Office of Family Engagement
The CH-UH City School District understands that families are critical partners in supporting and advancing their children’s learning and development. Our families are welcomed and encouraged to be actively engaged in the success of the schools. The Office of Family Engagement works to ensure that there are meaningful opportunities to connect with our families, share essential resources, and strengthen these essential partnerships. Family engagement builds a bridge between the school. Authentic, research-based family engagement programs build the skills, knowledge and strengths of all involved, most importantly the student is better supported in their academic journey. Research shows that when families and schools work together, students achieve at significantly higher levels.
The CH-UH School District embraces the National Network of Partnership School (NNPS), a research-based partnership framework. NNPS provides a pathway that families and schools can use to work collaboratively with the school community.
The Epstein Framework of 6 Types of Involvement Include:
Parenting - Helping schools understand families and helping families understand child and adolescent development and how to set a home environments that support children as students at each grade level.
Communicating - Communicate with families about school programs and student progress and engage in the ongoing work of strengthening home-to-school and school-to-home (two-way) communications.
Volunteering - Improve recruitment, training, and scheduling to involve families as volunteers, audience members in and out of school building to support students and school programs.
Learning at Home - Share resources and information that involve families in their children’s learning at home, including homework, curriculum-related activities, and course and programmatic decisions.
Decision Making - Include families as participants in school decisions, governance and advocacy through committees, actions teams, PTA, school councils and other parent organizations.
Collaborating with the Community - Coordinate community resources and services for students, families and the school with businesses, agencies and groups to provide services to the community.
For more information on the Epstein Framework’s 6 Types, including practices, overcoming challenges and expected results for both students and schools visit John Hopkins University’s National Network of Partnership School.
THE DUAL CAPACITY-BUILDING FRAMEWORK FOR FAMILY-SCHOOL PARTNERSHIPS
The second framework guiding the district’s work is the Dual Capacity Framework, which is also embraced by both the US Department of Education and the National PTA. This framework clarifies how and why partnership pathways with families are formed. The Dual Capacity Framework is a collaborative approach that outlines how families and staff can learn from one another to build the needed skills, confidence and capacity to support school improvement and student success. For more information on the Dual Capacity Framework visit www.dualcapacity.org.
Family Engagement Specialist
Lisa Hunt
Video Resources
- Family & Community Collaboration Profile
- Ohio Statewide Family Engagement Center Welcome Video
- Transition: Navigating Middle to High School
- Transition: Navigating Elementary to Middle School