i

Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

A publication of SEDL in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education

Partners Education in

A Dual Capacity-Building 

Framework for 

Family–School Partnerships
ii

Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

2013 © Copyright by SEDL

Funding for this publication is provided by the U.S. Department of Education, 

contract number ED-04-CO-0039/0001. 
1

Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

My vision for family engagement is ambitious...

I want to have too many parents demanding excellence in their schools. 

I want all parents to be real partners in education with their children’s 

teachers, from cradle to career. In this partnership, students and parents 

should feel connected—and teachers should feel supported. When parents 

demand change and better options for their children, they become the real 

accountability backstop for the educational system. 

—ARNE DUNCAN, U.S. SECRETARY OF EDUCATION, MAY 3, 2010
2

Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships
3

Introduction .......................................................................................................5

The Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships....................7

The Challenge .................................................................................................7

Opportunity Conditions ...................................................................................9

Policy and Program Goals ............................................................................... 10

Staff and Family Partnership 

Outcomes..................................................................................................... 11

The Three Case Studies ...................................................................................... 13

Stanton Elementary School.............................................................................. 13

Boston Public Schools .................................................................................... 16

First 5 Santa Clara County ............................................................................... 19

Conclusion and Recommendations ...................................................................... 25

Endnotes .......................................................................................................... 27

About the Authors............................................................................................. 28

Table of Contents

5

For schools and districts across the U.S., family engagement is rapidly 

shifting from a low-priority recommendation to an integral part of 

education reform efforts. 

or schools and districts across the U.S., family engagement1

 is rapidly shifting from a 

low-priority recommendation to an integral 

part of education reform efforts. Family engagement 

has long been enshrined in policy at the federal level 

through Title I of ESEA (Elementary and Secondary 

Education Act), which requires that Title I schools 

develop parental involvement policies and “school–

family compacts” that outline how the two stakeholder 

groups will work together to boost student achievement.2

 State governments are increasingly adding their 

voices to the chorus. As of January 2010, 39 states 

and the District of Columbia had enacted laws calling 

for the implementation of family engagement policies.3 

In 2012, Massachusetts was one of several states to 

integrate family engagement into its educator evaluation system, making “family and community engagement” one of the four pillars of its rubric for evaluating 

teachers and administrators.4 

These policies are rooted in a wide body of research 

demonstrating the beneficial effects of parental involvement and family–school partnerships. Over 50 years of 

research links the various roles that families play in a 

child’s education—as supporters of learning, encouragers of grit and determination, models of lifelong 

learning, and advocates of proper programming and 

placements for their child—with indicators of student 

achievement including student grades, achievement test 

scores, lower drop-out rates, students’ sense of personal 

competence and efficacy for learning, and students’ 

beliefs about the importance of education.5 Recent 

work by the Chicago Consortium on School Research has 

also shown that “parent and community ties” can have 

a systemic and sustained effect on learning outcomes 

for children and on whole school improvement when 

combined with other essential supports such as strong 

school leadership, a high-quality faculty, community engagement and partnerships, a student-centered 

learning climate, and effective instructional guidance 

for staff (See Figure 1 on page 6).6 In particular, 

research shows that initiatives that take on a partnership orientation—in which student achievement and 

school improvement are seen as a shared responsibility, relationships of trust and respect are established 

between home and school, and families and school staff 

see each other as equal partners—create the conditions 

for family engagement to flourish.7 

Given this research base, the increase in policies 

promoting family engagement is a sign of progress 

toward improving educational opportunities for all 

children. Yet these mandates are often predicated on 

a fundamental assumption: that the educators and 

families charged with developing effective partnerships 

between home and school already possess the requisite 

skills, knowledge, confidence, and belief systems—in 

other words, the collective capacity—to successfully 

implement and sustain these important home–school 

relationships. Unfortunately, this assumption is deeply 

flawed. Principals and teachers receive little training 

for engaging families and report feeling under-prepared, despite valuing relationships with families.8

 

Over 50 years of research links the various roles 

that families play in a child’s education—as 

supporters of learning, encouragers of grit and 

determination, models of lifelong learning, 

and advocates of proper programming and 

placements for their child.

Introduction
6

Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

Parents, meanwhile—particularly low-income and 

limited-English-proficient parents—face multiple 

barriers to engagement, often lacking access to the 

social capital and understanding of the school system 

necessary to take effective action on behalf of their 

children.9 Without attention to training and capacity 

building, well-intentioned partnership efforts fall flat. 

Rather than promoting equal partnerships between parents and schools at a systemic level, these initiatives 

default to one-way communication and “random acts of 

engagement”10 such as poorly attended parent nights. 

This paper presents a new framework for designing 

family engagement initiatives that build capacity 

among educators and families to partner with one 

another around student success. Based in existing 

research and best practices, the “Dual CapacityBuilding Framework for Family–School Partnerships” is 

designed to act as a scaffold for the development of 

family engagement strategies, policies, and programs. 

This is not a blueprint for engagement initiatives, 

which must be designed to fit the particular contexts 

in which they are carried out. Instead, the Dual 

Capacity-Building Framework should be seen as a 

compass, laying out the goals and conditions necessary to chart a path toward effective family engagement efforts that are linked to student achievement 

and school improvement. 

Figure 1: Five Essential Supports

The University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research11

From Community Social Capital and School Improvement, (slide 4) by P. B. Sebring, 2012. Paper presented at the National Community 

and School Reform Conference at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA. Copyright ©University of Chicago 

Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR). Reprinted by SEDL with permission from the author, Penny Bender Sebring, CCSR.

2. 

PROFESSIONAL 

CAPACITY

4. 

STUDENTCENTERED 

LEARNING 

CLIMATE

3.

PARENTCOMMUNITY

TIES

5.

INSTRUCTIONAL

GUIDANCE

LEADERSHIP

as the Driver 

for Change

CLASSROOM
7

The following section provides a brief explanation of the Dual 

Capacity-Building Framework and its components.

he Dual Capacity-Building Framework (See 

Figure 2 on page 8) was formulated using 

the research on effective family engagement 

and home–school partnership strategies and 

practices, adult learning and motivation, and leadership development. The Dual Capacity-Building Framework components include: 

1. a description of the capacity challenges that must 

be addressed to support the cultivation of effective 

home–school partnerships; 

2. an articulation of the conditions integral to the 

success of family–school partnership initiatives and 

interventions;

3. an identification of the desired intermediate capacity goals that should be the focus of family engagement policies and programs at the federal, state, 

and local level; and 

4. a description of the capacity-building outcomes for 

school and program staff as well as for families. 

After outlining these four components, we present 

three case studies that illustrate and further develop 

the Framework. The case studies feature a school, a 

district, and a county whose efforts to develop capacity around effective family–school partnerships embody 

the Dual Capacity-Building Framework. 

The Challenge

Many states, districts, and schools struggle with how 

to cultivate and sustain positive relationships with 

families. A monitoring report issued in 2008 by the 

U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Elementary 

and Secondary Education found that family engagement was the weakest area of compliance by states.12 

According to the 2012 “MetLife Survey of the American 

Teacher,” both teachers and principals across the country consistently identify family engagement to be one 

of the most challenging aspects of their work.13 A common refrain from educators is that they have a strong 

desire to work with families from diverse backgrounds 

and cultures and to develop stronger home-school 

partnerships of shared responsibility for children’s outcomes, but they do not know how to accomplish this. 

Families, in turn, can face many personal, cultural, and 

structural barriers to engaging in productive partnerships with teachers. They may not have access to 

the social and cultural capital needed to navigate the 

complexities of the U.S. educational system,14 or they 

may have had negative experiences with schools in the 

past, leading to distrust or to feeling unwelcomed.15

The limited capacity of the various stakeholders to 

partner with each other and to share the responsibility 

for improving student achievement and school performance is a major factor in the relatively poor execution 

of family engagement initiatives and programs over the 

years.16

Contributing to this problem is the lack of sustained, 

accessible, and effective opportunities to build 

capacity among local education agency (LEA) staff 

and families. If effective cradle-to-career educational partnerships between home and school are to be 

implemented and sustained with fidelity, engagement 

The Dual Capacity-Building 

Framework for Family–School 

Partnerships
8

Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

Figure 2: The Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

THE 

CHALLENGE

FAMILY 

AND STAFF 

CAPACITY 

OUTCOMES

Lack of opportunities 

for School/

Program Staff to 

build the capacity 

for partnerships

School and Program 

Staff who can

• Honor and recognize 

families’ funds of 

knowledge

• Connect family 

engagement to 

student learning

• Create welcoming, 

inviting cultures

Families who 

can negotiate 

multiple roles

• Supporters

• Encouragers

• Monitors

• Advocates

• Decision Makers

• Collaborators

Lack of 

opportunities for 

Families to build 

the capacity for 

partnerships

Effective 

Family–School 

Partnerships

Supporting Student 

Achievement 

& School 

Improvement

OPPORTUNITY 

CONDITIONS

POLICY AND 

PROGRAM 

GOALS

Process Conditions

• Linked to learning

• Relational

• Development vs. service orientation

• Collaborative

• Interactive

To build and enhance the capacity of staff/families in the “4 C” areas:

• Capabilities (skills and knowledge)

• Connections (networks)

• Cognition (beliefs, values)

• Confidence (self-efficacy)

Organizational Conditions

• Systemic: across the organization

• Integrated: embedded in all 

programs

• Sustained: with resources and 

infrastructure

Ineffective 

Family–School 

Partnerships
9

Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

initiatives must include a concerted focus on developing adult capacity, whether through pre- and in-service 

professional development for educators; academies, 

workshops, seminars, and workplace trainings for families; or as an integrated part of parent–teacher partnership activities. When effectively implemented, such 

opportunities build and enhance the skills, knowledge, 

and dispositions of stakeholders to engage in effective 

partnerships that support student achievement and 

development and school improvement. 

