On any given day in elementary schools across the country, parent volunteers hop onto buses, eager to chaperone trips to local museums and parks, or show up for family literacy nights where the school celebrates reading and writing in myriad forms. They might also be mainstays in the front office, in the cafeteria, or on the playground.
But these opportunities for parent engagement often disappear as students mature. At a time when teenagers are naturally pushing away from their parents, parental involvement remains crucial to supporting their success: studies show that when parents are kept well-informed, their children's performance improves. So what can high schools do to signal that parent engagement matters?
A Gateway Conversation
According to a June 2016 report from the National Center for Education Statistics, parent engagement significantly tapers off after elementary and middle school: high school parents attend or participate in fewer PTO meetings, parent-teacher conferences, school events, and fundraising and volunteering opportunities than parents of younger students.
The only area where high school parents are more engaged is with guidance counselors: 22 percent of K–2 parents reported meeting with a guidance counselor compared to 47 percent of high school parents. "The stakes are very real as students prepare for their postsecondary plans," says Cassie Poncelow, a school counselor at Poudre High School in Fort Collins, Colorado. "For many parents, a [counselor] meeting might be their first time in our school building," she explains, and can help break the ice.
Poncelow often shows first-time parent visitors around, introducing them to teachers, support staff, and administration. During this visit, she says, parents learn about volunteer opportunities or ways they can help expose their children to various career paths. One visiting parent, for example, connected a local college student, who was majoring in construction management, with the Habitat for Humanity club. Another parent noticed banners hanging up from the National FFA Organization and facilitated a field trip to explore farm equipment sales and repair, an important local industry.
Unpacking Biases
Although educators like Poncelow actively engage parents in postsecondary conversations, some high school educators—especially those serving marginalized students—may harbor harmful preconceptions that inhibit parent involvement before it starts.
"One of the biggest biases high school educators often have is an assumption that parents of low-income students and/or students of color didn't go to college," says Ann Ishimaru, an associate professor of education at the University of Washington. "And because of this, the presumption is that they need to cut the parent out of the conversation because they have nothing to offer relating to graduation and college readiness."
Instead of viewing parents as potential roadblocks, Ishimaru says, educators can learn from parents to better support the college-going process. "What if we think of parents and approach them as folks who are experts on their languages, their cultures, their communities, [and] their children's strengths and weaknesses?"
According to Ishimaru, when schools invite parents into dialogue as equals, educators will see that parents bring "profound insights that they hadn't even considered before," especially relating to their own family values about success and cultural identity. This exchange can create better conditions for high schools and parents to collaborate and support students’ postsecondary journeys.
"Parents may not know about technical nitty gritty, like how to complete an application to college, but they are pivotal in supporting their children in this process," notes Ishimaru.
Proactive House Calls
One way to approach parent relationships holistically is through a structured home-visit program. Educators at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California, have been conducting home visits for more than a decade, initiating positive contact with families before disciplinary or academic struggles emerge.
"Many parents don't have the experience of being asked for advice," says Larry Ferlazzo, a writer and veteran teacher at Luther Burbank. "We can honor their expertise as community members, fathers, mothers, and guardians by talking with them about what works for their children, what makes them happy, and what motivates them at home."
Because Luther Burbank is so diverse—the student body comprises mostly Latino, black, Southeast Asian, and Pacific Islander students—the home visits also help faculty understand students’ cultures. The initiative began in partnership with the Parent Teacher Home Visits program, a national nonprofit that aspires to build trust and accountability between teachers and parents, "interrupting a cycle of blaming each other for low student achievement."
At the high school, small learning communities of about 350 students make it easier for interested educators, across all subject areas and roles, to manage visits. At least half of Luther Burbank's faculty participates in home visits during the summer. And since the beginning of the school year, Ferlazzo says the staff has conducted 100 additional visits. A 2015 Johns Hopkins report found that high school students whose families received a home visit had 24 percent fewer absences than students who didn't receive a visit. The same students were also more likely to read at or above grade level.
Some educators believe home visits are more appropriate for younger students or as an intervention for struggling high school students, but Ferlazzo disagrees. "It's all about figuring out how to impact students’ lives and learning just a little more through different parent-engagement strategies," he says.
