specific focus on families from poverty backgrounds.
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The solution is a training module for teachers that provides knowledge about families in
poverty to increase empathy, improves communication skills, and increases interdisciplinary
collaboration skills. This curriculum, titled “Teachers Who Engage,” will provide educators
with the knowledge and skills they need to build meaningful, sustainable relationships with
parents and families. Professional teachers will attend an engaging and interactive one-day
professional development training program delivered either in person or virtually. The training
will provide knowledge about identified topics impacting families and provide teachers with
opportunities to develop and enhance communication skills for working with diverse
populations, including skills necessary for effective interdisciplinary collaboration.
Teachers Who Engage is an active workshop based on best practices for adult learning.
This workshop is geared for working professionals who are self-motivated to seek new
information and incorporate new skills into their everyday practice to enhance family-school
partnerships and improve student outcomes. This workshop utilizes Knowles’ five principles of
andragogy for adult learners (Peterson, 2019). Knowles’ five principles include self-directed
learning, experiential learning with the use of background knowledge, relevant content to current
roles, problem-centered instruction, and students being motivated to learn (Peterson, 2019).
This workshop uses self-directed learning. Participants will receive knowledge through
visual and auditory means to enhance their understanding of students’ and families’ needs. This
knowledge is combined with experiential activities for the kinesthetic learners to ensure
understanding and creative problem-solving.
The workshop primarily uses kinesthetic modes to stimulate learning through
participation in a poverty-lab simulation and three communication activities completed in groups
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of participants. Each group must overcome a challenge in communication and then apply the
scenario and learnings to communication and parent engagement.
This workshop is designed for current teachers in K-12 education, making it relevant to
current roles. This workshop focuses on taking real-time problems that participants experience
in communication with parents and families and seeking solutions through role-play-type
activities.
This approach to training is based on the premise that adult learners who seek out
education opportunities are motivated to learn. This workshop is active and engaging and
designed to stimulate creative problem-solving.
Overview of the Training Day
Before the day begins, attendees will be asked to complete a brief, 10-question pre-test
assessment. This pre-test has been designed to assess their working knowledge of families,
comfort level with parent engagement, and various related types of communication with families.
The introduction to the day consists of reviewing the course overview, course objectives,
and participants’ learning outcomes and behavioral expectations for adult learners. Next, the
participants will engage in an interactive activity designed to begin a discussion on parent
engagement. There has been a call to action for schools to improve parent engagement, but the
definition of parent engagement means different things to different people. Beginning the day by
defining parent engagement and discussing personal barriers for teachers to engage with parents
and families will set the stage for the remainder of the day by developing an agreed-upon
agenda. This approach aligns with adult learning theory and self-directed learning. The
introduction will conclude with the first of three communication activities that will deepen the
discussion of identifying barriers to communicating with parents and families in the education
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settings. Teachers will engage in a hands-on activity designed to challenge thinking and inspire
creativity. Teachers will use this activity as a starting point to examine the challenges and
barriers identified in communication and begin working on solutions.
Part one begins with a discussion to provide the background for why this training is
necessary. This discussion uses the power of storytelling by utilizing confidential student stories
provided by the trainer to emphasize the student-parent connection in education. Empathy,
which is the ability to sense other people’s emotions, can be gained when one truly understands a
person’s lived experience and involves self-awareness, mental flexibility, and emotion regulation
(Gerdes et al., 2011). Part one lays the foundation for building empathy by sharing parts of
children’s lived experiences that teachers may not usually be aware of. Part one provides
statistics to help teachers understand the challenges students and families in poverty face and the
data that shows the value of involving parents in their children’s education.
Part two (a) engages teachers in a discussion about families from oppressed groups and
issues that affect families’ ability to engage with teachers. These include race and cultural
diversity, poverty and socioeconomic differences, language barriers, and barriers to education
impacting other marginalized populations, including homeless students.
Part two (b) focuses on the impact of trauma on students’ educational journey and the
importance of family resiliency. Part two is the most extended section of the training day,
consisting of multiple interactive activities. There are two meaningful activities for teachers to
engage in; the first is a poverty experience during which the teachers will go through a poverty-
lab style exercise designed to see poverty through the eyes of a family living in poverty.
Socioeconomic status has been shown to impact brain development (Payne, 2019). Therefore,
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taking teachers through a simulation of what students and families experience can help teachers
improve knowledge and empathy for families, a critical element identified in the dual capacity-
building framework (Mapp & Bergmann, 2019). The second is a communication activity that
focuses on building communication skills by challenging participants to experience adversity and
resiliency during communication and then examining their experience. Following the
communication activity, attendees will experience watching two videos; the first is a parent
speaking to them in her native language, Chinese. The second is a video of this parent speaking
to teachers in English. The purpose is to show the challenges for a parent who does not speak
English as their primary language but desires to engage with teachers. This experience further
drives home the point of barriers, adversity, and resiliency in communication.
Part three concludes the training with a final communication activity designed to be the
most challenging of the three activities. Training attendees will experience numerous barriers
and challenges and will need to engage in teamwork to find a solution. Following this last
communication activity, attendees will debrief and discuss how communication challenges
impact partnerships with parents and families and communication with students, co-workers, and
administration. Part three also revisits students’ stories presented at the start of the day, allowing
attendees to apply skills and knowledge discussed throughout the day to individual situations as a
method of applied learning. This self-directed format will allow teachers to learn from one
another and gain knowledge to empower them with skills. Based on their increased knowledge
and understanding of families, teachers will increase their ability to engage with all families
more effectively.
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The end of the day will include a post-assessment tool administered to all training
attendees. The results of the pre-and post-assessments developed will help the trainers assess the
value-added from the training and will help to guide further development for future trainings.
There will also be a consideration to follow any undergraduate students who receive this training
as they enter their first year of teaching. Monitoring their success in utilizing this knowledge and
the skills taught will help substantiate the value-added in incorporating this information into the
curriculum and solidify this as an evidence-based practice.
Prototype Conclusion: There are curriculum elements that have been tested and found to
improve knowledge and increase empathy for families. Specifically, teachers and residential
staff received the experiential portion of the curriculum related to poverty for one year. The
feedback from that period was that the training was highly effective. The Communication
elements utilizing the Empathy Toy have also been tested globally by Twenty One Toys and
found to be highly effective in helping teachers improve communication skills. Twenty One
Toys has innovatively developed a way to incorporate teaching both empathy and resilience
through the act of play (Twenty One Toys, 2021). Teaching empathy and resilience are critical
for working with families who have experienced poverty, homelessness, and other forms of
trauma (Borba, 2016; Jensen, 2016; Southwick et al., 2014). For teachers to engage successfully
with these families, they must know what these families are experiencing and empathize with
them. This curriculum brings together well-researched topics and highly engaging activities to
help adult learners increase knowledge, gain empathy, and enhance skills to change behavior.
The result will be better academic and behavioral outcomes for students.
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This training module will be the initial focus of the Teter Consulting Group. This
consulting firm will be started to reach educators currently teaching at the K-12 level to provide
professional development focused on parent engagement skills. The mission of the Teter
Consulting Group is to provide teachers with the knowledge and skills they need to help foster
positive, caring relationships with families for the ultimate success of all students. The Teter
Consulting Group will start with a phased approach. During phase one, the Teter Consulting
Group will launch the Teachers Who Engage curriculum and build relationships with schools,
organizations, and researchers working in the family-school partnership space. During phase
two, there will be an assessment of the curriculum based on feedback from training attendees.
The Teter Consulting Group staff will make necessary revisions to the training curriculum.
During phase two, a needs assessment will also be completed to determine if additional services
including consultation and coaching should be offered to schools to help bridge the teachings
from the training with existing family-school partnership programs school may be using. The
third and final phase will include hiring additional staff as the Teter Consulting Group scales up
nationally and begins to provide outreach to local colleges and universities with undergraduate
teacher education programs to explore ways to infuse this curriculum into existing education
programs to better prepare future teachers for successful parent engagement.
Opportunities for Innovation
Currently, in the K-12 program framework guidelines for education students, there is no
required coursework specific to family knowledge or skills around communicating with families