Opportunity Conditions 

There are many types of effective capacity-building 

opportunities for LEA staff and families, some of which 

are explored in the case studies described in the next 

section. Opportunities must be tailored to the particular contexts for which they are developed. At the same 

time, research suggests that certain process conditions 

must be met for adult participants to come away from 

a learning experience not only with new knowledge but 

with the ability and desire to apply what they have 

learned. Research also suggests important organizational conditions that have to be met in order to sustain 

and scale these opportunity efforts across districts and 

groups of schools. 

Process Conditions

Research on promising practice in family engagement, 

as well as on adult learning and development, identifies a set of process conditions that are important 

to the success of capacity-building interventions. 

The term process here refers to the series of actions, 

operations, and procedures that are part of any activity 

or initiative. Process conditions are key to the design 

of effective initiatives for building the capacity of 

families and school staff to partner in ways that 

support student achievement and school improvement. 

Initiatives must be:

Linked to Learning

Initiatives are aligned with school and district 

achievement goals and connect families to the 

teaching and learning goals for the students. Far too 

often, events held at schools for parents have little to 

do with the school or district’s academic and developmental goals for students. These events are missed 

opportunities to enhance the capacity of families 

and staff to collaborate with one another to support 

student learning. Families and school staff are more 

interested in and motivated to participate in events 

and programs that are focused on enhancing their ability to work as partners to support children’s cognitive, 

emotional, physical, and social development as well as 

the overall improvement of the school.

Relational

A major focus of the initiative is on building respectful and trusting relationships between home 

and school. No meaningful family engagement can 

be established until relationships of trust and respect 

are established between home and school. A focus on 

relationship building is especially important in circumstances where there has been a history of mistrust 

between families and school or district staff, or where 

negative past experiences or feelings of intimidation 

hamper the building of partnerships between staff and 

parents. In these cases, mailings, automated phone 

calls, and even incentives like meals and prizes for 

attendance do little to ensure regular participation of 

families, and school staff are often less than enthusiastic about participating in these events. The relationship 

between home and school serves as the foundation 

for shared learning and responsibility and also acts 

as an incentive and motivating agent for the continued participation of families and staff. Participants in 

initiatives are more willing to learn from others whom 

they respect and trust. 

Developmental

The initiatives focus on building the intellectual, 

social, and human capital of stakeholders engaged 

in the program. Providing support to communities is 

important, but initiatives that build capacity set out 

to provide opportunities for participants (both families 

and school staff) to think differently about themselves 

and their roles as stakeholders in their schools and 

communities.17 In addition to providing services to 

stakeholders, the developmental component of these 

initiatives focuses on empowering and enabling participants to be confident, active, knowledgeable, and 

informed stakeholders in the transformation of their 

schools and neighborhoods. 

Collective/Collaborative

Learning is conducted in group rather than individual settings and is focused on building learning communities and networks. Initiatives that bring families 

and staff together for shared learning create collective 

learning environments that foster peer learning and 

communications networks among families and staff. 

The collective, collaborative nature of these initiatives 

builds social networks, connections, and, ultimately, 

the social capital of families and staff in the program. 
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Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

Interactive

Participants are given opportunities to test out and 

apply new skills. Skill mastery requires coaching and 

practice. Existing family engagement strategies often 

involve providing lists of items and activities for teachers to use to reach out to families and for families to 

do with their children. This information dissemination 

strategy is an important but insufficient condition of 

learning and knowledge acquisition. During learning 

sessions, staff and families can receive information on 

skills and tools, but must also have the opportunity to 

practice what they have learned and receive feedback 

and coaching from each other, peers, and facilitators. 

Organizational Conditions

As organizations, LEAs and schools struggle to create 

family–school partnership opportunities that are coherent and aligned with educational improvement goals, 

sustained over time, and spread across the district. 

Research on the conditions necessary for educational 

entities to successfully implement and sustain family 

engagement identifies the following organizational 

conditions that support fidelity and sustainability.18 

Initiatives must be: 

Systemic

Initiatives are purposefully designed as core 

components of educational goals such as school 

readiness, student achievement, and school 

turnaround. Family–school partnerships are seen as 

essential supports19 to school and district improvement and are elevated to a high priority across state, 

district, and school improvement plans. 

Integrated

Capacity-building efforts are embedded into structures and processes such as training and professional development, teaching and learning, curriculum, 

and community collaboration. A district or school’s 

efforts to build the capacity of families and staff to 

form effective partnerships are integrated into all 

aspects of its improvement strategy, such as the recruitment and training of effective teachers and school 

leaders, professional development, and mechanisms of 

evaluation and assessment. 

Sustained

Programs operate with adequate resources and 

infrastructure support. Multiple funding streams are 

resourced to fund initiatives, and senior-level district 

leadership is empowered to coordinate family–school 

partnership strategies and initiatives as a component 

of the overall improvement strategy. School leaders 

are committed to and have a systemic vision of family 

engagement and family–school partnerships. 

Policy and Program Goals 

The Framework builds on existing research suggesting 

that partnerships between home and school can only 

develop and thrive if both families and staff have the 

requisite collective capacity to engage in partnership.20 

Many school and district family engagement initiatives 

focus solely on providing workshops and seminars for 

families on how to engage more effectively in their 

children’s education. This focus on families alone often 

results in increased tension between families and 

school staff: families are trained to be more active in 

their children’s schools, only to be met by an unreceptive and unwelcoming school climate and resistance 

from district and school staff to their efforts for more 

active engagement. Therefore, policies and programs 

directed at improving family engagement must focus 

on building the capacities of both staff and families to 

engage in partnerships.

Following the work of Higgins,21 we break down capacity into four components—the “4 Cs”: 

Capabilities: Human Capital, Skills, and 

Knowledge

School and district staff need to be knowledgeable 

about the assets and funds of knowledge available in 

the communities where they work. They also need skills 

in the realms of cultural competency and of building trusting relationship with families. Families need 

access to knowledge about student learning and the 

workings of the school system. They also need skills in 

advocacy and educational support. 

Connections: Important Relationships and 

Networks—Social Capital

Staff and families need access to social capital through 

strong, cross-cultural networks built on trust and 

respect. These networks should include family–teacher 

relationships, parent–parent relationships, and connections with community agencies and services. 

Confidence: Individual Level of 

Self-Efficacy

Staff and families need a sense of comfort and 
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Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

self-efficacy related to engaging in partnership activities and working across lines of cultural difference.

Cognition: Assumptions, Beliefs, and 

Worldview

Staff need to be committed to working as partners 

with families and must believe in the value of such 

partnerships for improving student learning. Families 

need to view themselves as partners in their children’s 

education, and must construct their roles in their children’s learning to include the multiple roles described 

in the Framework. 

The Framework suggests that before effective home–

school partnerships can be achieved at scale and sustained, these four components of partnership capacity 

must be enhanced among district/school staff and 

families. 

The 4 Cs can also be used to develop a set of criteria 

from which to identify metrics to measure and evaluate 

policy and program effectiveness.22 Examples of criteria 

aligned with the 4 Cs for both family and staff are 

included in the final section of this report.

Staff and Family Partnership 

Outcomes

Once staff and families have built the requisite capabilities, connections, confidence, and cognition, they will 

be able to engage in partnerships that will support 

student achievement and student learning. 

Staff who are prepared to engage in partnerships with 

families can:

• honor and recognize families’ existing knowledge, skill, and forms of engagement;

• create and sustain school and district cultures 

that welcome, invite, and promote family engagement; and

• develop family engagement initiatives and connect them to student learning and development. 