Texting-to-Inform
Not all parents can be reached through counselor meetings or home visits, but using technology to feed them timely and relevant information can have an academic ripple effect. Columbia University Teachers College professor Peter Bergman and doctoral student Eric Chan designed and tested a method for one school district to send automated text messages that were synchronized with its school information system. (Districts like Chicago Public Schools allow parents to customize similar alerts for attendance or grade activities.)
During the 2015–16 academic year, Bergman partnered with Kanawha County Schools in Charleston, West Virginia, for the study. Over the course of the year, 1,137 participating families received a total of 32,472 automatic text notifications related to absences, missed assignments, and low grades.
Older students are less likely to inform their parents about academic struggles or progress, says Bergman. As a result, parents tend to overestimate their children's grades and underestimate their amount of missing assignments. But in the Kanawha district, the automated texting helped close the gap between what students revealed to their parents and their actual academic standing, which Bergman says could lead to more effective interventions at home.
The study's results support this hypothesis: for students who participated, course failures fell by 39 percent and class attendance increased by 17 percent. The text alerts had the biggest influence on students who were struggling academically—those same students who Bergman says are least likely to relay information about schoolwork to parents or guardians.
The text-to-engage approach aligns with parents’ communication preferences as well. A 2016 survey from Blackboard and Project Tomorrow asked parents how they preferred schools to contact them, and a clear majority indicated by email and text. (Eighty-seven percent said a personal email was the most effective tool to communicate, and 55 percent said they'd like their child's teacher to text them.)
Bergman notes that it's important for schools using digital communication to relay only academic-related data points. "If schools are going to use texting to contact parents, it should directly pertain to the child's learning." There is a risk of inundating parents with too much digital communication, he explains, if they also cover sporting events or other school-related happenings. These texts could distract parents from notices about grades, missing assignments, and absences.
When executed purposefully, digital communication nudges parents who might otherwise be unable to make a trip to campus. "Schools have traditionally tried to bring [in] parents, but for many low-income parents, transportation issues and work hours often interfere with this," Bergman says. "Schools need to meet parents where they are and provide timely information. Report cards are too slow—by the time they come out, it's too late for many parents to try and motivate their children."
Bringing the Classroom to Them
There are dozens of apps and programs for high school teachers to help increase parent interaction and offer classroom transparency, including Remind, Edmodo, Google Classroom, and Seesaw.
Environmental science teacher Lauren Niemann of Fern Creek High School in Louisville, Kentucky, uses Remind to send messages to parents about assignments, projects, and test dates. It's a simple way to push out notifications, she says, but it also supports two-way communication—though she hopes more parents will sign up. Those who do participate seem to prefer using Remind as opposed to emails or phone calls. Niemann says she's had several meaningful parent conversations about student motivation through the app.
High school educators Heather Ambrus of Mentor, Ohio, and Amanda Buethe of Ness City, Kansas, both use Seesaw, a digital portfolio program that allows teachers, students, and parents to keep track of classroom activities and projects. Ambrus, an art teacher, currently has 136 students enrolled in her courses and 96 of those students’ families are connected on Seesaw. Her students use the program to post images of their artwork in progress, reflect on their learning, write artist statements, and critique one another. Parents can access their child's individual Seesaw journal, and a built-in translation tool eliminates language barriers.
"A lot of times parents don't get a chance to see the work their child does at school and aren't as engaged in what is happening in the classroom because less is sent home or communicated to them," says Ambrus. "I hope that seeing their child's work can help initiate more discussion about school at home."
For Buethe, an English teacher with 70 students, Seesaw has created a transparent classroom in her technology-rich school. "We are 1:1, so rarely do our high school students take a graded paper home for parents to see. This is an easy way for parents to see our learning through assignments, pictures, and videos," she says. Buethe also sends parents a preview of the coming week's activities on Sunday evenings, and like Remind, the Seesaw app allows for both group and private messaging between teachers and parents.
Finding the Sweet Spot
Part of the drop off in parent engagement at the high school level is natural. Teachers might not need classroom volunteers, nor do adolescents necessarily appreciate their parents showing up at school. This doesn't mean, however, that parents of older students should have a diminished role in supporting their children's success. There are still many strategies to enlist parents as academic allies and ways to communicate with them so that they feel valued and informed.
"Older kids are developmentally pushing away from their parents, wanting to be more independent," says Ishimaru. "However, we know from research on parent engagement that it is no less important at the high school level. But [the methods] need to shift."