or understanding family systems. The proposed solution is a training curriculum designed for
future and existing teachers in K-12 education focused on understanding families and building
better communication and interdisciplinary collaboration skills with families and colleagues to
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improve family engagement. This curriculum will educate future teachers about family systems,
the barriers families face, the impact of trauma on children, and the impacts these barriers have
on children’s education. This curriculum will guide educators by providing skills for effectively
understanding how to communicate with diverse families, increase interdisciplinary
collaboration skills within education settings, identify mechanisms to include parents in support
of students in the classroom with strategies already being used in schools such as social-
emotional education and restorative justice, and with providing a language for outreach to
families with an inclusive, culturally sensitive trauma-informed lens.
Desired Impact and Goal for this Innovation:
To change a system, leadership must embrace new practices. New practices must be
embedded in all areas of a system, supported by leadership (Mapp & Bergman, 2019). While the
purpose of this solution is not specifically directed at leadership, it is to use experience and
research to substantiate why teachers need to have tools to enable them to increase parent
engagement successfully.
Science has proven that a child’s brain is impacted by trauma, and poverty can be a form
of trauma (Forbes, 2012; Lakind & Atkins, 2018; Steele et al., 2016). Children, however, are
resilient, and it has been shown that the part of the brain that controls emotions, the limbic
system, can change for the better with safety and love (Forbes, 2012). It stands to reason that if
we work to create safe, positive relationships within school buildings, including parents, then
students who have experienced trauma in their lives outside of the school stand a better chance at
success. Hypothesizing is only one step, however. Parents need to be included in this
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relationship (Mapp & Bergman, 2019). Educating teachers on trauma and the impacts of trauma
on students can be instrumental in changing school culture.
Schools, education systems, and parents share the responsibility to help children
overcome obstacles in the home, community, and school settings. Parents’ attitudes about their
children’s schools’ matter, and their views have been shown to shape children’s attitudes about
school, affect their family to school engagement levels, and influence their residential and school
enrollment decisions (Schueler et al., 2014). Because of the vital role parents play in a child’s
life at home and their education, the educational system must engage parents to help school
communities become more positive and welcoming communities where all students can succeed.
If school aims to educate a child to lead a productive and fulfilling life, then we should be
engaging every child, regardless of the challenges they may bring with them in the morning.
Successful parent engagement requires providing educators and all school staff from
administration, social workers, and guidance counselors to bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and
lunch aids with resources to build empathetic, positive, engaging, and meaningful relationships
with each child and parent within a school system.
Individual educational programs (IEPs) often focus on academic goals and miss the
relationship component of what children need within the school community. School systems are
measured by their academic outcomes, not by the amount of empathy their community has.
Empathy does not make the news, but a school shooting does. Social and emotional learning
initiatives do not make a news story, but a low-performing school for the third year in a row
will be a story on the nightly news.
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The desired goal for this innovation is to bring together established practices, including
teaching empathy, social-emotional learning (SEL), trauma-informed care, positive behavioral
interventions in schools (PBIS), and parent engagement with the education system to create a
more holistic community for all children (Borba, 2016; Center on Positive Behavioral
Interventions and Supports, 2021). When these initiatives work together, all students can
receive the supports they need in a school community where adults with whom they trust are
working together and have meaningful relationships.
Project Structure, Methodology, and Action Component
Market Analysis
Public schools are mandated by the federal policy, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA),
to engage in school-family partnerships, or parent engagement (U.S. Department of Education,
2021a). The National Parent Teacher Association historically provided grants to organizations
committed to furthering the work of school-family partnerships from the parent engagement side
of the relationship; however, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, these funds have been
diverted to resources schools need to re-open schools safely (National Parent Teacher
Association, 2020). The Flamboyan Foundation (2018) has a parent engagement training
program for teachers that includes parents as part of their training initiative for the teachers they
train, and while they have a respected training program, they have only trained 2000 teachers to
date. There are many parent engagement initiatives presented to schools and resources about
parent engagement and school-family partnerships available to teachers throughout the country;
however, teachers must know how to access them, where to find them, or the time to pursue
them to benefit.
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Methods for Project Implementation including obstacles
When implementing an innovation, one must consider the potential obstacles and
catalysts. According to a study completed by Bach-Mortensen et al. (2018), several of the most
common obstacles to implementing evidence-based practices include lack of financial resources,
staff resources, and overall difficulty one can encounter during implementation. The most
common catalysts to successful implementation were whether the innovation being implemented
aligned with the organization’s mission, flexibility to implement, perceived effectiveness,
organizational support, prioritization of the innovation, and supportive leadership (Bach-
Mortensen et al., 2018).
Successful implementation of the Teachers Who Engage curriculum will require an
alignment with the focus for schools’ professional development by the State Board of Education,
along with an examination of school systems leadership at the local school, school board, and
state level (Aarons et al., 2011; Forman et al., 2009). The policies that guide professional
development content begin at the state level but also impact a school at the local level.
Leadership can be both a catalyst and an obstacle to school initiatives because it impacts
hiring patterns, training and development, and the overall culture within a school. For example,
suppose the State Board of Education’s goals are focused on standardized test results and
subsequent funding based on a school’s results. In that case, all school initiatives will focus on
improving test scores, and parent engagement initiatives are a lower priority (Johnson, 2015;
Pennsylvania Department of Education, 2020).
Leadership and funding impact all implementation stages and must be examined
regularly as they can change from year to year, based on reported test scores or changes in
administration at the State level. Additionally, teacher support for professional development
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initiatives focused on parent engagement must be examined (Forman et al., 2009). Teacher
support for this initiative can be either an obstacle or a catalyst and will impact the success of
this training. The implementer must determine the level of pre-work that will need to be
completed by the trainer to deliver the training effectively by identifying whether teachers will
be catalysts or barriers in a particular school system. This understanding will need to occur
within each school district as the implementers and school administrators develop relationships.
The relationships with school leadership at the local level will be instrumental to teacher
engagement in this professional development opportunity. One final challenge to consider will
be how teacher engagement can change over time and staff turnover (Denby et al., 2014; Forman
et al., 2009), and how this will be a factor in each implementation stage.
As implementation continues to roll out, it will be essential to continue to monitor the
political environment as it pertains to funding in the education system since that can be an
obstacle to implementation (Aarons et al., 2011). Funding impacts school initiatives
(Pennsylvania School Boards Association [PSBA], 2020), which will directly impact the
successful launch of this innovative solution. During the training preparation, it will be
necessary for the implementer to understand the characteristics of each school where the training
will be delivered. The size of the building, knowledge, values, skills, and expertise of the staff
will all be critical to the implementer to individualize this curriculum for each school building
(Aarons et al., 2011). Pennsylvania, for example, is divided into school districts. A school
district is a political subdivision created to fulfill the state’s obligation to offer public education
(PSBA, 2020). There are 500 school districts in Pennsylvania that range from 200 to 140,000
students (Pennsylvania Department Education [PDE], 2020). The implementer will need to
understand the variation of the size of each school, knowledge, skills, expertise, values, and
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politics within each community throughout the state of Pennsylvania when preparing to
implement this innovation.
During implementation, the implementer will continue monitoring the funding available
for teachers’ professional development. The implementer should consider inter-organizational
networks during the active implementation phase (Aarons et al., 2011). Organizations such as
the National Parent Teacher Association, the National Network of Partnership Schools at Johns
Hopkins University, the Family-Community-School Alliance, and the Flamboyan Foundation
have made commitments to address parent engagement in schools and partnerships with schools;
however, barriers to engaging all schools in a universal solution to this issue continues to exist.
Barriers include written policies to communicate with parents and families that are never
implemented or teachers and administrators not knowing how to build engaging, inclusive
programs for families (Epstein et al., 2019).
A combined effort will be highly impactful by utilizing the resources of established
organizations with the same values and mission. During the phased implementation approach for
the Teter Consulting Group, engaging and networking with these organizations will be
instrumental in the innovation’s success. Throughout implementation, it will also be critical to
work individually with each school to assess readiness for change and receptiveness to the
training’s content by engaging in consultation and coaching practices to assist schools in using
the strategies that will aid in the success of the teacher-parent engagement.
School boards make decisions based on many federal and state initiatives (PSBA, 2020);
