Strong Family-School Partnerships Benefit Students

By Alex Utley, Ph.D., LABA, BCBA     

[This column was published in the West Springfield Republican on June 27, 2024.]                                                                    

As students around the country begin a new school year, it’s a great time for families and educators to reflect on the successes and challenges of the last school year. What went well? What could be improved? How can they work together to make improvements? Strengthening the family-school partnership is one answer.

Family-school partnership is the process by which families and school teams develop collaborative relationships to support children’s academic, social-emotional, and behavioral needs. It goes beyond parental involvement activities, such as parent-teacher conferences, attending school events, and chaperoning field trips. These activities typically involve one-way communication and tend to support the school. 

In contrast, an effective family-school partnership involves reciprocal communication and support to maximize students' success across home and school. It is about building partnerships that allow families and educators to align their goals, share information and strategies, and co-develop effective and relevant learning opportunities for students across settings. 

Benefits of Family-School Partnerships
Family-school partnerships allow educators and families to create shared goals and expectations for student progress, identify their respective roles in helping students meet their goals, and jointly address concerns as they may arise. They allow for greater continuity between the two settings where children spend most of their time, which increases the likelihood of success. 

Research suggests that effective home-school partnerships often lead to many positive outcomes for students, families, and educators. For example, family-school partnership has been shown to lead to more positive student perceptions and attitudes about school, improved attendance, increased engagement and work completion, improved study habits, higher levels of achievement, and higher rates of prosocial behaviors.

When a strong family-school partnership has been established, parents and families tend to have more positive experiences with school personnel, greater confidence in their ability to help their child succeed, a better understanding of what their child is learning in school, and more effective communication with their child.

At the same time, educators often report greater job satisfaction and more positive connections with their students and families, highlighting the mutual benefits of such collaboration. Notably, positive outcomes for students, families, and educators have been observed across racial, ethnic, linguistic, and socioeconomic groups and backgrounds. 

Building Strong Partnerships 
The ultimate goal of effective family-school partnerships is for families and educators to work together with shared power. According to the Family-School Partnerships Framework, the key dimensions of a strong partnership are communication, connecting learning across school and home, building community and identity, recognizing the role of the family in a child’s learning, shared decision-making, collaboration beyond the school building, and participation.

Schools must lead in creating a welcoming and safe environment that provides opportunities for families to participate in building partnerships. Securing family engagement and participation is often most successful when schools encourage collaboration by asking students and families to share their perspectives and experiences, recruiting families to participate on school-based teams, offering multiple options and forms of participation (e.g., activity types, communication methods, and meeting formats), and identifying and providing resources to staff and families to support collaborative efforts.

In addition, educators and families should work together to develop various opportunities, with respect to families’ needs and preferences, for families to participate in the collaborative process meaningfully. Families may increase their engagement in family-school partnerships by getting involved in school governance, committee and/or team membership, volunteerism at school events and functions, and regular communication with educators about their child’s progress. Families may also help their child with homework and frequently talk to them about school. 

Working together, families and educators can help ensure the upcoming school year will be the best one yet for students in their care.


Alex Utley, Ph.D., LABA, BCBA, is an Assistant Program Director at May Institute who works in the School Consultation program.

About May Institute
May Institute is a nonprofit organization that is a national leader in the field of applied behavior analysis and evidence-based interventions, serving autistic individuals and individuals with other developmental disabilities, brain injury, neurobehavioral disorders, and other special needs. Founded nearly 70 years ago, we provide a wide range of exceptional educational and rehabilitative services across the lifespan. For more information, call 800.778.7601 or visit www.mayinstitute.org.