Family Engagement Reframing Institute: Session #2

Sherri Wilson:

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us. As you come in, please introduce yourself in the chat box. We would love to know who’s joining us today. I hope you all are having a wonderful day. I know I am. It looks like Marisa is, she looks beautiful today.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Thank you.

Sherri Wilson:

So as you come in, just let us know who you are, where you’re from, what you’re doing. We would love to know. We’re going to get started in just a minute. I see Janell. Hi, Janell. Oh, Philadelphia. I love Philadelphia. I see Angela from Prince George’s, nice to meet you. Hello, Cindy, from Texas. Wow. Welcome.

Sherri Wilson:

As we go through the presentation today, please utilize the chat box. We love to engage with people as we go. And also, you’ll notice there’s a Q&A option. If you have questions during the day as we go along, please put them in the Q&A box. We’ll have plenty of time at the end to address them all. But if you put them in the chat box, they might get lost. That is a fast-moving stream. And in the meantime, I just want to say welcome again and thank you all for joining us. We are delighted that you came back after our first reframing session. And I’m going to turn it over to Marisa, who is going to walk us through this session.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Hi, everyone. I’m Marisa Gerstein Pineau from the FrameWorks Institute. Thank you for joining us again. I’m excited to get deeper into the framing strategy that we recommend for framing engagement better so that people understand what engagement is. It really changes how they’re thinking about it and they support better programs and better policies that can support family, school, and community engagement. So I’m going to jump right in.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

We’re going to be watching some videos. We’re going to get to do some practice in the chat box. And as Sherri said, please put your questions in the Q&A so that it’s a little bit easier for us to keep track of them. So I am going to go ahead and just start by reminding everybody of those traps in public thinking that we talked about in the last session, that the framing strategy is really designed to address.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So I’m not going to go deep into them because we already talked about them last time and saw those great videos about them. But the ones that we found particularly challenging and that we designed frames to really overcome is first, tangible triads. So this people’s sort of limited view of schools as being just teachers, parents, and students. Caring is everything. This is a really interesting one to me because caring is something that’s important, but it’s really limiting when you talk about engagement, because people assume that you just have to, as a parent, you just have to love your child. As an educator, you just have to love your students. And it makes it really hard for people to see that engagement is something that takes skill, that people can learn how to do, that can be embedded in systems and not just in people’s hearts.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Traditional engagement. You say engagement to people and they say parent-teacher conferences, and we want to get them past that. Compartmentalized learning. I think this is also a really important one in terms of it makes it hard for people to understand how engagement can happen when schools are teaching academics and parents and families are teaching morals and manners. What we call the “culture of poverty”, which is a very racialized view of communities and of families in which some families and communities really value education and some don’t. So therefore there are some families and communities that you just can’t engage with. and this is a really toxic way of thinking about families, about communities, and it makes it very hard for people to see how everybody can be equitably engaged. And the narrow benefits, community is just sort of out of the picture.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So the framing strategy that we designed based on two years of research, this is the overall framing strategy with all of the different, what we call frame elements that make it up. And we’re going to be talking about several of these today, and they’re going to talk about more of them in our third session.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So the first, which I introduced you to and you played around with a little bit in the last session, was opportunity for all. And the value is that it really helps people understand why engagement is so important to them, to students, to schools, and to communities. And we’re going to play with that a little bit more. Today I’ll kind of remind you of how to use it. The other ones that we’re going to talk about today is the space launch metaphor, which as we go through it, you’ll see that I’m really excited about it because it’s just one of my favorite metaphors that we’ve developed here at FrameWorks. And then we’re also going to talk about using clear, concrete explanations about what equity is. So let me get into space launch, because I think we’re going to have a good time playing around with this.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

But first I just want to remind everybody about why framing is so important, and I showed you all this side last time to demonstrate that a frames, in this case, some values, but also metaphors examples, the other ones we’re going to talk about, are really important in terms of helping people understand a problem and support programs and policies that work to address it. But also that sometimes the value or the metaphor, whatever frame you’re using, that seems like it would really work to you, isn’t necessarily the one that works with members of the public. And that’s why it’s really important to test a frame before you start using it, because when you’re in a field, your instincts about what works might just not be what people who don’t have your expertise, what works for them.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So our first lesson is using the space launch explanatory metaphor to help people understand how engagement happens. And to start off with, I am going to show you a video of somebody who we talked to, literally was stopped on the street by one of our researchers, said, “Hey, do you mind talking to me for 10 or 15 minutes?” And we asked a series of questions that was basically trying to get a sense of what this person thought about engagement. When you think about education, what do you think about? When you think about schools and families and communities working together, what sort of things come to mind?

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

And then we read him a version of the space launch metaphor, and then after asked him essentially the same set of questions. So what you’re watching here is him answering the questions before he hears the metaphor, and then answering the questions after he’s heard the metaphor. And Sherri and Alice, just let me know if there’s any problem with the volume.

Speaker 3:

So as far as schools and families working together, what would you say that looks like?

Speaker 4:

I mean, there’s only so much one can do. There’s so many families that you would have to work with and that’d be a massive overhaul.

Speaker 3:

How would you say schools and communities work together?

Speaker 4:

I don’t know how I would have communities in schools directly interact, but maybe there should be something there, I’m not entirely sure.

Speaker 3:

So I’m curious what you took away from that.

Speaker 4:

Boom, that’s it. I mean, it’s what I’ve been saying, everything’s connected. If we all work together, everybody wins. If we all help each other out, we pull each other’s bootstraps.