therefore, building working relationships with the school boards in the school districts that this
innovation will be implemented into will be necessary. Successful school board relationships
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will be a catalyst for the sustainment of this innovation. For sustainment of this innovation,
providing trainers who are qualified to deliver the training and at the organizational level, the
issue of staff turnover will need to be addressed, as mentioned previously (Denby et al., 2014;
Forman et al., 2009).
Obstacles and catalysts must be examined both before and during implementation. One
potential barrier is school social workers, mental health workers, counselors, and school
psychologists who may identify their role as providing this education to the teachers in their
school district or school building. However, four main barriers have been identified by school
mental health staff to implementing evidence-based programs within school systems: competing
responsibilities, lack of parent engagement, logistical barriers, and lack of support from school
administrators and teachers (Langely et al., 2010). For example, school psychologists spend
most of their time conducting psychoeducational evaluations and re-evaluations, consultations
with staff, and direct student counseling (Ginns et al., 2020). With school psychologists’ time
being tied up with these types of student-centered needs, they do not have the time resources
available to deliver training such as the curriculum being proposed through this innovation.
When compounded with barriers such as lack of resources, lack of stakeholder
involvement, and even lack of skills or knowledge on the part of the school psychologist
themselves to implement this innovative curriculum, consideration must be given to how to
overcome these barriers (Ginns et al., 2020). This innovation’s success will positively impact
the direct work of the school social workers, psychologists, and mental health support staff in
these school districts; therefore, a building a partnership with school mental health staff will be
instrumental in facilitating the success of this innovative curriculum.
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Methods of Assessment
Measuring the effectiveness of the training by monitoring teacher use of the skills learned
through the training will be critical. Determining if communication is happening consistently,
with open-mindedness and compassion, caring, and professional listening skills will be critical to
changing the culture within schools, starting with teacher behavior. Monitoring changes in
academic and behavioral outcomes of students who have parents with increased engagement in
their education will be essential to demonstrate the effectiveness of this intervention as a tool for
educators.
Pre-and post-training assessment tools developed will help the trainers assess the value-
added from the trainings and will help to guide further development of the trainings. This
assessment tool will be administered to all training attendees. Monitoring their success in
utilizing this knowledge and the skills taught will help assess the value-added in incorporating
this information into the curriculum and solidify this as an evidence-based practice. Please refer
to Appendix B to review the pre-and post-assessment tools.
Financial Plans and Staging
Funding will be necessary for the start-up of this project. According to Langley et al.
(2010), all successful implementers can secure some type of funding. This task started during
the exploration phase but will continue through the sustainment phase to ensure the viability of
the training program. This training module will be the focus of the Teter Consulting Group, a
business that started to provide professional development for K-12 educators focused on parent
engagement skills. The Teter Consulting Group will also provide outreach to local colleges and
universities with undergraduate education programs to explore ways to infuse this curriculum
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into existing education programs to better prepare future teachers for successful parent
engagement. See Appendix C for start-up and first year of operations budgets.
Stakeholder Involvement
Relationships will be one of the most critical components to ensuring a successful launch
of this innovation as it begins to scale up beyond the initial start-up phase. This innovation’s
success will rely on building high-quality working relationships with school mental health staff,
community agencies, and researchers currently working to support schools in increasing school-
family partnerships through a strategy known as network weaving. The process of network
weaving involves identifying and building on existing high-quality working relationships and
networks within and outside schools to promote information sharing, collaborative problem-
solving, and a shared vision and goal related to implementing the innovation (Powell et al.,
2015). Partnerships have been established with organizations already working in the family-
school partnership space. By building on these relationships with this implementation strategy,
this implementer could utilize the strengths of these organizations to promote this innovation,
support the aligned initiatives by helping to involve all staff in learning how to engage with
parents successfully.
Justification of the Innovation
The research substantiates that children benefit from a solid family-school partnership
(Witte et al., 2021). Parents commitment to their child’s educational success has been proven
through multiple research studies conducted in recent years (Benner & Quirk, 2020; Learning
Heroes, 2017), with findings concluding that parents strongly desire to be engaged in their
children’s learning but are not always aware of what level their child is performing.
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School districts have a responsibility to utilize funds made available for parent
engagement, use technology to advance parent engagement efforts, reinforce parent engagement
as a major responsibility of every teacher and ensure that teachers have the tools and resources to
engage in this effort. Recommendations for parent engagement include the existence of funding
specifically for parent engagement and technical assistance for parent engagement initiatives
(Benner & Quirk, 2020). Benner & Quirk (2020) recommend that professional development
opportunities be made available for districts and school leaders to engage families effectively.
Schools should include parents in this effort by asking parents what they want and how they
want to engage, engaging community leaders to help build positive relationships within the
community and taking parent engagement initiatives into the community (Benner & Quirk, 2020;
Witte et al., 2021).
There are numerous challenges to the issue of parent engagement in education that must
be considered and therefore addressed. Primary among these are the lack of teacher preparation
in family engagement received in their undergraduate education (Pennsylvania Department of
Education, 2012), lack of cultural awareness and understanding for the families with whom they
may engage, and lack of skills to build relationships (Witte et al., 2021). There have been
attempts to provide training to teachers that will enhance their ability to engage with families,
and multiple parent engagement programs exist throughout the country (Sime & Sheridan, 2014;
Witte et al., 2021); however, these attempts have not been successful at generating a universal
solution to this problem. Schools must reinforce parent communication as a major responsibility
for every teacher and allocate resources to ensure that teachers have tools to communicate with
parents effectively (Benner & Quirk, 2020; Witte et al., 2021). Parents need different types of
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engagement, and schools and teachers need to ask what parents want and ensure that information
shared is being connected back to student achievement (Benner & Quirk, 2020).
Communication, Marketing Plan, and Strategy
The Teachers Who Engage curriculum is a professional development training that the
Teter Consulting Group, LLC will provide. To make this training attractive as a professional
development opportunity, teachers will receive Act 48 continuing education credits. This
training meets the requirements, per the Pennsylvania Department of Education Act 48
Approved Provider Application. There is an agreement between the owner of the Teter
Consulting Group, LLC and one Pennsylvania Act 48 Approved Provider, Elizabethtown
College, that this training can be offered under their license. Training provided under this
provider license can capitalize on their marketing capabilities to encourage teachers to attend
professional development training. The owner of the Teter Consulting Group, LLC, is also
connected professionally to a private residential school which will provide the opportunity to
offer this training to their teachers. An agreement between the owner of the Teter Consulting
Group, LLC and the private residential school has been reached, and this training will be offered
during one of the planned 2022 Professional Development training days for teachers.
Additionally, the owner is connected to professional organizations, including the National
Association of Social Workers-Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Association of School Social
Workers and Family Community School Alliance, providing forums for natural marketing and
communication regarding launching this curriculum within schools.
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Conclusion, Actions, Implications
Conclusion
This proposed innovation will connect the research on those in poverty with existing
programs designed to increase parent engagement in children’s education by providing educators
and administrators with knowledge and skills to improve existing practices. Individuals, groups,
and communities interact with one another and within the broader environment. Systems work
to maintain balance through boundaries that border institutions such as family, peers, education,
and community (Sandoval, 2019). Systems theory provides a framework for understanding how
the environment impacts the individual and vice versa. Through these interactions, systems
depend on negative and positive feedback to adapt to changing circumstances (Nichols &
Schwartz, 2001; Sandoval, 2019). The benefit of utilizing systems theory is its assistance in
understanding that all individuals are part of a more extensive system that they influence and, in
turn, are influenced by each group with which they interact. A well-developed program can
positively impact multiple systems, resulting in equilibrium developing across systems.
However, when one piece of the system fails, equilibrium is lost, and the system will falter. For
parent engagement to become a sustainable initiative, educators’ foundational skills must include
communication and interdisciplinary collaboration skills. Seasoned educators must consider
professional development to ensure that teachers will be comfortable with communication,
potential barriers, and challenges when communicating with parents, families, and colleagues.
The Teter Consulting Group, LLC, will help to ensure a successful launch of this innovation by
offering a curriculum that connects the research on the impacts of poverty on academic outcomes
and the impact of parent engagement in children’s education with the numerous initiatives that
promote parent engagement through the education system.
A PARENT PARTNERSHIP MODEL 44