Families who, regardless of their racial or ethnic 

identity, educational background, gender, disability, 

or socioeconomic status, are prepared to engage in 

partnerships with school and districts can engage in 

diverse roles such as:

• Supporters of their children’s learning and 

development

• Encouragers of an achievement identity, a 

positive self image, and a “can do” spirit in 

their children

• Monitors of their children’s time, behavior, 

boundaries, and resources 

• Models of lifelong learning and enthusiasm 

for education 

• Advocates/Activists for improved learning opportunities for their children and at their schools

• Decision-makers/choosers of educational 

options for their children, the school, and 

their community 

• Collaborators with school staff and other 

members of the community on issues of 

school improvement and reform

As a result of this enhanced capacity on the part of 

families, districts and schools are able to cultivate and 

sustain active, respectful, and effective partnerships 

with families that foster school improvement, link to 

educational objectives, and support children’s learning 

and development. 

The Framework builds on existing research 

suggesting that partnerships between home 

and school can only develop and thrive if both 

families and staff have the requisite collective 

capacity to engage in partnership.
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Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships
13

In this section, we offer three cases of current efforts that bring the 

principles of the Dual Capacity-Building Framework to life. 

n the following sections, we offer three cases 

of current efforts that bring the principles of 

the Dual Capacity-Building Framework to life. 

The first case looks at Stanton Elementary 

School in Washington, DC, which has successfully 

implemented two strategies identified as best practices 

in family–school partnerships: home visits and 

academic parent–teacher teams. The second case looks 

at Boston Public Schools, whose Office of Family and 

Student Engagement builds capacity for partnership 

among both parents and educators through their Parent 

Academy and school-based Family–Community Outreach 

Coordinators. The third case describes California’s 

First 5 Santa Clara, a county-wide effort to support 

the healthy development of its residents aged 0–5 

through community-based Family Resource Centers and 

pre-kindergarten family programming. Throughout the 

case descriptions, we use italics to highlight the ways 

that these diverse efforts embody aspects of the Dual 

Capacity-Building Framework. While each case looks at 

a different level of organization—school, district, or 

county—they all speak to one another, and together 

they offer a sense of the breadth of possibilities 

inherent in the Framework.

CASE 1

Stanton Elementary School

A School in Crisis

In June 2010, Carolyn John learned that she had 

been chosen as the new principal of Stanton Elementary School, a start-up charter school located in the 

Anacostia neighborhood in southeast Washington, DC. 

Stanton was rated the lowest-performing elementary 

school in the district (DCPS). At the end of the 2010 

school year, only 15% of the students were proficient 

in math and a mere 9% were proficient in reading. One 

parent described the school this way: “These were elementary school kids, and they were running the school. 

Parents were disconnected, staff and families were battling one another, and many of the staff seemed not to 

care.” During the 2009–2010 school year, police were 

called to the elementary school on 24 occasions, and 

tensions and feelings of distrust were high between 

the school and parents. The school had been reconstituted two years earlier, and now had been identified 

for school turnaround by DCPS. Opting for the federal 

school turnaround “restart” model, the DCPS selected 

Scholar Academies, a charter-school management organization, to partner with Principal John and her staff 

to transform the school.

Armed with a new, energetic teaching staff, Principal 

John began the 2010–2011 school year with a focus on 

improving instruction, implementing a new behavior 

management system, and improving the school culture. 

Principal John stated, “We started out with all the 

strategies that dominate the school reform conversation, and figured if we did all of those things, we 

would see drastic improvement in six to eight months.” 

She said that she and her staff also scheduled all of 

the “boilerplate” family engagement events such as 

The Three Case Studies
14

Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

back-to-school nights, bake sales, parent–teacher conferences, cookouts, and school dances—none of which 

were well attended by parents.

Despite these efforts, academic performance did not 

improve; in fact, test scores declined, and the school 

culture remained extremely problematic. Over 250 

short-term suspensions were recorded within the first 25 

weeks of school, parent attendance at parent–teacher 

conferences was 12%, and there were frequent incidents 

of hostility and disrespect between family and community members and staff. Principal John stated that she 

spent over 90% of her time “putting out fires, literally 

and figuratively,” leaving little time to focus on teaching 

and learning. Staff were demoralized, with several stating that they went home each evening during the first 

year emotionally drained and distressed. Staff and parents refer to the 2010–2011 school year as “Year Zero” 

because of the lack of any real change at the school.

The Family Engagement Initiative 

at Stanton

In the spring of 2011, the Flamboyan Foundation partnered with DCPS’s Office of Family and Public Engagement to initiate a family engagement pilot program 

with a small number of schools. Schools were chosen 

for the initiative based on criteria that emphasized the 

school leader’s commitment to make family engagement part of the school’s core improvement strategy, 

their strength as an instructional leader, and their ability to make positive changes in the culture and climate 

of the school. Stanton was one of the schools chosen 

for the pilot. In the spring and summer of 2011, using 

SIG (School Improvement Grant) funding and a grant 

from the Flamboyan Foundation to support the initiative, the staff received training on two components 

of the pilot program: the Parent–Teacher Home Visit 

Project from Sacramento, California and the Academic 

Parent–Teacher Team model from Creighton, Arizona. 

Under the Parent–Teacher Home Visit Project (PTHVP), teachers and other school staff visit families 

with the goal of building relationships of trust and 

respect between home and school. These visits provide 

opportunities for educators to spend time in the 

neighborhoods in which they work and to listen to the 

perspectives of community members. The visits are not 

designed to be assessments of families; rather, they 

are relational in nature and are specifically designed to 

be respectful of families’ assets and strengths and to 

build the capacity of both the educator and the family 

to support the academic and social success of every 

student.23 Teachers begin the home visit conversations 

by asking families to share their hopes and dreams for 

their child as well as information about their child’s 

strengths and possible challenges. 

After their training by the Sacramento PTHVP team in 

the summer of 2011, Stanton teachers began conducting home visits to the families of their students. 

The staff set a goal of conducting 200 home visits by 

October 1; they exceeded their goal by completing 231 

visits by their deadline. Stanton parents said that the 

home visits changed everything about the previous 

relationships between home and school. Parent Nadia 

Williams24 stated, “the staff are so welcoming and 

inviting now, everyone greets parents when we come 

into the school. I’ve never had such positive relationships with school staff like I have here at Stanton.” 

Parents also stated that new positive energy at the 

school allowed them to shed any defensiveness they 

had previously felt when they interacted with staff. 

This then opened the parents up to listening to and 

learning from teachers and administrators. 

Parent Katrina Grant described the immediate impact 

of the home visit on her relationship with staff and her 

interactions with them:

What made me more engaged was the home visit. 

When they first called about the home visit, first, 

I was skeptical. I thought it was a CPS (Child 

Protection Services) visit. For the teachers to take 

the initiative, to come to my area where I live and 

have no problem with it, to sit in my living room, 

and ask about me and my child, that really meant 

something to me. It meant that this person is 

going to be my partner, and we were going to work 

together, and she cares for my child. The whole time 

we discussed my child. For me, that was the first 

engagement that signaled a change for me.

Before, I used to always be on my guard and feeling 

defensive. I’m not defensive anymore. I really appreciate that—by my not being defensive, it allows 

me to take in information. At one time, I was so 

defensive I wouldn’t hear a thing. Now, I trust when 

my children are here that they are in good hands. 

The staff has welcomed me to the point that now 

that they can say anything and tell me things and 

I’ll feel okay about it.

Parent Ellen Little made the distinction between the 

PTHVP home visits and other home visits she had 

received in the past:

To make a long story short, that home visit was the 

best visit of my life. Now, the teacher and I are so 

connected. I really appreciate these home visits; 
15

Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

when I was coming up we received home visits, but 

they were for CPS or they were for attendance issues. 

Home visits were for a lot of negative issues and so 

there are a lot of negative connotations around the 

idea of home visits. I’m glad that is changing.

Teachers commented that the effect of the summer 

and early fall home visits was felt “instantly.” Teacher 

Melissa Bryant commented, “We really saw the impact 

of the home visits at our first back-to-school night in 

September. We had set up a small number of chairs 

because of our usual low attendance, but then parents 

kept coming and coming. We had to run and get more 

chairs, and the next thing we knew, staff had to give 

up their seats for parents.” Teachers also stated how 

the home visits profoundly changed their perceptions 

of Stanton parents. “I used to put parents in boxes 

based on their engagement levels,” stated Bryant. 

“I learned from the home visits that all parents care 

about their children’s education. . . . If parents don’t 

help with academics, it’s because they don’t know how, 

not that they don’t care.” 

As staff began to develop relationships of trust and respect with families through the home visits, the second 

phase of the initiative was introduced: Academic Parent–Teacher Teams (APTT). The APTT model, developed 

by Dr. Maria Paredes, repurposes traditional parent–

teacher conferences with a focus on group learning and 

collaboration. Family members of all the children in a 

single class meet together with the teacher three times 

a year for 75 minutes, along with a single 30-minute individual parent–teacher conference. The APTT initiative 

provides a structure for parents to meet with teachers and converse, build networks with other parents, 

and learn ways to support their child’s academic skill 

development. The objectives of the APTT model include 

increasing parents’ efficacy and confidence to support 

student learning, and building school faculty capacity 

to work effectively with families.

