Healthy School-Home Connection™
Reconnecting Home and School Around Their Shared Responsibility for Children
Healthy School-Home Connection™ (HSHC) is U&I-RISE's parent partnership framework for helping educators and families develop the shared language, understanding, expectations, responsibility and relationships necessary to work together in the best interests of children - especially when we disagree.
Because children do not create the conditions in which they develop.
Adults do.
What Exactly Is Healthy School-Home Connection™?
At its core, Healthy School-Home Connection™ is a 2½-hour training experience, delivered through a series of videos and guided reflection, that equips parents and educators with information they need to better understand their respective roles and work together to help children succeed in school.
Reveals a nationwide problem affecting Black children - including national reading data showing that about half of Black children are reading below their grade level - and examines an often-overlooked reason why, along with what adults can do about it.
Defines Education and who educates in society - helping participants understand that education happens through multiple institutions and influences, not only at school.
Explains why parents are their child's first and most influential teacher - and what that means for preparing children before and throughout their school experience.
Examines the School-Home Relationship - including the responsibilities Home and School have to one another if they are going to work together to help produce successful students.
Shows adults how children are prepared to succeed in school - including what parents can do to help prepare any child to enter a classroom ready to function successfully as a student.
HSHC does more than tell parents to "be involved" or tell educators to "build relationships."
It gives Home and School information in common - a shared foundation from which they can examine what children need, understand their own responsibilities, understand what they need from one another, and work together more effectively.
The same learning. On both sides of the relationship.
One of the distinguishing features of HSHC is that educators and parents are not given two different messages about what the other side should be doing.
They receive the same foundational HSHC training.
Teachers experience HSHC before participating families are invited to complete it. Parents then receive the same core information about children, education, adult responsibility, the School-Home Relationship and preparation for school success.
So when Home and School come together afterward, they are not starting from scratch.
They have something to work from together.
Parent Engagement Is More Than Parent Participation
Schools work hard to engage families.
They host events. Send newsletters. Schedule conferences. Use communication platforms. Invite parents to volunteer. Encourage families to attend meetings and school activities.
Those efforts can matter.
But a parent can attend an event and still not feel connected to the school.
A teacher and parent can communicate regularly and still misunderstand one another.
A school can have active families and still struggle with mistrust, conflicting expectations, unresolved concerns or uncertainty about what Home and School need from one another.
Participation tells us whether parents showed up.
Partnership tells us whether Home and School can work together.
HSHC focuses on the partnership.
Why the School-Home Connection Matters
When Home and School are disconnected, the effects do not necessarily remain between one parent and one teacher.
They can become part of the conditions surrounding the child.
Communication may become primarily problem-driven. Expectations may be misunderstood. Concerns may go unresolved. Adults may begin approaching one another as opposing sides rather than people who share responsibility for the same children.
Those conditions can also enter the classroom.
Classroom conditions affect how much time and opportunity teachers have to actually teach.
That is why U&I-RISE does not view strengthening parent engagement as separate from improving educational outcomes.
HSHC addresses parent engagement as adult relationship, alignment and capacity factors that impact the conditions surrounding children's learning.
What Does HSHC Strengthen?
Healthy School-Home Connection™ focuses on four conditions that help Home and School function as partners:
Trust
Do educators and families experience one another as credible, respectful and committed to children's best interests?
Relationship
Can Home and School remain connected, communicate honestly and continue working together - including when there is difficulty or disagreement?
Alignment
Do educators and families understand what children need, what their respective responsibilities are and what Home and School need from one another to help produce successful students?
Capacity
Do educators and families have practical ways to communicate, address concerns, solve problems, adjust what they are doing when it is not working and sustain partnership?
Together, these form U&I-RISE's TRAC framework: Trust • Relationship • Alignment • Capacity.
The goal is not for parents and educators to think alike or have identical responsibilities.
The goal is for them to be equipped to work together on behalf of children despite difficulty.
HSHC Begins With the Adults at School
U&I-RISE does not begin by telling parents they need to become more engaged.
HSHC begins with school leadership and educators.
Teachers experience HSHC before their participating families are invited to complete it.
That sequence is intentional.
If Home and School share responsibility for the relationship, strengthening that relationship cannot begin with the assumption that parents are the ones who need to change.
Educators have an opportunity to examine their own expectations, communication, assumptions, actions and responsibilities before asking families to do the same.
Parents then encounter the same foundational HSHC learning.
That creates something neither side has when they are working independently:
a shared experience from which to begin working together differently.
From Individual Families to a Classroom Community
Parent engagement is often approached as a relationship between my child, my child's teacher and me.