Limitations and Risks
This innovative design is a disruption to the current curriculum track for undergraduate
education students. One norm that will need to change will be higher education institutions
conceding that this is a necessary value-added to the undergraduate curriculum for education
majors. Additionally, norms that will change will be consistent and sustainable programming to
allow parents and educators to engage with one another positively. Schools do not naturally and
willingly invite parents in unless it is the expected parent-teacher conferences, parent nights once
a year, or when a child is having a problem. Shifting the norm to an ongoing parent-teacher
relationship will be a significant norm shift. Engaging with all parents is an even more massive
shift because it is easy to engage with the parents who show up to be the room parent or frequent
volunteers, but this excludes the other parents who work or cannot be there for various reasons.
For this design to operate successfully, teaching starts at the undergraduate level and
continues into professional development modules for current educators. Considering systems
theory and examining the impact that one system can have on a parent, if this design can
positively influence how educators understand and interact with parents, then parents can
positively impact the education system in their interactions. This design will positively impact
the interactions between educators and families, which will positively impact students and
families due to an educator who better understands how to interact and build a positive
relationship with a parent. This relationship could be the difference between a student being
successful in school or failing. Ultimately, this innovation’s result is to positively impact the
education system, marginalized families, and help to achieve the healthy development of all
youth (American Academy of Social Work & Social Welfare, 2014).
A PARENT PARTNERSHIP MODEL 45