Team meetings usually begin with icebreakers and time to 

celebrate the progress that students have made. Parents 

share with teachers and with one another the areas their 

child is struggling with, and the successful strategies 

they have been using to support their child’s learning. 

Teachers, in turn, explain what knowledge and skills the 

students are expected to master at each grade level. 

They present academic performance data for the entire 

class and give parents individual information about their 

own child’s performance. Teachers then model activities 

that parents can do at home with their child, and assist 

parents in setting goals for their child’s progress.25 

Stanton staff ran APTT meetings in the fall, focusing 

on reading and math goals for the year. Parents were 

given materials and a chance to learn and practice 

activities they could do with their children at home 

to help them master specific math and reading skills. 

These meetings were both interactive and collaborative; 

parents worked together with one another and with 

teachers to share techniques, practice activities, and 

celebrate success. Teachers found that these meetings 

not only served as a way to support parents, but as a 

way to inform their own teaching. They commented 

that they learned new skills from parents that they 

could use in their classroom instruction.

During the 2011–2012 school year, the Stanton staff 

conducted a total of 450 home visits and scheduled 

30 APTT meetings for families. During the previous 

year, only 12% of the families had attended parent–

teacher conferences. In 2011–2012, approximately 

55% of the parents attended all three APTT meetings. 

By the end of the 2012 school year, Stanton increased 

their math scores by more than 18 percentage points 

and reading scores by more than 9 percentage points. 

These increases were brought about through strategic interventions such as improving school culture, 

focusing on rigorous instruction, and through their 

new model of family engagement.26 School staff specifically point to the shift from a focus on behavior 

to a focus on academics as key in the building of new 

relationships of trust and respect between home and 

school. Teachers and families now describe Stanton as 

a “joyous place” where families, community members, 

and school staff work as a team to improve student 

achievement. Teacher Sheryl Garner discussed the 

shared responsibility and reciprocal relationships that 

have developed between her and the parents of the 

children in her classroom:

As a result of the home visits and the relationship 

building, parents meet up to the expectations 

that teachers have for parents, and then teachers 

meet up to the expectations that parents have for 

teachers. I know what the parent wants for their 

child, and they know what I want from their child 

and from them. I do my part, they do their part, and 

then the child does their part. We become the team.

By the end of the 2012 school year, Stanton 

increased their math scores by more than 18 

percentage points and reading scores by more 

than 9 percentage points. 
16

Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

Conclusion

The Stanton case provides a promising example of 

how building the capacity of both school staff and 

families to work in partnership, in combination with 

the other “essential supports”27 required for school 

improvement—effective leadership, the professional 

capacity of staff, a student-centered learning climate, 

and instructional support and guidance—can lead to 

dramatic shifts in the culture and climate of a school 

and in the academic outcomes for children. Principal 

John stated, “The work of family engagement is particularly important to me, my staff, and our community 

because experience has taught us that the adults in a 

school building alone cannot drive dramatic change 

by themselves.”

CASE 2

Boston Public Schools

Background

In the fall of 2008, Michele Brooks was hired on as 

the new Deputy Superintendent for Family and Student 

Engagement for the Boston Public Schools (BPS). A former parent organizer and member of the Boston School 

Committee, Brooks first assessed the “current state” of 

family and community engagement at BPS. What she 

found was a system in which “great things, wonderful 

things, were happening in pockets...but it was all 

random and not connected.” Her task—and that of 

her staff over the coming years—would be to build a 

system that was cohesive, coordinated, and integrated 

across the district. A key piece of this effort would involve building the capacity of teachers, administrators, 

district personnel, and families to engage in authentic 

school–home partnerships. 

Brooks had inherited a district with a long history of 

efforts to engage families, dating back to Judge Arthur 

Garrity’s 1974 desegregation order and the creation 

of the Citywide Parents Council. These efforts became 

more institutionalized in 1995 with the establishment 

of the Parent Support Services Office, and then in 2002 

with the creation of the Office of Family and Community 

Engagement (OFCE) and the position of Deputy Superintendent for Family and Community Engagement. By the 

time Brooks took over, the OFCE—now restructured as 

the Office of Family and Student Engagement (OFSE)—

had made progress in a number of areas. Most notably, they had established the position of Family and 

Community Outreach Coordinator (FCOC)—school-based 

personnel dedicated to increasing family engagement 

at the school level. But even though decades of work 

around family engagement had led to broad consensus 

about the value and meaning of family engagement, the 

OFSE, and the system as a whole, struggled to translate 

robust policies into effective implementation. 

One of the major issues Brooks faced was that many 

people, both inside and outside the OFSE, assumed 

it was the job of OFSE staff to directly engage families. But with 22 staff and around 38,000 families in 

the district, there was no way the OFSE could do this 

alone. So Brooks led a strategic planning process that 

reframed the work of engaging families as the responsibility of everyone in the district. The role of the OFSE, 

then, would be to build the capacity of the district to 

engage families. In fact, the OFSE incorporated a fourpronged approach to capacity building:

• build the capacity of families to become engaged as partners in their children’s education;

• build the capacity of school staff to understand 

the benefits of family engagement and build 

school-wide and individual practice;

• build the capacity of students to be actively 

engaged in their own learning; and

• build the capacity of the district to promote 

core values of engagement and to develop an 

infrastructure that includes accountability. 
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Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

Brooks stated, “Once we identified our new direction 

of building capacity for family engagement, our office 

did an assessment of where we were at in terms of our 

own current capacity. We wanted to assess where we 

already had systems, structures, and programming, and 

where we needed to improve.” They found that building family capacity was by far their most developed 

strength. The OFSE had been working to make Family 

Resource Centers more family friendly, offering SchoolSite Council trainings, and improving communication 

with parents. In 2009, they launched Parent University, 

a capacity-building initiative that now serves as a national model. But when it came to building school and 

district capacity, Brooks and her staff saw the need for 

new and innovative efforts. 

Building Teacher Capacity

Efforts to build the capacity of school personnel to engage families had so far been promising but sporadic. 

So the OFSE went to its teacher and principal advisory 

groups to inquire into exactly where school staff needed the most support and training. Teachers explained 

that they needed a way to better leverage conversations that they were already having with families. As 

Brooks explained, 

They wanted to move beyond the “your child is a 

good child, your child is doing well in school” kind 

of conversations that were perfunctory. They wanted 

to know, “How do we talk to parents about student 

progress? How do we engage families in ways that 

will link them to learning and what is happening 

in our classrooms?” Teachers wanted to know about 

how to talk to parents about student outcomes. So 

that was an area that we knew as the OFSE that we 

needed to build our own internal capacity. 

As a result, the OFSE—in collaboration with teachers, the Office of Curriculum and Instruction, the 

Office of Communications, and the initiative “Countdown to Kindergarten”—developed the Family Guides 

to Learning. These guides, which cover the skills 

and knowledge students should be learning at each 

grade level, serve not only as a resource for families, 

but as a tool to help teachers build their capacity 

to have effective conversations with families. Only 

given to schools that agree to use them as a teacher 

tool, the Guides are often used during parent–teacher conferences to facilitate discussions of outcomes 

and student trajectories. The OFSE offers trainings 

and a “tip sheet” to teachers for using the Guides 

with families.

Next, the OFSE developed a 12-hour professional development series on family engagement that teachers could 

opt into. Teachers in the course had the opportunity to 

examine their current practice, understand the research on 

family engagement, and learn how they could apply that 

research in building up their personal engagement practices. A large component of the training, Brooks explains, 

...focused on cultural proficiency. Who are your families? How do you know who your families are? We gave 

them tools around home visits, “listening” conferences 

instead of traditional parent–teacher conferences, and 

student-led parent–teacher conferences. We tried to 

give them all these different strategies that would help 

them understand their students and their families more 

deeply and to build effective engagement practice. 

Since the professional development sessions were developed in 2011, they have been continually assessed 

and revised. Most recently, they were aligned with the 

new Massachusetts Educator Evaluation Standards, 

which include family and community engagement as 

one of the four “pillars” of effective teaching. Soon 

they will be offering a 60-hour credit-bearing class in 

conjunction with the BPS Office of Educator Effectiveness. Teachers will “test into” the course based on 

their level of proficiency. Some of the teachers who 

took the 12-hour course have been selected to serve 

as faculty and teacher leaders for the district on family 

engagement. Veteran teacher Ilene Carver, who was 

identified as a teacher leader in the initiative, has long 

been an advocate for building the capacity of school 

staff to partner with families. Carver stated:

I would not have survived my first year of teaching if I hadn’t built relationships with the families 

that I taught. I feel that my success as a teacher is 

dependent on my relationships with families. I tell 

teachers that “your survival is dependent on these 

partnerships with families as well as a factor in 

affecting student outcomes.” I am thrilled that this 

is finally happening, that the district is looking at 

the training of teachers as a part of a systemic plan 

to cultivate partnerships. 

