The Fast Team-Families and Schools Together, is a group comprised of parents, teachers, administrators, and related service providers. The overarching goal of this team is to enhance communication between families of children with special needs and school personnel who provide service.
The team works towards meeting 4 main needs:

• A need for all staff members to value and include parents as partners in their children’s education.
• A need for parents new to the district or parents of newly identified students to get information regarding special education rights, district practices and resources.
• A need for effective communication between all team members related to curriculum and specific interventions used.
• A need for effective communication between district administration and parents related to general information about special education.

One district has found a way to improve relationships between families of children with disabilities and school staff by facilitating staff discussions to increase their awareness of the barriers for families and share positive ways to effectively work with families.   This can be done at regularly planned staff meetings and can be co-facilitated by the school’s social worker and a staff person who has a child with special needs.   If there are no staff that meet that criteria a family member from the district may serve in this role.   The discussion can be based on topics related to issues facing the families within that school or tailored to specific grade levels.   A feedback postcard is helpful in assessing staff benefit from this effort.   This can be done in approximately 15-20 minutes and can touch on the following issues:

1.  The four core beliefs* that serve as the foundation for engaging families.

• All Parents Have Dreams for Their Children and Want the Best for Them
• All Parents Have the Capacity to Support Their Children’s Learning
• Parents and School Staff Should be Equal Partners
• The Responsibility for Building Partnerships Between School and Home Rests Primarily with School Staff, Especially School Leaders

2.  The emotional experience for a parent during a PPT meeting.

• It seems as though the child is being “pulled apart” when discussion focuses exclusively on their deficit areas, be sure to mention strengths.
• Avoid repetition of similar issues (i.e. each professional does not need to mention a student is distractible – it can be summarized and stated once)
• Recognize that although parents look to the professional for help, they also come to the table with a great deal of knowledge about their child. Appreciate and include that knowledge in the student’s programming.
• If trust appears to be an issue it must be overcome before a strong relationship can be forged. Even if the trust issue came from a time before you were involved, it may be reflected on to you, do not ignore it. Take the opportunity to resolve it.

3. The need for effective communication, before, during and after the PPT.

• Watch your use of special education jargon, speak simply. Check in for understanding.
• Find out how the parent prefers to communicate- in person, phone or email, find out how often they need updating – parents feel out of the loop, bringing them in – at their own speed/level – will help to reduce the feeling of not being included in their child’s educational decisions.
• Progress reporting is essential, low performance issues should be reported immediately.
• Brainstorm ways to reach less engaged families

4. Share effective ways to support all students and their families

• Identify local community resources available to help families and how to share that information respectfully.
• Let families know what is happening in school, and discuss how these programs can best be shared with home, i.e. PBS, RTI, and other Professional Development topics.
• Develop an environment of transparency, trust and a positive climate for all; student, staff and family.

*Four Core Beliefs are from Beyond the Bake Sale, The Essential Guide to Family-School Partnerships 2007 Henderson, Mapp, Johnson and Davies

• Developing Positive Relationships between Families and Schools Workshop
  The importance of positive home-school relationships and the effect of these relationships on students’ success will be discussed.  Participants will also learn strategies that families and schools can use to create meaningful relationships as well as the barriers to successful relationships.
• Families as Partners Training
  Families as Partners is designed to develop partnerships and promote collaboration between schools and families in the implementation of the IEP. Three training modules, available in both English and Spanish, are presented jointly to parents and district personnel on Preparing for the PPT, Developing the IEP and What to Do When You Disagree. Providing joint training allows parents and professionals to hear the same information and it gives them a chance to sit down together in a comfortable setting to talk about their concerns, both parents concerns for their children and the school’s concerns when education the children.
• From Conflict to Collaboration Workshop
  CPAC has developed this training for administrators and other professionals related to reducing conflict with families.   Research from CADRE is shared about the main reasons for these conflicts and ideas about preventing them from occurring. Focus is on understanding positions vs. interests and how to reframe the situation from the other parties’ perspective.  Preventing escalations of disagreements can help preserve relationships and hopefully result in positive student outcomes.

There are multiple ways for school districts to gather data from families to help guide their improvement efforts. Below are several simple tools to help determine how families perceive the relationship they have with school staff. Some districts have feedback forms on their website, some gather the data immediately following each PPT meeting and others hold focus groups or do a family survey.

One district holds regular meetings of their administration including all building Principals, Assistant Principals, Curriculum Coordinators, Department Heads and other administrative level staff. At these meetings there is dedicated time to share family engagement strategies.

For example, each Administrative Council Meeting agenda has time set aside, based on a rotating schedule, for building principals to share their family engagement ideas and efforts. They explain what they do, share the materials used, and review the outcomes of their efforts. This allows other district staff to replicate successful events while decreasing staff time on development. It also keeps the topic current, relevant and evolving.

The Parent Leadership Committee is voluntary and is run by parents from all grade levels. Each grade level has one or two official parent representatives, but all parents are welcome to attend and provide their opinions and input. This committee meets about every-other month but they keep in contact more frequently than that.