Next Steps in Implementation
The Teter Consulting Group, LLC has finalized the Teachers Who Engage curriculum
and aligned the objectives with the Danielson Framework, a critical component for Act 48
credits necessary for educators to receive their continuing education credits. The Teter
Consulting Group, LLC has established a partnership with Elizabethtown College, a licensed
professional development location for educators in Pennsylvania, to offer this curriculum
through their Act 48 provider’s license. Finally, a date to launch the professional development
training in Pennsylvania will be finalized with Elizabethtown College and marketing this
program will commence.
The first objective for implementation will be to provide professional development to
teachers in Pennsylvania and surrounding areas currently in K-12 education to provide
knowledge about issues families face when living in poverty, practice skills for improving
communication, and enhance interdisciplinary collaboration within school systems.
The second objective for implementation will be to continue building relationships with
schools, organizations, and researchers working in the family-school partnership space. The
purpose of these relationships will be to assist with the implementation and further development
of this program. These relationships will also be instrumental in the assessment of the feedback
from training attendees and further refinement of this training curriculum.
The third objective will be to target undergraduate education students to better prepare
them for the job requirement of parent engagement. This third objective will require building
relationships with decision-makers in higher education and an agreement to pilot the curriculum
to determine the validity of incorporating this into undergraduate programming.
A PARENT PARTNERSHIP MODEL 46