The Boston Public Schools story highlights the 

possibilities for creating engagement initiatives 

that are systemic across a district, integrated into 

the work of teaching and learning, and that build 

school and district capacity at multiple levels. 
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Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

Building Whole-School Capacity

Though individual teacher practice is a key piece of 

family engagement, Brooks and her staff saw that for 

engagement to be integrated and sustainable, it would 

need to be addressed on the school level. While the 

Family Guides to Learning were in development in the 

spring of 2009, the OFSE started to work with teachers and principals on their whole-school improvement 

plans. The OFSE wanted to ensure that schools had a 

viable family engagement strategy that was linked to 

its instructional strategy. Based on promising practice 

in Boston and around the country, they created a set of 

criteria for, and examples of, “high-impact strategies” 

aligned with district academic targets. These criteria 

included strategies that:

• target a specific grade level or group of students;

• focus on the mastery of a specific task;

• provide a specific role for families to play in the 

mastery of that task; and

• involve two-way communication between home 

and school around task mastery.

The OFSE created binders with support materials to 

help teachers and principals build their whole-school 

improvement plans—links to outside resources, 

suggestions for how to raise funds, etc. Although the 

OFSE offered specific examples of initiatives, they also 

encouraged schools to be creative. As Brooks says, 

the examples were presented as “ideas, we wanted the 

schools to take them and use them as their own—to 

be tweaked to fit their school’s context.”

Implementation varied by school. Some schools were 

very successful at implementing the strategies. In others, however, the information was used to write family 

engagement into the whole-school improvement plan, 

after which the document languished on the shelf. The 

OFSE heard from principals that the strategies were a 

challenge to implement because family engagement was 

still seen as an add-on and as not aligned with curriculum requirements such as scope and sequencing. So the 

OFSE went back to the drawing board and worked with 

the Office of Curriculum and Instruction to align their 

high-impact strategies with BPS curriculum materials so 

that the engagement strategies would not be seen as 

an add on. These new strategies came out in 2012.

Moreover, Brooks has been working hard to improve the 

Family Community Outreach Coordinator (FCOC) Initiative. When the OFSE took stock of the current state 

of the initiative, they found a very uneven terrain. So 

they looked into what divided schools where FCOCs 

were able to be effective from those where they were 

not. They found that “[s]uccessful schools have created 

specific conditions for engagement and have utilized 

their FCOC as a catalyst for building effective practice. 

FCOC schools with moderate-to-low impact generally 

have not utilized the FCOC in a way that would build 

internal capacity among school staff to effectively engage families.”28 In other words, the FCOCs were facing 

a similar dilemma. It was assumed by many that the 

FCOCs’ job was to do family engagement on their own—

so any issue related to a family was simply dropped in 

their lap. The OFSE got to work shifting the role of the 

FCOCs toward being family engagement coaches and 

providing technical assistance. To this end, they developed a set of effective practices for the FCOCs.

Building District Capacity

When it came to building capacity at the district level, 

there were strong policies and protocols in place that 

could serve as a foundation for building a system-wide 

infrastructure. For example, the BPS framework “The 

Seven Essentials for Whole School Improvement” 

named family engagement as “essential.” Family 

engagement also appears in the district’s “Dimensions 

of Effective Teaching and School Leadership.” What 

was not articulated, however, was how such standards 

would be implemented. 

Brooks and her staff took these various policies and 

standards to the Deputy Superintendents in charge of 

those areas and said, “This is a part of your work. It 

overlaps with the work of the OFSE. Let us help you 

meet the requirements for family engagement. . . . 

OFSE will be able to give you what you need so that 

you won’t have to figure out this family engagement 

piece on your own.” In this way, OFSE acted not as a 

monitor but as a partner. They recognized that others 

were going to be held accountable for family engagement, and offered to help build their capacity. This 

served as a strategy for building relationships across 

departments and embedding family engagement as a 

shared, district-wide responsibility.

In one example of such cross-district collaboration, 

when the Family Guides first came out they were 

distributed not by OFSE but by the district’s Curriculum and Instruction coaches. In another example, the 

OFSE brought in the Office of Curriculum and Instruction in to work on the parent workshops at Parent 

University. Brooks is proud of these collaborations, 
19

Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

which offer chances to share knowledge and expertise in both directions.

We’re integrated across the district. We have staff 

on the literacy panel, we have certified teachers 

coaching the OFSE staff on instructional rounds so 

that when OFSE staff do a walkthrough, they are 

not just making the connections to family engagement but to other curriculum and instruction areas 

as well.

One of the biggest challenges for OFSE at the district 

level has been assessment; the office is currently 

working on improving data collection and evaluation. 

Brooks regrets not focusing on this earlier in her 

tenure. The OFSE enlisted the leadership development 

group Ed Pioneers to help them collect the right data, 

and then added staff with program evaluation experience. Moreover, the team created processes to help 

everyone shift to an evaluation mindset, so when they 

start to talk about a new strategy they also have a 

conversation about how to evaluate it, asking: “What’s 

the problem of practice we are trying to solve and then 

how will we evaluate impact?” Today they are getting a 

handle on their current “baseline” and are much more 

clear about the questions they are trying to answer. 

With this new focus on assessment, the OFSE has 

worked with the Office of Assessment to develop the 

BPS School Climate Survey, which addresses effective 

family engagement practice in schools. Every year, before the surveys go out, OFSE runs promotions to reach 

families. The Office of Assessment oversees the survey 

and then passes the results to OFSE, so that OFSE can 

work with the schools on areas that need improvement. 

Conclusion

The BPS story highlights the possibilities for creating 

engagement initiatives that are systemic across a district, integrated into the work of teaching and learning, 

and that build school and district capacity at multiple 

levels. But perhaps its most important lesson is about 

the need for a shift in mindset: family engagement 

cannot be seen as the job of a single person or office, 

but as a shared responsibility. As Brooks puts it:

Capacity building was really about changing the 

way we worked together, and changing the way we 

looked at our work. Family engagement wasn’t just 

the OFSE’s work; it was everybody’s work. Some 

OFSE staff wanted to hold the work and claim it as 

their own—everybody was to go through them to 

get the work done. Now, others have the capacity to 

talk about and act on the family engagement work 

in a way that is aligned with effective practice—

OFSE let it go so it could grow. 

CASE 3

First 5 Santa Clara County

Background

Jolene Smith was working for the Santa Clara County 

Social Service Agency when she was asked by County Supervisor Blanca Alvarado to lead a community 

planning process addressing how the county could best 

support the education and healthy development of its 

youngest residents, prenatal to age five. Santa Clara 

County, CA, at the southern end of the Bay Area, covers a sprawling array of cities and suburbs. The county 

is best known as the home of Silicon Valley. However, 

the tech wealth concentrated in the county is far from 

equally distributed across its population of 1.75 million; more than 9% of the population lives below the 

poverty line. Over 50% of residents speak a language 

other than English at home. The county is home to 

120,000 children under the age of five.29 Under Smith’s 

direction, the newly created Early Childhood Development Collaborative (ECDC) ran a two-year community-based planning process, speaking with thousands of 

residents across the county. As Smith recounts, “Over 

5,000 people in Santa Clara County—families, children, 

professionals, folks in the early childhood community, 

business, law enforcement—really those 5,000 voices 

developed our strategic plan.” 
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Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

Participants were asked, “What needs to be in place 

for your child to grow healthy and strong and reach 

their full potential?” These conversations resulted in a 

call for a “family-centered approach” to child development, focused on supporting parents as children’s “first 

teachers.” Parents identified a great need for “access to 

information about how to really nurture and grow their 

healthy, happy child.” The process resulted in a bold 

vision for change. But, says Smith, at the time there 

was no money for implementation. “That was going to 

be our next big challenge: how were we going to raise 

the money to implement these strategies the community had come up with?”

In 1998, Californians voted to pass Proposition 10, 

which added a 50-cent tax to each pack of cigarettes 

sold in the state and funded the establishment of the 

California Children and Families Commission, or First 

5 California. In order to carry out its vision that “all 

children in California enter school ready to achieve 

their greatest potential,” First 5 California dispersed 

funds to local commissions in each of the state’s 58 

counties, charging them with establishing a system of 

services for children and families. Because Santa Clara 

County had already developed a plan, it was among the 

very first counties to apply for Prop. 10 funding. The 

County received $27 million dollars, and First 5 Santa 

Clara County was born. 

Today, First 5 Santa Clara County works with over 40 

nonprofit, school district, and government partners to 

offer a broad array of services. All services are based 

in “natural support systems” and draw on the existing 

organizations and resources in a community. As Smith, 

who is now the organization’s CEO, explains, the goal 

is systemic integration: “Our vision here in Santa Clara 

County is to act as a catalyst for ensuring that the 

developmental needs of children ages 0–5 are a priority 

in all sectors of the community.” When it comes to 

education, First 5 Santa Clara’s parent-centered approach offers the training, resources, and opportunities 

parents need to support their children’s learning from 

infancy, and to partner with schools as their children 

transition into kindergarten. 