HSHC expands the lens.
Parents are also members of a classroom community.
The actions of adults and children can strengthen or weaken conditions experienced by other students and by the teacher responsible for teaching them.
That means the question becomes larger than:
"What does my child need?"
It also includes:
"What conditions do our children need, and what are we adults willing to do to help create them?"
This is where co-accountability becomes important.
Home and School have different roles and responsibilities. But both affect the conditions in which children learn and develop.
HSHC helps adults recognize that shared influence and become co-accountable for providing the conditions children need to thrive.
A Concentrated Classroom Approach
Schools do not have to begin by implementing HSHC schoolwide.
U&I-RISE has developed a concentrated classroom implementation that allows a school to begin with one or two classrooms.
The aim is to create a classroom community in which the teacher and a substantial majority of families share the HSHC experience and can apply that learning together.
The implementation follows a deliberate progression:
LISTEN → PREPARE → ENGAGE → RECONNECT → OBSERVE → ASSESS
LISTEN
LISTEN
We begin by learning about the existing school-home relationship and classroom conditions.
PREPARE
The participating teacher completes the HSHC experience first and considers what the learning means for their own practice and relationship with families.
ENGAGE
Participating families are invited to complete the same foundational HSHC experience.
RECONNECT
Teacher and families come together for a structured school-home conversation focused on what they have learned and understand, what students need, and Home's and School's willingness to be co-accountable for providing the conditions the classroom needs to thrive.
OBSERVE
The participating teacher observes and documents relevant classroom conditions following the shared HSHC experience.
ASSESS
U&I-RISE examines what changed and provides the school with findings from the implementation.
Why Urban Schools?
U&I-RISE's focus on urban schools is intentional.
Schools serving urban and under-resourced communities are frequently asked to address significant academic needs while educators, families and children simultaneously navigate conditions that can make strong school-home partnership more difficult to establish and maintain.
U&I-RISE does not interpret those conditions as evidence that urban parents do not care or that educators are not trying.
We ask different questions.
Do Home and School understand one another?
Do they have shared language?
Are expectations clear?
Do they know what they need from one another?
Can they communicate honestly?
Can they remain connected through disagreement?
Are both willing to adjust their own actions when what they are doing is not working?
HSHC helps create the conditions for those conversations to happen.
What Does HSHC Strengthen?
Healthy School-Home Connection™ focuses on four conditions that help Home and School function as partners:
Trust
Do educators and families experience one another as credible, respectful and committed to children's best interests?
Relationship
Can Home and School remain connected, communicate honestly and continue working together - including when there is difficulty or disagreement?
Alignment
Do educators and families understand what children need, what their respective responsibilities are and what Home and School need from one another to help produce successful students?
Capacity
Do educators and families have practical ways to communicate, address concerns, solve problems, adjust what they are doing when it is not working and sustain partnership?
Together, these form U&I-RISE's TRAC framework: Trust • Relationship • Alignment • Capacity.
The goal is not for parents and educators to think alike or have identical responsibilities.
The goal is for them to be equipped to work together on behalf of children despite difficulty.
Healthy School-Home Connection™ Is Different Because We Start With the Relationship
We don't begin with:
How do we get more parents to participate?
We begin with:
What is the current relationship between Home and School - and what do the adults need to do to strengthen it?
That distinction changes the work.
Because stronger parent engagement is not simply about getting parents into the building.
It is about helping the adults responsible for children become better able to work together once they are there.
Bring Healthy School-Home Connection™
to Your School
If your school is working to strengthen parent engagement, improve school-home relationships or create stronger conditions for teaching and learning, we would like to learn what is happening in your school.
A conversation with U&I-RISE does not begin with the assumption that HSHC is the answer.
It begins with listening.
Tell us what parent engagement looks like at your school right now - what's working, what's difficult and what you wish were different.
Then we can determine whether Healthy School-Home Connection™ is a good fit.
Reconnecting Home and School™
Because children do not create the conditions in which they develop. Adults do.
About U&I-RISE
U&I-RISE (Unapparencies & Intra-Racial Insight Sensitivity Education, LLC) is a St. Louis-based education organization that develops adults to intentionally create, strengthen and protect the conditions that are in Black children's best interests.
Black-led and rooted, U&I-RISE's work recognizes and respects the unique educational experiences and conditions affecting Black children, families and communities while developing frameworks with broader application wherever adults share responsibility for children.
Through its work with schools, educators, parents and communities, U&I-RISE addresses the adult relationships, practices and conditions that influence Black children's development and educational experiences.
Copyright © 2024, U&I-RISE. All Rights Reserved.