Speaker 3:

How would you say that affects children’s learning?

Speaker 4:

I would say it’d be a very healthy relationship because for one, everybody’s pooling their resources to fuel our future, and our children are our future. But at the same time, it shows kids that, “Hey, if we work together, we can get stuff done. We can make this world just a little bit better every day.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So, what’s so fantastic about this video, and this is the power of a good metaphor, is that as you saw, before he heard the metaphor, the guy was pretty doubtful about engagement. He wasn’t sure how it worked. He didn’t think it could work for everybody. But then after he heard the metaphor, he was like, “Boom, that’s what I was saying.” Although it wasn’t really what he was saying before he heard it. So it definitely immediately sort of did a really good job of changing the way he was thinking about engagement. And then he even used something that’s sort of part of that metaphor, which we’re going to get a little deeper into that in a minute, which is the idea of fueling the future. So when you’re launching a student into space, or launching their academics, or launching their development, then you need fuel for that. So that was just a really, for us, very exciting way of looking at the effect that the metaphor had on somebody’s thinking.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

And I’m just going to apologize for a second. I have a first grader who is here and she just ran back into the house. She left. Okay. So hopefully you’ll be able to hear this next video. So the next video I’m going to show you is an example of taking that space launch metaphor and putting it into use. And the folks at the State Family Engagement Center in Ohio heard about, read the framing strategy, learned about the metaphor, and sort of immediately went out and incorporated it into their communications materials, and did a fantastic job. So I’m going to show you the video that they created.

Speaker 5:

Welcome to the Ohio Statewide Family Engagement Center website. We know that Ohio’s children succeed when families, schools, and communities work better together. Helping our kids succeed is like working at NASA’s mission control. Just like a space launch needs astronauts, scientists, and mathematicians to work together, we need schools, families, and communities to work together to help student learning take off. Everybody has a part to play if we want to have a successful launch.

Speaker 5:

Ohio’s families are diverse. We have families with different strengths and challenges from different cultures and histories who speak different languages and who have different abilities. This website is for all of us. We created this website for every child, every family, and every school, because everyone deserves an opportunity to benefit from the best resources available. All kids deserve the opportunity to succeed, and that happens when families, and schools, and communities work together.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So I hope that was an inspiring video. Actually, every time I watch it, it sort of inspires me to think about, “Oh, there’s so many different ways that we can use space launch as a metaphor to talk about engagement.” And as you might’ve noticed, they also use the opportunity for all value towards the end of the video. So that was a case of putting frames together. And we’re going to talk about that a little more in a moment. Just forgive me, I’m going to plug my headphones in now that we’re done with videos. Okay. Can everyone hear me?

Speaker 6:

Yep.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Great. Thank you. This way if there’s more banging around upstairs, you all don’t have to listen to it. So, what I’d like us to do is think about how we can map the metaphor of space launch onto the idea of family, school, and community engagement, because that’s what an explanatory metaphor does. It takes something that we have some knowledge about already, that’s very familiar to us, and uses it to sort of map onto something that we’re not as sure about. So, a successful metaphor, which in this case, as I said, this is one of my favorite metaphors, it was pretty much the most successful in testing that I have seen in the five years I’ve been at FrameWorks, is it’s really, you can use so many different things from the metaphor to talk about family engagement. So, here are just some examples of how you can do that mapping.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So if planning a launch of a spacecraft is … then setting goals is a similar thing in family engagement. So if family, school, and community engagement is like a space launch, then planning a launch is like setting goals. Next talking about who are the people that are involved. One of the really powerful things about this metaphor and the testing was that it helps people recognize that because the people who work on a space launch are skilled, have their own knowledge, are bringing a lot of important things to the table, they can also see how parents, families, educators, and community members are similarly skilled, have training, have knowledge, are a meeting of experts, as opposed to sort of unequal relationships that we often see people thinking about when they think about schools, that the teacher is sort of the expert, the parents maybe don’t have expertise. When you use this metaphor, it really sort of elevates the expertise of everyone who are involved.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So comparing families, educators, and community members to engineers, physicists, and ground control, works really well. So family, school, and community engagement is like a space launch. Then collaboration between experts is ongoing partnerships. If you think about family, school, and community engagement as a space launch, then planning early, like you would plan early to, sometimes it takes quite a bit of time to lunch a spacecraft, what is the equivalent in family engagement? Well, it could be starting early in the school year, or even before the school year starts. It could be starting very early in childhood. So thinking about preschool or even earlier.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So what I want us to do is think about other ways in which we can map launching a spaceship to family engagement. So we’re going to do a framing practice. We’re going to do this in the chat box, and Sherri’s going to help me out with sort of responding to some of the things that you’re adding, and I’m very excited to see what those are. So take that idea of if family, school, and community engagement is like a space launch, then … If you have an example that you brought with you from sort of the homework, you can use that, or if you want to write something original, that’s totally fine. But I’d love for people to sort of map out the different parts of the space launch metaphor to family engagement, similar to the way that I just did. So if you want to go ahead and write your ideas in the chat box, we’ll give you a minute. I’m sure you all are thinking very hard about how to do this. And I’m excited to hear what you have to say and what you’ve written.

