Discussion

Engagement can be defined as the creation of, as well as continuation of, partnerships between school members, community members, students and families.Engagement differs from traditional school involvement in that its relationships are deeper and longer lasting those than involvement creates. Ferlazzo (2011) seeks to explain these differences in his paper Involvement or Engagement?.He explains engagement as connections built on “relationships, listening, welcoming and shared decision-making” (p. 10).He further describes the differences, making the point that engagement challenges schools to do more listening to families and stakeholders than talking to; taking time to do things with stakeholders instead of to them (p. 10).Engagement also has the ability to positively effect more than just in school issues, enabling the larger community to benefit from the connections formed.These non-school factors address issues such as health, safety, affordable housing, and English language learning, as well as community GED programs.Though these issue may happen outside school grounds they “account for about two-thirds of the variance in student achievement” (p. 10).Family engagement and involvement do not have to be mutually exclusive, and many schools foster both types of programs.However, schools with family engagement programs have longer lasting positive effects on student learning such as “fourfold [increases] in their English assessment scores” as seen at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California (p. 11).

The process of moving to a program that includes engagement is not any easy or quick fix, and therefore carries with it challenges as well as successes.Of the many challenges in implementing engagement in schools, it is time and change in perspectives that are needed.Both teachers, and school staff, as well as families and community members must change their perspective on interaction and involvement to create a successful engagement program.For educators this is seen in their need to “readjust their mindset” about parents, due to their tendency to “doubt families’ capacity to help their children… [Holding] the erroneous belief that [they] hold the key to the failure or success of these children” (Dunlop, 2012).Putting trust back into the hands of families is a critical part of engagement programs.

At the middle school level there is seen a “trivialization of caregivers" role in the engagement of early adolescents’ education” (Dunlop, 2012) which decreases the involvement of parents in their student’s education.As student grow and become more independent, teachers often only interact with families when there is a problem; students often insist on this, claiming their own need to be self reliant.Working with parents both in positive, and constructive situations is a shift in thinking for many middle school families, teachers and students.Creating these long lasting and positive partnerships is a cornerstone of engagement programs.

In addition to the differences in engagement at the elementary and middle school level, there are also cultural factors that need to be met through engagement programs.Schools seldom have only one cultural or socio-economic population in their schools, and therefore, their means of engagement need to reflect the needs and interests of the different populations present in their schools.For example, when comparing engagement in Mexico and the United States, researchers found the definition of partnership varied.In the United States the school often led partnerships and Mexican-American parents “did not perceive themselves as involved in defining the partnership process” (Dotson-Blake, 2010, p.112).When preparing for interactions with families, schools need to be aware of the expectations of families, their needs and the best way to communicate with groups of families, such as the Mexican-American grouping.Another example is appropriately reaching out and engaging the immigrant population in schools. Suarez-Orozco, Onaga, and de Lardemelle found that “due to differential cultural scripts about schooling, many parents are unaware of the expectations in the new land to monitor their children’s education” (2010, p. 18). With intentional communication and understanding, all groupings of families can be more engaged in their school communities.