This curriculum will first focus on changing teacher behavior with a long-term outcome
of improving student academic outcomes because of improved parent involvement in their
educational journeys. The research is clear. Teachers benefit from trainings that focus on
providing knowledge to improve attitudes and practices specific to parent engagement (Benner &
Quirk, 2020; Smith et al., 2020). This innovative program is ready to respond to teachers’ thirst
for knowledge for the healthy development of all youth.

A PARENT PARTNERSHIP MODEL 47

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A PARENT PARTNERSHIP MODEL 54

Appendix A
Logic Model

Resources/Inputs Activities Outputs
Short-term
Outcomes
Mid-term
Outcomes
Long-term
Outcomes
Staff including
benefits to include
the Teter Consulting
Group, LLC owner,
paid social work
intern, office
manager:
$226,000

Tax accountant &
web developer:
$9000

Computer &
Licensing fees:
$1500

Training materials:
$2500

Empathy Toy – 3
Facilitator Kits
$1050

Professional
development costs:
• $1900 one-
time
Facilitator
training fee
for Empathy
Toy
• $600
licensing fee
per 30
trainees

Ongoing research to
be conducted by the
Develop
curriculum for
undergraduate
students using
peer-reviewed
research to
enhance
knowledge
about families
in poverty,
resiliency,
impact of
systems on
parent
engagement and
eliminate
barriers in
communication
with families

Develop
curriculum for
certified
teachers for
professional
development –
that meets the
requirements of
for Act 48
continuing
education
credits for
attending this
training

Identify and
train, as needed,
professional
development
Undergraduate
course content
and structure
will be aligned
to prepare
students how to
effectively
understand and
engage with
families

Curriculum for
certified
teachers will be
aligned to meet
their needs
around family
engagement.

