School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action

School, Family, and Community Partnerships is one of our go-to resources.  It takes us beyond the “why” of partnerships and gets to the “how.”  It has everything you need to guide school-based Action Teams for Partnerships—from training modules to downloadable documents.

This Handbook is the gold standard for family and community partnerships.  It makes clear connections between theory and practice. Epstein and her colleagues’ decades of research and experiences are organized into a simple-to-navigate and comprehensive resource.  This book will guide both novice and experienced practitioners toward authentic goal-based actions that lead to measurable outcomes.  

As a state organization supporting school districts and schools in establishing and sustaining effective family-school partnership programs, the School, Family, and Community Partnerships is our go-to resource.  Everything we need to prepare staff, facilitate meetings, and evaluate practices, programs, and progress is right at our fingertips.

This book has given us the tools we need to engage families in a systematic, sustained, and integrated program that supports student achievement and behavior.  The Handbook is part of my daily practice when working with schools to promote family and community engagement.

We believe that effective and equitable programs of partnership require multi-level leadership.  When state, regional, and district leaders and school Action Teams for Partnerships use this practical book with its ready-made tools and training materials, they will see that working with parents as partners increases students’ learning and development.

Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Introduction
1. A Comprehensive Framework
1.1. School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Caring for the Children We Share
1.2. School-Community Partnerships: The Little Extra That Makes a Big Difference
1.3. Improving Student Outcomes with School, Family, and Community Partnerships: A Research Review
2. Use the Framework to Reach School Goals—Stories from the Field
Six Types of Involvement to Improve School Climate and Student Success
3. Take an Action Team Approach
Organizing an Effective Action Team for Partnerships: Questions and Answers
4. Conduct Workshops
One-Day Team-Training Workshop
Components of a One-Day Team-Training Workshop
Planning an End-of-Year Celebration Workshop
5. Select Materials for Presentations and Workshops
Presentations and Handouts
Small Group Activities for Workshops
6. Strengthen Partnership Programs in Middle and High Schools
Improving School, Family, and Community Partnerships in Middle and High Schools
Predictors and Effects of Family Involvement in High Schools
A Goal-Linked Approach to Partnership Programs in Middle and High Schools
7. Strengthen District and State Leadership for Partnerships
Tools for District Leaders
Tools for State Leaders
Tools for District, Organization, and State Leaders
District and State Leadership for School, Family, and Community Partnerships
8. Implement Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork (TIPS)
TIPS Interactive Homework
TIPS Volunteers in Social Studies and Art
How to Implement Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork (TIPS) Processes
9. Evaluate Your Partnership Program
Evaluate Partnership Programs: Critical Considerations
Index

Joyce L. Epstein is director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships and the National Network of Partnership Schools, principal research scientist in the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk (CRESPAR), and professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University. She has over 100 pub­lications on the organization and effects of school, classroom, family, and peer environments, with many focused on school, family, and community connec­tions. In 1995, she established the National Network of Partnership Schools to demonstrate the important intersections of research, policy, and practice for school improvement. She serves on numerous editorial boards and advisory panels on family involvement and school reform and is a recipient of the Academy for Educational Development¿s 1991 Alvin C. Eurich Education Award and the 1997 Working Mother¿s Magazine Parent Involvement in Education Award for her work on school, family, and community partnerships. Her most recent book, School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Preparing Educators and Improving Schools (Westview Press, 2001), aims to add the topic of family and community involvement to courses for future teachers and admin­istrators. She earned a PhD in sociology from Johns Hopkins University.

Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, this fourth edition of a bestseller provides tools and guidelines to use to develop more effective and equitable programs of family and community engagement.