Sherri Wilson:

Marisa, as they are working on that, we have a question from Richard. Richard says, “Aren’t students also a key part of the launch, and doesn’t saying family as an inclusive term reduce the role of the student?”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So, I think the student technically, I mean, they are a part of the family, and I think you’re absolutely right that the student is part of the space launch as well. I think you can think of it as the astronauts are involved in, they’re actually sort of the center of launching the spaceship, but they are deeply involved in it, and they are experts in their own way. So that’s a really good point. You did see it too in the Ohio video that students, parents, families members, and teachers were all sort of part of that space launch together. So thank you. That’s a really good point.

Sherri Wilson:

Alyssa wrote, “If family, school, and community engagement is like a space launch, then communication is super important.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Yeah.

Sherri Wilson:

And Tracy said, “Then kids are the spacecraft.” Benita said, “Fuel is collaboration.” Karen said, “Transparency is key.” Kathleen said, “Planning and intentionality is key to the launch.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Yup. And also to engagement, exactly. Sorry.

Sherri Wilson:

Yeah, no, that’s true. [inaudible 00:17:48] said, and I love this, “We won’t just reach for the stars. We’ll meet them.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Oh, I like that.

Sherri Wilson:

Right?

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

That’s fun.

Sherri Wilson:

So good.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Yeah. So I think with each of these, they’re really great in terms of thinking about what the metaphor can mean for engagement. And just thinking about always making sure that you’re using something from the metaphor to then talk about the thing in engagement is the really critical thing. So I can actually go back to how we did this in the previous slide. So you can see that as well.

Sherri Wilson:

Andrea said, “Astronauts cannot get off the ground by themselves.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Exactly. Yeah. Students can’t succeed without a whole system of people doing all this work around them and with them. Right?

Sherri Wilson:

Yeah. Richard, who is a very deep thinker, said, “Like in any launch, much happens years before the actual launch. Therefore, what are we thinking couples should be discussing even prior to having children?”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

I mean, there are people who say, and I’ve seen this before, that engagement should be starting even prenatally. So absolutely, I think that’s great.

Sherri Wilson:

Samantha said, “The student is the astronaut. They do training and preparation to have a successful mission.” Alexander said, “Then the collaboration of families, parents, and children, and teachers, is the fuel that propels the rocket of learning.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Love that. So good.

Sherri Wilson:

Shelley said, “The beginning of the school year, back to school nights and the like should be a celebration much like the launch.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Oh yeah. I like that one a lot. Let’s find some chances to celebrate what we’re doing. Absolutely.

Sherri Wilson:

Here’s a really, really good one. S. C. wrote, “It’s not just about the launch, but also bringing them back to the community safely. Planning ahead.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

That’s great. That’s great.

Sherri Wilson:

Sadia said, “Trusting that everyone is working towards the same goal.” Jennifer said, “Space launch, child going to school. Early intervention, prepare your child for school.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Yep. Planning early, thinking about, again, there’s that long lead-up to actually launching a spacecraft. So thinking about when that would even start, and again, it can be early childhood, but also thinking about early on in the school year, maybe in the summer, maybe the school year before.

Sherri Wilson:

Yeah. I like this too, Regina wrote, “Agency, voice, and power are critical collaborative fuel elements.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Oh yeah. That’s good. I like that.

Sherri Wilson:

Do we have time for one more?

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

I think we have time for one more. Sorry. I just wanted to … Yeah, we’re good.

Sherri Wilson:

Okay. Then you have to take exquisite care of the educator and parents, the rocket, if you want to have the children, the astronauts, to have a safe and interesting journey.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

That’s good. Yeah. So those were all, there are so many fantastic ideas in there. And the fact that you all came up with that just after having watched two short videos is great. But as you go along, just think creatively about how can I think about this part of launching a spaceship to this part of family, school, and community engagement. And as you can see with your examples, and you can see here, there’s a lot of different ways to do that and be really creative with it. Okay.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So, our next lesson is about talking about equity. So making sure that you give people concrete examples and really clear explanations of what equity, and inequities, and equitable solutions are, goes, as we discovered in our research, goes a long way to getting people to support equitable programs and policies. And equity is a word that is being used, not just in education, but across a lot of different fields right now. And most people who aren’t experts in these different fields really don’t understand what that word means. They think it means equality, or they’re just not sure and they kind of tune out after they hear it. So making sure that you give people the explanation that they need, and that’s really clear, is incredibly helpful.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

And that feels like, “Oh, that’s an easy lift. I can do that.” But a lot of times, again, I find this across fields, when we’re experts in something that we’re passionate about, we have these sort of short hands and shortcuts that we use with other people we talk to and we use in our own minds, that can actually make it more difficult for us to communicate. So you want to be really, really clear and plot these things out. And then once you’ve done that, and I’ll talk about this more in a second, pairing your example with opportunity for all can really emphasize why this is so important, not just for children, and young people, and families, and educators themselves, but also for everyone in our society.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

This is an example, and I know there’s a lot of words on here, but because you’re writing an explanation, it will be a little bit more wordy than when you just say equity or kind of, again, give a shorthand for what’s important. It does take a few more words to really give people what they need to understand it.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So on the gray side, you’re going to see two pieces of information that I actually found on a website about family engagement, that taken out of context, they weren’t really contextualized, there wasn’t that explanation around them. And if you just read them without having all of this background knowledge, you might interpret them a different way. So the first about high-income parents spending nearly seven times more money on out-of-school enrichment than low-income parents, to someone like you and maybe to someone like me, I would read that and say, “Oh, there’s income inequality. And that’s making it harder for some parents to support their children.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

But other people might read this, because we know that that whole sort of culture of poverty, some people don’t value education the way other people do. Thinking, that assumption that’s in a lot of people’s head, they might interpret this a different way. So how would you take that information, the basis of that information, and put it into a full explanation that people could really understand?

