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About the Webinar Series

The U.S. Department of Education

and its partners

United Way Worldwide, National PTA, SEDL, and Harvard Family Research Project

are proud to bring you a free webinar series on family, school and community engagement.

Achieving Excellence and Innovation in Family, School, and Community Engagement

Webinar Series

April 2010 to November 2011

Research over the past 30 years has shown that engaging families in their children's education increases student achievement and decreases dropout rates. Effective family engagement is not a one-time program or the choice of a good school, but rather a set of day-to-day practices, attitudes, beliefs and interactions that support learning at home, at school, afterschool, and during the summer. To ensure that the students of today are ready for the careers of tomorrow, families, schools, and community groups need to work together to promote engagement that is systemic, sustained, and integrated into school improvement efforts.

The Achieving Excellence and Innovation in Family, School, and Community Engagement webinar series is an opportunity for stakeholders representing national, regional, and local organizations to learn about family, school, and community engagement research, best practices from the field, and new innovations that are making a difference in school improvement and student learning.

Leading practitioners, researchers, and policymakers will share real-life examples from the field about what it takes to effectively engage family and community with schools.

These webinars occured every other month and topics included:

Participants will gain information about

  • tried and tested capacity building strategies at state and local levels;
  • pathways of family, school, and community engagement from cradle to career;
  • alignment of family engagement with education reform priorities;
  • innovative uses of sharing student performance data with families; and
  • leadership capacity for family engagement through training and professional development.

Webinars include

  • latest family, school, and community engagement research,
  • best practices from the field, and
  • new innovations.

Objectives for the Webinar Series:

  • To build understanding about effective family, school, and community engagement
    • At the national level
    • At the state level
    • In communities
    • In schools
    • In classrooms
    • In homes
  • To understand the ways public policy can be used to build capacity for effective and meaningful family, school, and community engagement
  • To identify the kinds of supports that families, schools, and communities need to effectively partner together to improve student learning

Audience for Webinar Series:

The webinar series targets a nationwide audience of educators and noneducators who have an interest and a role in supporting student learning through family, school, and community engagement.

U.S. Department of Education SEDL Harvard Family Research Project National PTA United Way
This webinar series is funded in part by the U.S. Department of Education's Parental Information and Resource Center program. The content of this webinar series does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Department of Education.