In many places, communication between schools and parents is turning out to be one of the bright spots in an otherwise chaotic and uncertain era of education. And, it is a golden opportunity for schools to push parent engagement to a higher level this year and beyond.
Family engagement had to move to the top of the priority list now because no learning, no teaching, no education is happening without communication with families,” said Karen Mapp, a senior lecturer at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, who has studied the interactions between parents and schools for years. “So now you’ve gone from something that was low priority to something that is probably right at the top.”
During the pandemic, the content of the communication changed, Mapp said, with a greater focus on children’s individual learning needs, since parents were a huge part of supporting classroom instruction.
The conversations switched away from discipline and ‘this is what your child isn’t doing’ to ‘here’s what we can do together to make sure that your child continues to learn and grow,’” Mapp said. “Families have responded quite positively to that change.