Supporting Families in the 

Franklin-McKinley School District

When Dr. John Porter took over as Superintendent 

of the Franklin-McKinley School District in San Jose, 

California in 2006, he was returning to California after 

working 12 years with school districts in New Jersey 

and around the nation. He came to Franklin-McKinley 

with a firm belief in the importance of early childhood 

development to later school success, but he was frustrated by the Balkanized approach to early childhood 

funding and services in California. The shining light, 

however, was First 5 Santa Clara, which early on had 

chosen Franklin-McKinley as one of its targeted school 

districts. Porter—whom Smith calls a “visionary man” 

who “truly believes in early learning”—would work 

closely with First 5 Santa Clara over the next seven 

years to expand its existing initiatives and develop 

new ones. 

At the time, First 5 Santa Clara was running a Family 

Support Center (FRC) out of a portable school building 

at McKinley Elementary. Together, Porter and First 5 

Santa Clara expanded the FRC’s capacity and moved it 

into a more permanent space at Santee Elementary. A 

centerpiece of First 5 Santa Clara’s work with school 

districts, the FRCs are multi-service centers, run by 

local partners, which offer a menu of resources, workshops, and learning opportunities for families. Parents 

who come to an FRC find child enrichment activities, 

assistance with health insurance, and courses on 

topics such as early literacy, positive parenting, parent 

advocacy, and nutrition. As Porter explains, FRCs have 

pre-planned programming, but also adapt to the needs 

of attending parents.

They are like a broker for information for families, 

but they offer specific training as well. ...And 

every once and a while if they find a need they do 

something fun with parents. I watched a dance 

class the other day that they spun off and sponsored for the parents after they did their training. 

They can go anywhere the parents that they work 

with want them to go, but their focus is on making sure every parent has the skills necessary for 

their child to be successful at school.

The FRCs house “community workers,” paraprofessionals 

whose job it is to reach out to families in the community, share information related to health, development 

and education, and link them with the services at the 

FRC. Alongside the community workers are “associate 

community workers,” volunteers from the community, 

many of whom had formerly used the resource centers 

as parents. Rather than treating each parent as an 

individual learner, the FRCs are built on a collaborative model in which families build connections with 

one another through mutual teaching and support, 

and in which the knowledge and skills of families are 

valued. As Laura Buzo, Program Director for the Family 

Resource Centers, explains:
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Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

Oftentimes you find parents—especially the immigrant, monolingual, Spanish-speaking parents 

who may not have any other family here—who feel 

they are the only ones struggling with these issues, 

whether it be learning their child may have a learning disability, or their husband just got laid off. By 

building a sense of community, parents look to each 

other for support and information sharing. So a lot 

of activities are about helping the parents learn from 

each other. What we really want community workers 

to communicate to the parents is that the community worker doesn’t know everything. The parents 

have a lot of information, have a lot of knowledge, 

have a lot of resources that they can share with one 

another....So we do find that the parents do end 

up connecting, and becoming a community in the 

FRC, which really spills out into other areas of the 

neighborhood and community, because then those 

parents start taking a leadership role and then they 

bring other parents in, or they go out and talk to 

other families about what they’re learning.

Locating the FRCs on or near school campuses is an 

explicit strategy aimed at helping parents get to know 

their local schools and building trust between schools 

and families. For Porter, this is an important opportunity for teachers and principals to meet both current 

and future parents, and to experience the kind of 

support the centers offer. He says that this opportunity 

has changed how schools relate to incoming kindergarten parents; the schools now focus more on preparing 

parents before their child starts classes. In addition, he 

says, principals sometimes learn techniques and information from the FRCs and use them to support parents 

of children in the higher grades. 

Building School–Child–Family 

Relationships in the Transition 

to Kindergarten

Not long after taking over as Superintendent, Dr. Porter 

asked First 5 Santa Clara CEO Jolene Smith and Lisa 

Kaufman, from the county Office of Education, to sit 

down and discuss a pressing need he saw in the district: how to support incoming kindergarten students 

who have not had prior school experience, either in 

preschool or through Head Start. This discussion resulted in Kinder Academy, which was piloted at Santee Elementary in 2010. Kinder Academy is a summer bridge 

program that runs for three weeks before the start of 

kindergarten. During this time, incoming kindergarteners attend classes with their assigned kindergarten 

teacher. As teacher Jan White describes,

It’s more social than the regular classroom. It’s all 

about learning routines, how we look at books, turn 

the pages, sit on the circle, teaching the procedures. And it’s teaching many of them to get along 

with other kids. It’s all about getting them excited 

to come to school. 

Meanwhile, parents are taking part in First 5 Santa Clara’s popular parent program, Abriendo Puertas (Opening Doors). Developed by the L.A.-based 

nonprofit Families in Schools, Abriendo Puertas (AP) 

is described by Smith as an “evidence-based parent 

empowerment program, where they learn to be really 

strong advocates and partners with their child’s teacher.” The ten-week course, taught by local parents, is 

framed around the idea of the parent as the child’s 

first teacher, and the curriculum30 covers the many 

roles that parents play in supporting their children’s 

education and development—supporting learning at 

home, making decisions about learning opportunities, 

advocating for their child’s needs, and collaborating 

with educators. The interactive nature of the workshops, with plenty of roleplaying, allows parents to 

practice skills such as having a one-on-one conversation with a teacher or voicing concerns to district 

staff. But perhaps more profoundly, the course seeks 

to shift the way parents see themselves, building 

parents’ beliefs in their own abilities to support 

learning and advocate in the school system. Parents 

who graduate from AP report feeling significantly 

more capable across an array of areas including helping their children learn, being involved in school, 

and feeling connected to their community. According 

to Kinder Academy teacher Jan White, the course has 

a visible effect. 

It is evident with the number of parents I’ll have 

on the first day of school. They’ll all be there, ready 

to go, “What can I do to help?” Even the ones that 

don’t speak the same language, we communicate 

and they are right in there helping. I’ve had an 

amazing amount of parent support.

The overarching mission of Kinder Academy is relational. The program is designed to facilitate ongoing 

interactions among the parents, the child, and the 

First 5 Santa Clara County offers a bright 

example of how to build capacity for home–

school partnerships in a systemic, sustained way 

at the county level. 
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Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

future kindergarten teacher. Because of these interactions, according to Smith, “when the teacher goes 

into their classroom in September, the children know 

them, they know what to expect...and parents have a 

relationship with the teacher. So the triangle engagement has already begun.” In fact, this commitment 

to relationships undergirds all of First 5 Santa Clara’s 

programming. As Smith explains:

The premise of everything we do is based on 

engagement and relationship from an ecological 

perspective aimed at the healthy development 

of the child. That is the number one charge, all 

the way from the top of the system down to what 

happens at the street level. That’s why the operators of our FRCs are community organizations 

from the neighborhoods, so the relationship is 

already there. Parents trust the place, they trust 

what they learn. We have associate volunteers 

[from the community] engaged in the design, the 

recruitment, because neighbors trust neighbors. 

Then as we move up into the school-system level, 

it’s all about relationships and engagement: the 

parent–child–teacher relationship, the school 

administrator–parent–child relationship, the superintendent’s relationship to what is happening 

in the classroom.

For Jan White, relationships with parents have been 

vital to her work as a classroom teacher. White uses 

the Kinder Academy time to begin her home visits with 

parents, where she works to develop partnershiporiented relationships: “Just building that relationship 

with the parents and letting them know that we’re on 

the same team, that we’re working on this together.” 

Over time, these relationships have helped to shape 

her views of parents, and her job satisfaction.

I have gained an amazing amount of respect 

for what our parents go through, and I have to 

say I’m not sure I could overcome many of the 

obstacles that they overcame. I highly respect 

what they do, and even though it may not always 

be the way I do it, or the way I would do it, or 

how I think they should do it, I don’t think I’ve 

met a parent yet who wouldn’t do whatever they 

could to help their child do better in school. They 

just don’t always know how. I have grown to love 

and respect these parents very much. That’s why I 

don’t leave.

Leadership Pipeline: A Parent’s 

Experience

Christina Hernandez learned about First 5 Santa Clara 

when her second child was heading into kindergarten 

at Santee Elementary School. A stay-at-home mother 

with two children, Hernandez was concerned about her 

son’s transition into school, particularly because he 

had no previous experience with preschool or daycare. 

When she received a letter inviting her to Kinder Academy, Hernandez enrolled. Three weeks before the start 

of the school year, her son began attending sessions 

with his soon-to-be kindergarten teacher. 

While her son was learning how to get along with 

other kids, Hernandez was in AP, where she remembers learning useful information about healthy 

eating and healthy living. She also says that she 

developed the knowledge and the confidence she 

needed to navigate the public school system. When 

she found out that her son had a hearing impairment, she was able to take steps to support him at 

home and in school. 