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Well, you talk about that there are important barriers, and then you list out what those barriers are. At least some of them are, to help people understand why lower income parents spend considerably less on out-of-school activities. Not because they’re bad parents, it’s because these activities costs a lot of money and that’s a barrier for them. So that’s an inequity that they’re facing.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

And then the second part is about equitable approaches. So saying that they need to take into account family strength and a shared responsibility, that is absolutely true. But what it doesn’t do is tell people what an equitable approach really looks like and what exactly it is that it’s addressing. And some of the language, so the sort of a shared responsibility assumed by families, again, could potentially be misinterpreted from the way the person who wrote this one made it to be, as some families are willing to take that responsibility in some art. So how do you talk about this in a way that gives people what they need?

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

You talk again about the fact that there are obstacles to engagement. For instance, so this is where that inequity is coming from. It’s not that some families are deficient. And then the equitable approach is that schools accommodating these schedules so they can build on the strengths of all families. So you can see that the core ideas of both of these are sort of reframed with an explanation part, but it’s just drawn out for people in such a way that they can really follow the cause and the effect in the system.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So, pairing something like that, that sort of fuller explanation with opportunity for all, is really useful, again, as I said, to get people invested into why they should care about equity and inequities, and how to address inequities. So I wanted to remind you all of what that value looks like. And you can kind of see here why it matches so well with the equity explanation. So talking about the fact that we’re committing to making sure that all people have the same opportunities, regardless of color of their skin, how much money they have, language, and that’s why we need to build these strong connections.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

And here’s an example of how you might do that in actually a pretty short amount of text, right? So you can fit a surprising amount of information into a tweet, or a quick Facebook post, or something like that. So this doesn’t get into all the details, but it pulls people in by using that opportunity value, and then talking about how you need equitable family engagement practices that break down the barriers. So talking again about barriers and obstacles, and this is where inequities come from, so that all children can reach their goals. And then the be a part of a solution is helpful. So even though it didn’t have the solution there, it’s pointing people to where they can find the solutions that they need.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

And I just want to emphasize here that always give people solutions. If you don’t, even if people have better information, if they don’t know what to do with it and how they themselves can sort of be part of a solution or see the collective responsibility of a solution that matches a problem, people can kind of just fall back on the way they were thinking before. So you got to sort of take it to its endpoint, if you can.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So our next exercise is about using what I was talking about with making sure that you clearly explain what equity is, and trying it yourselves. So writing down an explanation of what the inequity you’re addressing is. So it might be something like a lot of students, parents don’t speak English at home, or it’s limited, why this inequity is happening, why is it more difficult for us to communicate with these parents that might be that we don’t have materials translated, we don’t have educators that speak that language, and how can we address it? So what are some of the potential solutions, or programs, or approaches, that I’m sure a lot of you know, to address any of these inequitable situations.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

And then if you’re feeling really creative and want to sort of add opportunity for all to your equity explanation, that would be fantastic. And we’ll give you a minute. And I just want to say quickly, and I should have said this earlier, this is our first chance to do all of this work. And so it’s not going to be perfect, and that’s totally fine. Framing is an ongoing practice that you really have to do over and over again to get the hang of it. I’ve been at FrameWorks for five years and I still don’t always have the hang of it. So the fact that you all are putting these things in the chat box after your first time seeing it is fantastic. So I’m looking forward to hearing what you’ve added.

Sherri Wilson:

While everybody is working on that too, I just want to remind you that if you have questions, put them in the Q&A box so that we can address them when we get to the end of the session. We’ll have plenty of time for Q&A. So we want to make sure that we address all of your questions. So Jenna has posted, “Opportunity for all receiving what they need.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Good. Yeah.

Sherri Wilson:

Richard wrote, “Having the public describe the experience of inequity goes a long way to be getting to understand the road we need to take towards this launch.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Nice. Yeah. And I think we’re going to talk about messengers later in the third session. And that is something that you want to think about, is how can we make the most of the various people who could contribute to this conversation?

Sherri Wilson:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Nyla, and I apologize Nyla if I said that wrong, she wrote, “Some parents from low income families also lack technology literacy. They cannot use computers, a main source of info and resources.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So yeah, for that, I would just add, what is the solution? How can we address that inequity, would be really useful.

Sherri Wilson:

Here’s one from Jean. Jean says, “Families with parents who do not speak English very well have difficulties to communicate with the school and even their own students. The school needs to use multiple ways to engage the families through liaisons and community organizations.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

That’s fantastic. Yeah. That’s exactly the sort of thing that people need, and it was very clear. And so with something like that, you could say the word equity, because you’re actually explaining what equity needs to look like. And so that’s something that’s really good in terms of something to start working with. Very clear.

Sherri Wilson:

Excellent. Okay. Here’s one from Heather, “Inequity is not being able to access internet access because the area lacks infrastructure. It can be addressed when policymakers view broadband as a utility like electricity and water.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Perfect. Yeah. Just immediately told people what inequity was. I love that.

Sherri Wilson:

Yeah. Heather is a bit of a genius too. She’s super smart. Shelly wrote, “Bilingual facilitators work to ensure all families have equal access to opportunities.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Nice.

Sherri Wilson:

Saba said, “Communication across all families, not all families have access to text, email, or phone calls. Also, language can be a barrier. Ways to address this might be to ask and keep a list of best modes of communication for all families so you can reach as many families as possible.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Great. That was great. Yep. Cause, effect, solution.

