Everyone agrees that the involvement of families in their children's education is a good idea. But there are many barriers to creating the kinds of connections that really will improve children's learning by actively engaging parents, grandparents, and community members.

The primary barriers are time and money: Time off from work for parents or time at home for schoolwork after hectic workday. Money for teacher training and family involvement coordinates positions at school. In developing this report, the experts consulted identified several ways policies can more effectively promote family involvement in children's learning. At the individual school level, they include:

1. Publicizing school district wide policies and goals for family involvement.

2. Making increased family involvement a priority of school site-based management and administrators.

3. Publicizing and promoting laws protecting parent time off from work to attend parent-teacher conferences and school events. Some advocate giving employees paid time off for such activities; others recognize that this would create a hardship for small businesses.

4. Making it a priority during the annual budgeting process for schools to hire family involvement coordinators and family liaisons. Extra funding should be made available to districts that must hire translators and special liaisons for non-English speaking families.

5. Making training available for parents, teachers and administrators on how to involve families in their children's learning activities.

6. Adding more paid teacher hours to allow for communication with families and for attending family/school events. Recognize that allowances should be made for home visits when needed.

At the state level, making more affordable housing available throughout the state would address problems of excessive mobility among low-income families. Some schools have addressed this problem by arranging for their most mobile students to be bused to the same school, even though their family has moved again. But this is a stop-gap measure and does not get at the root causes of family mobility, according to Arty Dorman of St. Paul Public School's Office of Family and Community Involvement.

Ultimately, state and local governments must recognize the fragile interconnections among housing, wages, health and education - all of which contribute not only to opportunities for family involvement in schools, but raising healthy, well-educated children and families, says Dorman.

Involving families is one of state's highest priorities

Whether or not families participate in their children's education can't be legislated, but government can play an active role in promoting family involvement in schools. "The role of state government is to support families' rights and responsibilities to be involved in their children's school," says Tammy Pust, assistant commissioner - public affairs and policy development for Minnesota's Department of Children, Families & Learning (DCFL).

Regulate, fund, and support schools are ways Pust describes the state's role in public education. Sharing best practices is another way to her department is getting the work out. In fact, DCFL Commissioner Christine Jax has sent postcards to educators inviting dialogue on this and other school topics. She's set up a special e-mail address, and jazschat@state.mn.us, just for this purpose, and the department posts frequently raised issues on the department's Web site at http://cfl.state.mn.us.

Family involvement is one of the department's highest priorities. "There's an immediate need to increase family involvement in our schools," says Pust. "A significant number of kids are not on track to pass the state's basic skills test. Schools are exhausted the traditional ways of raising scores."

We have to reach beyond schools if we are going to turn this around, suggests Pust. To going to turn this around, suggests Pust. To help the kids who are failing, we need to involve families and communities, she ads. To get a better handle on which groups of kids are having the most trouble, DCFL is doing a demographic study.

The biggest challenge to family involvement is reaching families who didn't have active parents as a role models, according to Pust. She says those families who start their children's education process with Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) make up a large percentage of active PTA participation throughout the state. There's not a lot of structured support for families once their children turn 5, since ECFE only serves families of children ages 0-5. Some would like to see this type of programming for families through age 18, but for now Pust doesn't believe that the political will exist to take this expensive step.

Businesses have a role to play in family involvement, as well, Pust points out. Due to the tight labor market, proactive employers who want to attract and retain a stable workforce will encourage parents to take time off for school involvement and recognize their needs to check in with their kids who are home alone after school.

"We need to change our rhetoric," she concludes. "We say we value children, but as a society we often don't make children and their families a funding priority, even though we know that any investment in kids will pay off in sager communities, a more prepared workforce and healthier society. It will take entire communities to make those investments. This must be recognized as a responsibility and privilege."

© Copyright 2002, © University of Minnesota Children, Youth and Family Consortium.