I was able to talk to the teacher and see if she’d 

seen any changes, or anything catching her attention. She did see that he wouldn’t respond when 

he would sit in the back. So I was actually able to 

talk to her and see if she would let him participate 

more, get him involved more in activities, sit him 

up in the front. Through her I was able to talk to 

the principal, have a one-on-one about how we 

were going to take Isaac and give him the speech 

support he needed.

Through Kinder Academy, Hernandez learned about the 

Family Resource Centers, eventually serving as a parent 

volunteer and assisting facilitators with their classes 

and workshops. Today she works in the FRC as part 

of the Quality Early Learning Opportunities program, 

which offers childcare and enrichment for children 

whose parents are taking part in FRC activities. As program director Buzo explains, “Hernandez is an excellent 

example of how parents can begin by taking a single 

program and then develop into community leaders.” 

Hernandez reports being at school every day, speaking 

with her children’s teachers about how her children are 

doing in school and how she can help them at home. 

She also helps other parents, connecting them to services through the FRC. 
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Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

For Hernandez, the biggest benefits of involvement are 

the new connections she’s built to her community and 

the example she sets for her children.

I feel more connected to my community now. I was 

a stay-at-home mom for seven years. I would just 

stay at home, and go drop them off [at school]. 

Now I don’t just walk straight home. I participate 

at the FRC, and I have something to look forward 

to. I see other parents, and they see what I’ve 

done, and they see that if I could do it anyone 

could do it....My kids, seeing what I’ve done, that 

I’ve got confidence.

Conclusion

First 5 Santa Clara County offers a bright example of 

how to build capacity for home–school partnerships in 

a systemic, sustained way at the county level. Through 

its partnership with districts like Franklin-McKinley, 

First 5 Santa Clara has helped to empower a population 

of confident, knowledgeable parents who can support 

and advocate for their children. The program has also 

fostered a school system that values parental involvement and builds strong relationships with families and 

communities. Recently, First 5 Santa Clara has been increasing its efforts to support teachers in reaching out 

to parents; a pilot program is placing “family support 

specialists” in classrooms to facilitate teacher–parent 

interactions and to help parents connect with available 

resources. As Superintendent Porter explains, “What 

First 5 has done is help districts keep their eye on the 

ball with what parents need to be better advocates for 

their child when they start right away at school, and 

not wait for the shoe to drop later on.” 
24

Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships
25

Schools, districts, and government agencies across the country are 

becoming more aware of the importance of building family–school 

partnerships that are focused on student learning and development. 

chools, districts, and government agencies 

across the country are becoming more aware 

of the importance of building family–school 

partnerships that are focused on student 

learning and development. This paradigm shift can 

clearly be seen in the increasing number of federal and 

state policies that include family engagement as an 

integral part of school and district reform. As educators and policymakers become clearer on the why of 

engagement, they are still struggling with the how. We 

argue that these struggles emerge in part from a lack of 

attention to building capacity among families, teachers, 

administrators, and other stakeholders. 

In this paper, we have shared a framework for designing partnership initiatives that build capacity 

among families and schools while supporting student 

learning. We do not offer a one-size-fits-all prescription because any effort must begin by assessing local 

conditions, assets, and needs. The cases we describe 

above should give some sense of the diverse models 

being developed around the nation, and these are 

far from exhaustive. Instead of a roadmap, we offer 

those developing family engagement programs and 

policies a compass, a reorientation toward adult 

learning and development that can lay the foundation for the family and community ties that the 

Chicago Consortium has shown are so integral to 

whole-school reform (See Figure 1 on page 4).

As the cases above make clear, programs for building capacity for family–school partnerships need not 

always be carried out prior to, or in addition to, other 

engagement activities. Capacity-building can be built 

into the very fabric of an initiative by designing it 

according to the process and organizational conditions 

outlined in the Framework. An initiative that is relational, collaborative, and developmental can build capacity at the same time that it directly addresses student success. So, while building capacity does require 

resources, it need not divert attention from the shared 

concerns of parents and educators: the students. For 

those designing new family engagement programs or 

policies, we hope the Dual Capacity-Building Framework can serve as a scaffold for planning. Educators 

and policy makers can lay a strong foundation for ambitious engagement efforts by including capacity goals 

for families and staff and by embedding the necessary 

process and organizational conditions from the very 

start. For those who are already running family–school 

partnership initiatives, the Framework can serve as a 

tool for facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogue. Having 

stakeholders work through the Framework components 

together can clarify where an initiative is strong and 

where more work is needed. 

Moreover, the Framework’s goals and outcomes can be 

used as the basis for developing metrics that measure 

capacity growth among family and staff. The following 

are examples of possible criteria based around the 4 Cs 

of capacity development and aligned with the outcomes for family and staff.

Capabilities: • Families have increased their knowledge and 

understanding of what their children should 

 The Framework reveals that, in order for family–

school partnerships to succeed, the adults 

responsible for children’s education must learn 

and grow, just as they support learning and 

growth among students.

Conclusion and Recommendations
26

Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

know and be able to do from birth through 

secondary school and have increased their portfolio of tools and activities that they can use to 

enhance their children’s learning.

• Families have enhanced knowledge and understanding of educational policies and programs, 

such as those associated with special needs and 

Title I. 

• Families have enhanced their own skills associated with literacy and language acquisition, 

degree completion, and job skills.

• District and school staff have increased their 

knowledge of the assets and funds of knowledge 

of the families and communities they work in.

• District and school staff have increased their 

knowledge and understanding of culturally 

responsive practices and pedagogy. 

• District and school staff have increased their 

portfolio of ways to reach out and build respectful and trusting relationships with families. 

Connections: • Levels of relational trust have increased between 

families and school staff.

• The number and scope of parent-to-parent 

networks and connections has increased.

• The number of cross-cultural networks (across 

race, socioeconomic status, education level, 

etc.) have increased between school staff and 

families.

• Families and staff have increased their connections to community agencies and services.

Confidence: • Families and school staff indicate an increase 

in their comfort level and sense of self-efficacy 

when engaging in home–school partnership 

events and activities.

• An increased number of families and staff from 

diverse backgrounds take on positions of leadership at the school or in the community.

Cognition: • Families’ beliefs about the role they play in their 

children’s education have broadened to include 

multiple roles.

• District and school staff members’ core beliefs 

about family engagement have been discussed 

and documented.

• Staff and families’ belief systems about the 

value of home–school partnerships are linked to 

learning and school improvement.

• Staff have a commitment to family engagement 

as a core strategy to improve teaching and 

learning.

In addition to long-term assessment of student learning and development, these criteria offer proximal 

outcomes that can serve as early and ongoing evidence of successes and challenges, offering invaluable 

information for assessing and improving initiatives. In 

Boston, for example, the Office of Family and Student 

Engagement has begun measuring proximal31 outcomes 

such as proficient practice among educators, what 

families know and are able to do, and how welcoming 

schools are to families and community members. Assessment tools aligned with the Framework are already 

available, including the Harvard Graduate School of 

Education PreK–12 Parent Survey.32 Designed in collaboration with SurveyMonkey, the Parent Survey measures 

capacity-related outcomes such as school climate and 

parents’ feelings of self-efficacy.

The knowledge distilled in the Dual Capacity-Building 

Framework is the result of decades of work by teachers, 

parents, researchers, administrators, policy makers, and 

community members. The Framework reveals that, in 

order for family–school partnerships to succeed, the 

adults responsible for children’s education must learn 

and grow, just as they support learning and growth 

among students.
27

Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships

1. The terms family/ies and parent/s are used in this paper to 

represent any adult caretakers who have responsibility for the 

well-being of a child or children. This includes, for example, 

biological parents, foster care providers, grandparents, aunts 

and uncles, siblings, or fictive kin.

2. Mapp, K. (2011). Title I and parent involvement: Lessons from 

the past, recommendations for the future. Conference paper 

prepared for “Tightening Up Title I” symposium, Center for 

American Progress and the American Enterprise Institute.

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family engagement in education: National PTA reference guide. 

National PTA.

4. Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary 

Education. (2012). Massachusetts model system for educator 

evaluation: Part III: Guide to rubrics and model rubrics for 

superintendent, administrator, and teacher. Author.

5. Henderson, A.T., & Mapp, K. L. (2002). A new wave of evidence: 

The impact of school, family and community connections on 

student learning. Austin, TX: Southwest Education Development 

Laboratory; Dearing, E., Kreider, H., & Weiss, H. B. (2008). 

Increased family involvement in school predicts improved 

child-teacher relationships and feelings about school for low 

income children. Marriage & Family Review, 43(3/4), 226–254; 

Jeynes, W. H. (2005). A meta-analysis of the relation of parental involvement to urban elementary school student academic 

achievement. Urban Education, May 2005, 40(3), 237–269; 

Jeynes, W. H. (2007). The relationship between parental 

involvement and urban secondary school student academic 

achievement. Urban Education, 42(1), 82–110; Jeynes, W. 