Sherri Wilson:

Very smart. Luce wrote, I hope I said that right, Luce, “Communication is key in all languages. With sensitivity to culture and uniqueness equals equity.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Good. Yeah. I think that’s talking about, because we know that there’s that understanding that’s very racialized, usually culture of poverty thinking, whenever you can find a way to explain why obstacles or barriers for particular groups of people who might be lower income, or people of color, or people who don’t speak a language at home, you want to make sure that the barriers and obstacles are very clear so that people don’t go into that family blaming mode. And that seems to be something that’s a really important thing in family engagement. So, good work.

Sherri Wilson:

Here’s one from a teacher, “Closing the achievement gap happens when you provide all students access to the standards and keep expectations high. Children rise when given productive feedback.” Sheila Jackson, another person I love, she wrote, “Shared community wisdom and tapping all family funds of knowledge and strengths through asset mapping will lead us to equitably creating opportunities for the success of all students.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Nice. That’s good.

Sherri Wilson:

It was beautiful, just like Sheila. Janell wrote, “Virtual learning becomes a barrier because not everyone had access to quality internet connection, not the technological ability to maneuver. It can be addressed by ensuring that all families have the access and training to function on an equal level.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

That’s great. Yeah. I mean, I do have to say the particular time that we’re in now, which is incredibly difficult, and I can’t wait for us to be in a better situation, hopefully soon, there are so many opportunities right now to think about how you’re talking about equity, because it’s so come to the fore and it’s really more in the public consciousness, even if they don’t know what the word equity is. There’s just a lot of opportunities to frame well.

Sherri Wilson:

Yeah. Here’s one from our favorite, Richard, who wrote, “We often think about engagement across groups. However, it’s also the case that there is little congruence within each group. What conversations need to occur with teachers amongst themselves before we ever get to approaching others?” I think that’s a-

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

I feel like that’s a larger question. It’s not one that I’m necessarily the best to answer. But I think that’s a really important question.

Sherri Wilson:

Yeah. Richard, I think that is a huge question and it’s probably something we need to think about before teachers get in the classroom. Pre-service teacher education should really be where a lot of those conversations are taking place. And talk to me offline if you want to know more about what NAFSCE is doing about that. Laura Mitchell said, “PowerPoint 365 allows simultaneous translation via captions.” Thank you for that. Tracy wrote, “Children need support to learn virtually. High-income parents can monitor at home or hire someone to help. Low-income, working parents can’t. Equity hubs provide the support these families need.” And she also posted an address where people could learn more about the equity hubs.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Cool. That’s great. Yeah. Now, I mean, I’d love to hear more about equity hubs just based on what you just said. So that was really good.

Sherri Wilson:

Yeah. It’s equityhubs.org, Marisa, if you [inaudible 00:38:10].

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Okay. Now, I’m definitely … Yeah. That’s awesome. I think that’s helpful for a lot of the work that we do in addition.

Sherri Wilson:

Here’s something else from my friend Heather, “Inequity is when you assume dads feel welcome in a school building when dads, especially men of color, feel they are viewed suspiciously by everyone in the building. It can be addressed by intentionally reaching out to fathers to create a welcoming environment for them and ensuring staff welcome men as necessary partners.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Yeah, that’s great. Just drew the connections all the way through. Yeah.

Sherri Wilson:

Janell said, “Equity is not only providing translation in one spoken language, but going the extra mile to understand whether or not the families are literate in the language they speak, not assuming.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

That’s good. Should we do like, how many more do you think we have time to do?

Sherri Wilson:

Let’s do two more.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Perfect.

Sherri Wilson:

“Giving families the resources they want and need is key. Not what we think they need. Caregivers, that’s family’s voices, are crucial for engagement and student access. Also embracing different family structures,” that was from Betsy.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

That’s good. Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting because I’m hearing a lot of these where the equity example is fantastic and there’s also opportunities to use the space launch metaphor at the same time. So that’s really good.

Sherri Wilson:

Here’s our last one. This is from Denise, “Virtual learning is a barrier for students who need learning materials to support the understanding of the curriculum. All students need access to learning materials to enhance the understanding of standards and how it connects to the real world.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

That’s great. Yeah. And using that all students, that opportunity for all sort of flavor of the value in there was great. So, okay. I’m going to move on to our next lesson. So this is around using well-framed images. I think all of us are aware that images are very important to our communications. And so I actually had a really good time searching through different websites and using Google images to sort of find out how images are being used to visualize engagement. And there was some interesting stuff, as you’re going to see.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