High quality
trainers will be
prepared to
deliver training
to teachers and
lead teachers
and social
workers
through
interdisciplinary
collaborative
experiences
(IPE)

Development of
pre-and post-
training
assessments to
be implemented
through
Increased direct
contact between
parents and
teachers
evidenced by a
developed
school survey
administered to
teachers and
parents

Increased
awareness of
family needs
resulting from
increased
contact
evidenced by
teacher surveys
issued through
professional
development
trainings and
completion of
undergraduate
course for new
teachers

Increased
understanding of
family needs
and ways to
communicate
with families
evidenced by
surveys
completed by
parents and
Increased
connection
to needed
services for
families
through the
engagement
with the
education
system

Increased
academic
and
behavioral
outcomes
for students
evidenced
by
monitoring
these
outcomes
compared
with levels
of parent
engagement
with
teachers
who have
completed
this training

Increased
academic
support for
students by
parents
engaging
An education
system that is seen
as a true partner
with all families
evidenced by
success in building
positive
relationships with
parents &
academic/behavioral
outcomes improving
for students

Students graduating
from high school
with solid post-
secondary plans

The education
system shifts to a
restorative justice
model around
discipline because
of increased parent
engagement
improving long
term success of all
students.

The education
system is viewed as
a supportive system
that helps
communities thrive
through its
partnerships with
families.

A PARENT PARTNERSHIP MODEL 55

Resources/Inputs Activities Outputs
Short-term
Outcomes
Mid-term
Outcomes
Long-term
Outcomes
Teter Consulting
Group, LLC owner,
with the support of
the supervised social
work intern.

Supervision for
social work intern
from accredited
social work program
completing BSW or
MSW internship.
providers
(trainers) on the
curriculum

Provide
undergraduate
students and
certified
teachers with
high-quality
training

Develop
interdisciplinary
collaboration
experiences
between
education and
social work to
align the
knowledge,
values, and
skills of these
two professions
that often work
together

Partnerships
and alliances
will form with
established
organizations
including
21Toys to help
teach empathy
to teachers,
PBIS, Character
Strong and
Family-School-
Community
Alliance
(FSCA) to help
with
professional
development
opportunities
will be used to
measure
increased
understanding
of families,
barriers and
communication
skills
teachers and
undergraduate
course for new
teachers

Understanding
of the impact of
trauma on
families/students
evidenced
through teacher
surveys and/or
completion of
undergraduate
course for new
teachers

Increased
understanding
and awareness
of issues of
racial and
cultural
diversity and the
impact on
education
evidenced
through teacher
surveys and/or
completion of
undergraduate
course for new
teachers
with
teachers
who have
completed
this training

This curriculum will
be adapted into the
undergraduate
curriculum as a
required
competency for all
aspiring teachers
based on the
connection to
positive academic
and behavioral
outcomes for all
students across
socioeconomic
barriers when there
is positive parent
engagement in
education.
A PARENT PARTNERSHIP MODEL 56

Resources/Inputs Activities Outputs
Short-term
Outcomes
Mid-term
Outcomes
Long-term
Outcomes
professional
development
for teachers
A PARENT PARTNERSHIP MODEL 57

Appendix B
Pre-Post Training Assessment

Pre-Workshop Survey

1. Which of the following reasons is the primary reason you came to this workshop
today?
a. I wanted to learn more about how to engage with families
b. My workplace is requiring attendance at this workshop
c. A colleague encouraged me to come
d. I need CEU’s

2. Parent engagement it is important for student success.
a. Agree
b. Disagree
c. Unsure

3. I feel comfortable discussing student’s learning needs, goals, and outcomes with
parents of the students in my classroom.
a. Always
b. Most of the time
c. Some of the time
d. Never

4. How much do you agree with the following sentence: “I enjoy having parent
volunteers in my classroom?”
a. Strongly agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Slightly disagree
e. Disagree
f. Strongly disagree

5. I look forward to parent teacher conferences
a. Always
b. Sometimes
c. Never
6. Parent teacher conferences cause me anxiety
a. Always
b. Sometimes
c. Often
d. Never
A PARENT PARTNERSHIP MODEL 58

7. I feel comfortable hosting parents during the annual parent night in the beginning
of the year.
a. Strongly agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Slightly disagree
e. Disagree
f. Strongly disagree

8. In undergraduate school, I received instruction specific to how to interact and
engage with parents of students.
a. Yes
b. No

9. When I was in undergraduate school, I was taught and practiced skills for working
with a combative parent?
a. Yes
b. No

10. I want to improve my communication skills today.
a. Yes
b. No

Post-Workshop Survey

1. Today I learned new information about how poverty impacts students and
family’s interaction with the education system.
c. Yes
d. No

2. I can explain the connection between parent engagement and student academic
success.
e. Yes
f. No

A PARENT PARTNERSHIP MODEL 59

3. After attending this workshop, I believe that I will feel comfortable talking to
parents of the students in my classroom.
a. Strongly agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Slightly disagree
e. Disagree
f. Strongly disagree

4. After attending this workshop, I can now enjoy having parent volunteers in
my classroom.
a. Strongly agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Slightly disagree
e. Disagree
f. Strongly disagree

5. After attending this workshop, I have the skills to facilitate parent teacher
conferences effectively:
a. Strongly agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Slightly disagree
e. Disagree
f. Strongly disagree

6. After attending this workshop, I have the skills to make parent night a
welcoming and engaging evening for all parents.
a. Strongly agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Slightly disagree
e. Disagree
f. Strongly disagree

A PARENT PARTNERSHIP MODEL 60

7. By attending this workshop, I increased my communications skills specific to
interacting and engaging with parents of students.
a. Strongly agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Slightly disagree
e. Disagree
f. Strongly disagree
8. By attending this workshop, I gained at least one skill to adopt for engaging
with a combative parent.
a. Strongly agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Slightly disagree
e. Disagree
f. Strongly disagree
9. I learned something useful today.
a. Strongly agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Slightly disagree
e. Disagree
f. Strongly disagree

What is one takeaway from today that you will begin implementing immediately?