(2012). A meta-analysis of the efficacy of different types of 

parental involvement programs for urban students. Urban Education, 47(4), 706–742; DeCastro, B. S., & Catsambis, S. (2009). 

Parents still matter: Parental links to the behaviors and future 

outlook of high school seniors. In N. Hill and R. Chao, (Eds.), 

Families, schools, and the adolescent: Connecting research, 

policy, and practice. New York: Teachers College Press.

6. Bryk, A. S., Sebring, P. B., & Allensworth, E. (2009). Organizing 

schools for improvement: Lessons from Chicago. Chicago: 

University of Chicago Press.

7. Patrikakou, E. N., Weissberg, R. P., Redding, S. & Walberg, H. J. 

(2005). School-family partnerships: Enhancing the academic, 

social, and emotional learning of children. In E. N. Patrikakou, 

R. P. Weissberg, S. Redding & H. J. Walberg, (Eds.), School-family partnerships for children’s success. (pp. 1–17). New York: 

Teacher College Press.

8. Caspe, M., Lopez, M. E., Chu, A., & Weiss, H. B. (2011). 

Teaching the teachers: Preparing educators to engage families 

for student achievement [Issue Brief]. Cambridge, MA: Harvard 

Family Research Project and Alexandria, VA: National PTA.; Hess, 

F. M., & Kelly, A. P. (2005). Learning to Lead? What Gets Taught 

in Principal Preparation Programs. Program on Education Policy 

and Governance at Harvard University.; Markow, D., & Pieters, 

A. (2009). The MetLife survey of the American teacher: 

Collaborating for student success. New York, NY: MetLife.

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leadership through building social and intellectual capital. 

American Educational Research Journal, 48(1), 4–38. 

10. Gill Kressley, K. (2008, August). Breaking new ground: Seeding 

proven practices into proven programs. Paper presented at the 

2008 National PIRC Conference, Baltimore, MD.

11. Sebring, P. B. (2012, March). Community social capital and 

school improvement. Paper presented at the National Community 

and School Reform Conference at the Harvard Graduate School 

of Education, Cambridge, MA.

12. U.S. Department of Education. (2008). 2003–2006 Monitoring 

Cycle Report. Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, 

Student Achievement and School Accountability Programs. 

Retrieved July 29, 2009 from http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/

account/monitoring/monitoringcyclerpt1008.pdf

13. Markow, D., Macia, L., & Lee, H. (2012). The MetLife survey of 

the American teacher: Challenges for School Leadership. New 

York, N.Y: MetLife.

14. Bolivar, J. M., & Chrispeels, J. H. (2010). Enhancing parent 

Leadership through building social and intellectual capital. 

American Educational Research Journal, 48(1), 4–38. 

15. Lawrence-Lightfoot, S. (2003). The essential conversation: 

What parents and teachers can learn from each other. New York: 

Random House. 

16. Mapp, K. L. (2011). Title I and parent involvement: Lessons from 

the past, recommendations for the future. Conference paper 

prepared for the “Tightening Up Title I” symposium, Center for 

American Progress and the American Enterprise Institute.

17. Warren, M. & Mapp, K. L. (2011). A match on dry grass: Community organizing as a catalyst for school reform. New York: Oxford 

University Press.

18. Weiss, H. B., Lopez M. E., & Rosenberg, H. (2011). Beyond 

random acts: Family, school, and community engagement as an 

integral part of education reform. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Family 

Research Project. Retrieved from http://www.nationalpirc.org

/engagement_forum/beyond_random_acts.pdf

19. Bryk, A. S. (April, 2010). Organizing schools for improvement. 

Phi Delta Kappan, 91(7), 23–30. 

20. Mapp, K. L. (2011). Title I and parent involvement: Lessons 

from the past, recommendations for the future. Conference paper prepared for the “Tightening Up Title I” symposium, Center 

for American Progress and the American Enterprise Institute.

21. Higgins, M.C. (2005). Career imprints: Creating leaders across an 

industry. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

22. Tools such as the Survey Monkey Harvard Graduate School of 

Education Pre-K–12 Parent Survey have been designed to capture data and evaluate these family engagement indicators. 

23. Henderson A. E., Hill, N. &, Mapp, K. L. (2011). Request for 

Proposal Document for the Parent–Teacher Home Visit Project. 

24. Parent names in the Stanton case are all pseudonyms.

25. Flamboyan Foundation. (2012). Academic Parent Teacher Team 

Meeting, Stanton Elementary School. Retrieved from http://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YNsWrFiYfY&list=UUvEdSQawiMKMU-muuc1j0YA&index=3&feature=plcp 

26. DCPS Press Release: Five-year DC CAS Scores Show Steady Growth 

Areas for Improvement. (2012, July 26). Retrieved from http://

dcps.dc.gov/DCPS/About+DCPS/Press+Releases+and+Announcements/Press+Releases/Five-year+DC+CAS+Scores+Show+-

Steady+Growth,+Areas+for+Improvement

27. Bryk, A. S. (April, 2010). Organizing schools for improvement. 

Phi Delta Kappan, 91(7), 23–30.

28. Engagement in BPS: 2012–13 Mid-year Report. Retrieved from 

http://www.bpsfamilies.org/initiatives 

29. U.S. Census Bureau. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.census.

gov/2010census/

30. For an overview of the Abriendo Puertas/Opening Doors 

curriculum, visit http://www.familiesinschools.org

/abriendo-puertas-opening-doors/curriculum-overview-english/

31. Proximal outcomes are outcomes that are directly produced 

by an intervention or initiative (in this case family and staff 

capacity). These are usually easier to assess and attribute to 

the initiative. Distal outcomes are those that in the long term 

are most important or desirable, but are shaped by many other 

factors as well (in this case student learning and development).

32. https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/harvard-education-surveys/

Endnotes 
Karen L. Mapp

Karen L. Mapp, EdD, is a Senior Lecturer on Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education 

(HGSE) and the Faculty Director of the Education Policy and Management Master’s Program. Over the 

past twenty years, her research and practice focus has been on the cultivation of partnerships among 

families, community members and educators that support student achievement and school improvement. She has served as the co-coordinator with Professor Mark Warren of the Community Organizing 

and School Reform Research Project and as a core faculty member in the Doctorate in Educational Leadership (EDLD) program at HGSE. She is a founding member of the District Leaders Network on Family 

and Community Engagement, is a trustee of the Hyams Foundation in Boston, MA, and is on the board 

of the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) in Washington, DC. Dr. Mapp served as a consultant 

on family engagement to the United States Department of Education in the Office of Innovation and 

Improvement. 

Dr. Mapp joined HGSE in January of 2005 after serving for eighteen months as the Deputy Superintendent for Family and Community Engagement for the Boston Public Schools (BPS). While working with 

the BPS, she continued to fulfill her duties as president of the Institute for Responsive Education (IRE). 

She joined IRE in 1997 as Project Director, was appointed vice-president of IRE in May of 1998 and 

served as president from September 1998 to December 2004. Dr. Mapp holds an EdD and MA in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, an MA in Education from Southern Connecticut 

State University, and a BA degree in Psychology from Trinity College in Hartford, CT. 

Dr. Mapp is the author and co-author of several articles and books about the role of families and 

community members in the work of student achievement and school improvement including: A New 

Wave Of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family and Community Connections on Student Achievement 

(2002); “Having Their Say: Parents Describe How and Why They are Engaged in Their Children’s Learning” (2003); Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to Family-School Partnerships (2010); “Debunking 

the Myth of the Hard to Reach Parent” (2010); “Title I and Parent Involvement: Lessons from the Past, 

Recommendations for the Future” (2011); and A Match on Dry Grass: Community Organizing as a Catalyst 

for School Reform (2011).

Paul J. Kuttner

Paul Kuttner is a researcher and educator whose work focuses on community-based approaches to school 

reform, youth civic engagement, and social change. He is a co-author of A Match on Dry Grass: Community Organizing as a Catalyst for School Reform (2011, Oxford University Press), and a co-editor of 

Disrupting the School-to-Prison Pipeline (2012, Harvard Educational Review). His current research focuses 

on the emerging field of youth cultural organizing, a youth development and social change strategy 

that engages young people as artists and change agents in their communities. 

Mr. Kuttner is currently finishing his doctoral studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and is 

a former co-chair of the Harvard Educational Review editorial board. Prior graduate school, He worked as 

a theater educator in Chicago, and co-founded the community-based organization Communities Creating 

Change. He holds an MA from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a BA from the University of 

Michigan, Ann Arbor. 

About the Authors
29

Credits

AUTHORS

Karen L. Mapp

Paul J. Kuttner

PRODUCTION COORDINATOR

Lacy Wood

EDITOR

April West

DESIGNER

Shaila Abdullah
4700 Mueller Blvd.

Austin, Texas 78723

Tel: 800-476-6861

Fax: 512-476-2286

www.sedl.org