I think the thing that I saw more often, and that I literally saw more often, because this picture on the left-hand side was actually used across a lot of different websites, probably because it’s something that you pick up from one of the websites itself pictures, but as you can see, there is nothing on its face necessarily wrong with this picture in terms of it is showing engagement between a family member and a student, in this case a little girl, and an educator, and that’s great. But now that we know what those traps are, thinking about the ways in which this might sort of push people into that way of thinking, in particular that sort of traditional parent-teacher conference way of thinking, if we want to explore people’s understanding of engaging, if we want to make it much wider, then this kind of picture isn’t necessarily going to be very helpful.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Versus the picture on the right-hand side, which shows something quite different, right? It actually shows educators in someone’s home interacting, and this is really not necessarily what people expect, but it’s something that for that reason we’ll potentially pull them in, and is a really great depiction of what you’re trying to communicate about engagement, which is that it is more than parent-teacher conferences.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So when you’re framing with images, these are the things that you’re going to want to consider. So first is anticipating the traps, right? So tangible triad, just parent, teacher, student culture of poverty, maybe there’s some students that are going to be better because they come from the right families or the right communities. Whereas in some communities people want to engage. Compartmentalization. So schools are for certain things like academics and family and maybe community are for things like morals and responsibility. And then there were several other which I think will probably come up as we talk.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Widening the lens. So in the previous picture, you saw just that tangible triad, right? Just in the classroom. It literally was very focused in on one person’s face. Something that we teach across all of our framing strategies is that you always, to the extent you can, want to widen the lens, so that you’re not just showing individuals, but you’re showing conditions.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So the other example I showed that actually showed a home, so it was outside of the school setting and we know people kind of get trapped in thinking about engagement only happens in schools. So it was outside that school setting. It was a family and it was educators inside of the home, and it was even two educators. So sort of bringing it out to more people to a different setting is really important so that people can see the importance of context, and programs, and structures, as opposed to just focusing in on one family or one educator. So again, finding settings outside.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Whenever you can show what the solutions are. So in the case of the second one, you could talk about, the picture that showed the educators in the family’s home, you can talk about how teacher visits or school visits to homes is actually a solution to engagement, right? And again, it’s something that’s sort of out of the box. People don’t really think about it. So it’s going to really pull people in. As I said, avoid spotlighting the individual. So in addition to making it harder for people to see context, and programs, and policies, it, again, can reinforce that whole- Well, teachers to do well at engagement, well, have to be caring, and that’s something that’s inside of an individual. It’s not part of a system. It’s not something that people can be taught. Or this particular type of parent or family is more likely to engage than this other type of family. So thinking really intentionally about what it is that you’re showing in a picture is really important.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

And then think about how you present data. So this is, again, sort of a general framing recommendation. A lot of times, again, when we’re experts in a field, we like to put data out there and think that people will interpret it the same way that we do. But what we know from lots of studies in our own work is that people are going to bring their own thinking to the data that you’re showing them. So again, don’t fall into those traps, always make sure that you frame your data and you frame your information.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So, this is our last exercise, and I’m hoping it’s fun. It was really fun when I’ve done it in the past. But here are a series of pictures, and I’m really interested in when you look at them, what do you see that you think might be problematic? I’m positive that the intentions of everyone who put these pictures up was the best of intentions, but there’s some things in here that maybe might not work so well and might be doing the opposite of what people want to do. Again, you need to test your frames. And then what would you do differently with these pictures? So if you can answer in the chat box, and then we’ll talk about what you see that you think you would change, and how it could be improved.

Sherri Wilson:

It’ll be really interesting, Marisa, to see if they come up with the same things we did in the last time we did this. Some of them popped right out at me. Somebody wrote, “Sitting positions instead of across, they should be next to each other.” That’s a really good one.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

I love that. Yeah. That’s great.

Sherri Wilson:

Families of color are missing. Only one dad or male. Teacher hugging student, focus on teachers being caring. Good catch. Okay. People are starting to realize the handcuffs around there.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

There we go.

Sherri Wilson:

Handcuffs, oh my God.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Yeah. When I saw this fire, again, best of intentions, I’m sure, on the part of the people who put it up, the handcuffs just drew my eye too and I thought, “This is really, really not a good idea,” because it cues that thinking about culture of poverty, school to prison pipeline, which has its own issues. And unfortunately it was used in several websites. So I’m hoping that maybe they’ll get taken down. Maybe the word will spread this isn’t a good idea.

Sherri Wilson:

Somebody said, “Traditional family composition.” And I don’t think anybody has commented on those pearls yet, but that’s an issue for me as well. The traditional mom and dad and child does not represent all types of family configurations. A lot of people talking about the hugging and the handcuffs. Ms. Dee said, “I’m not sure I would want to sit on the same side too tough to communicate.” So that might be a slight stretch, because somebody else had mentioned they would rather see that than … One way to avoid that is to get rid of any tables or anything between you and whoever you’re speaking with. I think of those tables is like little mini walls and it’s good to get that out of the way.

Sherri Wilson:

School setting time of day might not be conducive to all parents. Use the word families instead of parental. My friend Karen said, “Perils make me think of the Leave It to Beaver TV show in the past.” That’s what I thought of too. No dad at the teacher conference. Too many assumptions being made. Jenna said, “It’s understood that family participation engagement is meaningful, but what about the families who cannot because of work? So their kids aren’t going to be successful.” Somebody said, “The tie on the dad, not all dads wear ties.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Very true.

Sherri Wilson:

Somebody said, “Trophies and ribbons represent a competition.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Yeah. That’s true too. That’s a good point. I mean, just thinking about things that we’re reinforcing, when we use any particular sort of shorthand image, is I think really important. Sort of across all different fields. And yeah, I like that.

Sherri Wilson:

Tracy made a really good point. She said, “Parental involvement in schools implies that if I can’t come to school, I can’t be involved.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Exactly. Yeah. I think that’s a great point, which goes back to what I loved about the picture of the home visit. Right? So it took it outside of the school. It felt like, to me, and I think it does look like this, like a more sort of authentic type of engagement, where I think you could have a whole really contextual story just around that one image.

Sherri Wilson:

Tracy pointed out that that’s a trapper keeper and many of us are old enough to remember what that is, Tracy, not just you.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Oh man.