What is one takeaway from today that you would like more training on to help you feel more
confident?

May I contact you for follow-up to discuss the knowledge/skills you are implementing?
a. Yes
b. No
If yes, please provide contact information:

A PARENT PARTNERSHIP MODEL 61

Appendix C
Operating Budget

Name: ____________________ Heather Teter
FY January 2021-December 2021 Operating Budget
Category ------------ $'s (000's) ------------ ---------------- Comments ---------------
REVENUE
$0.00 $0.00 Testing only
X______ ______ ______________________________
X______ ______ ______________________________
X______ ______ ______________________________
Total REVENUE $0.00
EXPENSES
Personnel Exp
Wages/Salaries 0 FTE
Gross
Employee 1 $0 ______________________________
Employee 2 $0 ______________________________
Sub-Total $0
Benefits (@ 30%) 0.3 $0 ______________________________
Total Pers. Exp $0
Other Operating Exp
Contractors (Indep) $1,600.00 $1,600.00 Tax accountant; initial website development
Tech/Computers $1,000.00 $1,000.00 Laptop plus Microsoft Office software
Training materials $1,050.00 $1,050.00 3 Empathy Toy Facilitator Kits
Comm & Mat'ls $500.00 $500.00 Printing: business cards, brochures, fliers
Office Supplies $0.00 $0.00 None during start-up
LLC start up ______ $1,000.00 Filing fees
X_______ ______ ______________________________
Total Other Op Exp
Total EXPENSES $5,150.00
SURPLUS/DEFICIT -$5,150.00
Taxable income 21% LLC; 21% flat rate taxes on estimated profit
3.07% LLC; 3.07% PA tax for sole proprietorship
Surplus/deficit after taxes -5,150.00
A PARENT PARTNERSHIP MODEL 62

Appendix C
Operating Budget

Name: ____________________ Heather Teter
FY January 2022-December 2022 Operating Budget
Category ------------ $'s (000's) ------------ ---------------- Comments ---------------
REVENUE
1600 $150.00 $240,000.00 Training fees x 4 school districts targeted
4 $500.00 $800.00 Consultation fees x 4 school districts targeted
1 24000 $24,000.00 Flat rate fee for one additional school district
X______ ______ ______________________________
Total REVENUE $264,800.00
EXPENSES
Personnel Exp
Wages/Salaries
Gross
Owner $120,000
SW internship $5,000
Office Manager $50,000
Sub-Total $175,000
Benefits (@ 30%) $51,000
Total Pers. Exp $226,000
Other Operating Exp
Contractors (Indep) $7,400.00 $7,400.00 Tax accountant and website developer
Tech/Computers $500.00 $500.00 Licensing fees for virtual training platform
Comm & Mat'ls $1,000.00 $1,000.00 Printing of training materials; i.e. handouts, resources, etc
Trng/Prof Dev $1,999.00 $1,999.00 Twenty One Toys Facilitator Training, one time fee
Prof Srvc's * $600.00 30 $18,000.00 Licensing fees for Twenty One Toys support
Office Supplies $1,000.00 $1,000.00 Materials needed to create training materials
Food 1000 $1,000.00 Snacks to provide during trainings
Total Other Op Exp $30,899.00
Total EXPENSES $256,899.00
SURPLUS/DEFICIT $7,901.00
A PARENT PARTNERSHIP MODEL 63

Appendix D
Prototype
Act 48 Approved Provider Application

Act 48
Application_Heather Teter.docx

A PARENT PARTNERSHIP MODEL 64

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Asset Metadata

Creator Teter, Heather Bailey (author)

Core Title Teachers who engage: advancing the movement toward successful parent partnerships in K–12 education

School Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work

Degree Doctor of Social Work

Degree Program Social Work

Publication Date 12/06/2021

Defense Date 11/22/2021

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag K–12 education,OAI-PMH Harvest,parent engagement,parent engagement and poverty,parent-school-family partnerships

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Blosnich, John (committee member), Fatouros, Cassandra (committee member)

Creator Email teter@usc.edu,teterh@mhs-pa.org

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC17896000

Unique identifier UC17896000

Legacy Identifier etd-TeterHeath-10278

Document Type Capstone project

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Teter, Heather Bailey

Type texts

Source 20211208-wayne-usctheses-batch-902-nissen (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given.

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu