Family Engagement Committee

Providing ways for parents to better support the growth, development and learning of their children and teenagers is the core purpose and value of PTA.

Setting up a Family Engagement Committee for your PTA ensures inclusion and gives parents ready access to the information, skills and training they need to support student success.

To build family engagement on campus, a good first step is to develop a year-long Action Plan. That way, you can organize, implement and assess your outreach efforts, programs and activities for family engagement more effectively.

5 Steps for an Action Plan:

• Survey parents, staff and students to identify the needs and priorities of the school community
• Create a family engagement team with parents, teachers, students, administrators and community partners to work together to support student success
• Design a family engagement Action Plan to reach and engage all families in the school community
• Present the programs budget for the Action Plan to the PTA board and association for approval
• Evaluate the effectiveness of the Action Plan, using a year-end survey or an evaluation sheet filled out at each event/activity

As part of your Action Plan, offer Parent Education Nights on a variety of subjects including:

To Boost Parenting Skills – Focus on topics such as child development, health and wellness, multiculturalism and diversity, bullying and gangs, substance abuse, the arts, family life/sex education, social media, cyber safety and the other tough issues facing parents raising children and teenagers today.

To Boost Student Achievement – Focus on topics such as school policies, homework help, curriculum, reading, writing, math, STEAM, standardized testing, school safety, campus climate, student engagement and school improvement.

To expand your outreach efforts, follow up by using your PTA newsletter, website and social media postings to provide more information and resources on these topics.