Sherri Wilson:

Nicole said, “The economic status coming from the mom and dad image.” That’s exactly right. Dressed up parents look too formal. Cynthia Gray said, “The handcuffs are punitive school to prison pipeline.” Doris said, “The white teacher hugging the minority student could be perceived as white savior,” which is a really good one.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

That’s a really good point.

Sherri Wilson:

Yeah. Melissa said, “The data points are framed around family capacity instead of the opportunity gap.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Yeah. That’s a good point too.

Sherri Wilson:

A lot of people commenting on parent involvement versus family engagement.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Yeah. And I think, especially in that one on the bottom, there’s a great opportunity to add opportunity for all into that immediate text. So that would be one way in which you could kind of change it to reframe it a bit.

Sherri Wilson:

Yeah. S. C. actually said, “Bottom statement, it acknowledges the inequity and who knows the info. However, it does not acknowledge that schools can assume responsibility for sharing the info about higher level programs.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Yeah. There are no solutions in those little fact icons, right?

Sherri Wilson:

Yeah. Do you want to do one more?

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Sure. One more. And then I want to have plenty of time for Q&A, for everyone.

Sherri Wilson:

Young Tron says, “Faces of diversity represented in school community would be more welcoming.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think that, it’s interesting to think, we always want to think about racial composition in these pictures because we do know what the assumptions are. And so just being, again, it’s about being really intentional when you choose graphics or you choose pictures, and think about, “What is it I’m trying to communicate? How can I use this communication to actually widen the lens and help people understand something better?” Instead of just falling into those traps, and trapping them in their ways of thinking.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So, just a quick review of what we learned today. So again, using that value of opportunity for all to set up why engagement is so important. And I’m not sure if I said this last time, but this particular value, similar to space launch, when we tested it in a large scale demographically representative survey, both of those frames did really, really well across groups. And so I think it makes me really excited to recommend them because I am so confident that they are going to be helpful in your communications. So opportunity for all to kind of bring people in before you start talking about engagement, and then even using it again and again, but it really works really well when you start with it to kind of start your description and explanation.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Offering those concrete examples of equity, which you all got an awesome start on, and thinking about sort of cause, effect, and what is the solution. And if it’s not a perfect solution, that’s fine. But giving people something to work with it ideally is sort of collective, and seems like something that can be done is really helpful. Or if it’s a shorter communication, as we saw, sending people to the place where you have the solutions and the programs and policies.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Use space launch to build understanding of how engagement works. The beautiful thing about metaphors, as you saw with that guy in the video towards the beginning, is that they do a lot of work in terms of building understanding. And the best metaphor is, which I think this is one of the very best, it creates sort of a creative way for people to think about how engagement works. So a lot of it is you mapping and thinking of all the different ways that you can take this metaphor and map it to different aspects of engagement. But also you’ll find that, or we found in our research, that everyday people, members of the public, could see or hear the metaphor, and then they could take it in different, really useful directions. So, look at the Ohio video again, it’s on the State Family Engagement Center website, and there’s so many good ideas in there for what you can do.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

And then finally, making sure that you choose pictures that convey engagement as collective, that it’s more than teacher-parent conferences, don’t ever use handcuffs. Think about very strategically and intentionally about what it is that you want to communicate with an image, and does that fit into the things that you know are really important and you want people to understand. Because a lot of times too, the picture is the first thing people look at. So you want to make sure that it’s telling the story that you want it to tell. So, I think we’re going to move on to questions.

Sherri Wilson:

Yes. So we already have a couple in the Q&A box, which I will share with you. In the meantime, while we’re working on those, if anybody wants to ask a question out loud, or even be on camera, raise your hand and Alice can move you into the presenters’ room and you can do that there. Okay. Are you ready, Marisa?

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Should I stop sharing? Would that be okay?

Sherri Wilson:

Yeah, sure.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Okay. That way it’s easier for me to see you as well.

Sherri Wilson:

Fantastic, because I’m looking good today and I don’t want you to miss out on that. “Do you have other examples of wide lens pictures that convey engagement,” is the first question from Benita Allan.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Yeah, that’s a really good question. We do have one in our toolkit on our website, which we’re going to be talking about the toolkit more next time. But as I said, I just sort of explored websites, the Google images, and stuff like that. And I actually, that’s not the only picture that I found that showed engagement in a home with educators and families. actually there’s a … It looked like there were quite a few, not as many as the sort of, not very well-framed pictures, from various states and school districts that have put up their own pictures showing engagement programs and activities. So I would go find those.

Sherri Wilson:

Wouldn’t it be a good idea for people to capture some of those images themselves when they’re doing work with families?

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

That’s a great idea.

Sherri Wilson:

You just need to make sure you get family’s permission before you use them anywhere. But if you’re doing work with families that is non-traditional types of family engagement, capturing those images, I would think would be really good.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

And there’s also, and I’m glad I thought of this, and maybe you all, Sherri and Alice, can send this out to everybody afterwards, but there is a video from a school district in California that was doing a home visit program. And they put together a great video where they showed the home visits, where they talked to students, where they talked to families, and they talked to educators. So it wasn’t just focused on one person, one teacher, or one family, that is not very long, and they just went around and they showed how that program actually worked. So I’ll find the video and send the link to you. I believe it was-

Sherri Wilson:

Yeah, that would be great. I was going to ask if you remember which district in California that was, but if you send us a video, that’s fine.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

I’ll send you all the video. Yeah. I’ve used it before and it’s great. It’s a good model.

Sherri Wilson:

Excellent. Here’s a question from Tracy Potts. “How can community groups or even school districts, without budgets for scientific surveys or focus groups, test frames in order to ensure they’re effective?”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

So, I’m going to give sort of a cheeky answer, which is you don’t have to because we already did that for you. That is a great question. So we did do this project with the intention of creating a framing strategy, that based on the research that we did with members of the public across the United States, we are pretty confident works everywhere. The place that it might not work is with families that don’t speak English, because all the research was done in English, which is just a limitation of the research, we didn’t have funding to do it in multiple languages.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

I think in terms of doing it scientifically on a smaller scale, a survey might actually work pretty well, but I would also say testing them systematically with the people you’re communicating with, and talking about what is your understanding of engagement, what sort of things do you think work, et cetera, it’s more qualitative, maybe a little bit anecdotal, but I think it would be really helpful for you in terms of figuring out what is the most useful way to use these frames with the audiences that you’re communicating with.

Sherri Wilson:

This might actually be a good time for you to talk too about the actual metaphor, the space launch metaphor. So we recently did this Reframing Institute in Massachusetts, and it went really well, and we all had a really good time. And last week I was meeting with a group of people who actually participated in that. And several of them said, in the work that we were doing, “We need to come up with a metaphor for this.” And I’m not sure they really understood the space launch metaphor is the metaphor. And you can just come up with ways to change that and make it fit with what you’re trying to communicate, but that’s the metaphor that was tested.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Yeah. And that is something that I encounter a lot, all of us at FrameWorks encounter a lot, because when people hear a metaphor, it inspires them to think about other metaphors, like people who we talked to in a particular field, which is great and creative. But yeah, when I talked last time and I talked today about the values for that addiction project that we did that showed a value that the field was using, and a lot of it, like 90% of its materials, which was empathy, was actually doing the opposite work of what they intended it to do. That’s the same with all frames.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

It’s actually ideal that you test them first, scientifically as we were talking about, and make sure that they are doing the work that you really want to do, because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been working on something and the people we’re working with have been using a way of talking about whatever that issue is, that they think works, and then we test it and it doesn’t work, or how often the staff ourselves will think, “Okay. Well, let’s try this thing.” And then it ends up not working at all, or as well as we thought it was going to. The lucky thing about this project and this research is that space launch, it kicked butt, it was really, really successful. So I hope people use it as much as possible.

Sherri Wilson:

Yeah, it is really, really good. And it’s easy to work with in terms of the different kinds of ways you can use it and substitute different components. And there’s a whole thing on the famengage website about how you can map out different pieces of that metaphor, which the famengage website we’ll be sharing with all of you guys after next week. Okay. Nadelia has a question. Sorry, Nadelia, if I’m saying this all wrong. “Do you have any other activities or videos to explain or cover the culture of poverty or inequities?”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Yeah. I guess it depends on … So you saw the video that Sean showed briefly last time, that was specifically for this project. And then we do have work across a lot of different projects, including ones that I’ve worked on that we’ve worked on for the past 20 years, that show how dominant that way of thinking is across all issues. But it’s definitely in our education work across the board, all the education work that we’ve done. So there are other examples on our website and I can also share some links with Sherri and Alice that she can send out that I hope are helpful.

Sherri Wilson:

Excellent. Okay. Cynthia Grace says, “Many parents can be very engaged in their children’s education and school community without being physically in the building, especially parents working the 3:00 to 11:00 shift or the 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM shift, for example, nurses who are essential workers. Can engagement be text, email, phone calls, and instant message with teachers, staff, and parent-teacher associations?” This is engagement.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

I think that’s a question for you, Sherri.

Sherri Wilson:

Well, then I’m going to say yes. Absolutely, that is engagement. Engagement can be anything that families do to support what their kids are learning, wherever they are. So it doesn’t even necessarily involve communication, although they often need some help with what to do, because they may not understand what kids are learning or what they can do to support it. But yeah, absolutely, texting, emailing, phone calls, any type of communication with others about how to support their children’s education is engagement.

Sherri Wilson:

Okay. Here’s one from Richard. Richard says, “This may be more of a statement than a question. Nonetheless, I see this work is more than about engagement in schools to support our students, but is a critical experience that’s part of a parent’s/citizen’s growth and development that helps them build a set of skills that will be invaluable in any work setting.”

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

I 100% agree, and I don’t want anybody to feel like what I shared is prescriptive. The underlying frame is really, and framing recommendation, is really important, and you want to think about it, but that doesn’t mean that you have to stick to specific solutions that I talked about, or only talk about academic success or anything like that. And I totally agree with that statement, and I think it would work really well with a lot of the frames.

Sherri Wilson:

Yeah, totally agree, Richard. You are 100% right, 0% wrong. Marisa, this might also be a good time to talk about why framing involves, it is not always the same for different people, and different types of frames can work in different situations.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Yes, exactly. So again, I don’t want you to feel that this is prescriptive, and you all know your audiences better than I do. And so there are going to be things that you might say, “I would never use that frame with this group of people that I’m talking about,” but you might want to use that frame with other group of people that you think would be really receptive to it, or you might want to be tweaking it a little bit between the different groups. So if it’s opportunity for all, maybe the word opportunity doesn’t work with one group, but you still want to emphasize that this is important to everyone. So you can talk about all children and all families, et cetera. So it’s absolutely important that you’re thinking about your audiences when you’re using the frames.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

And this is an overall framing strategy, where the different components really do work very well together. And ideally you would use all of them in your communications, maybe even if it’s something longer, and we haven’t even, we still have a couple of recommendations to talk about next time, you could use all of them. But you want to be strategic and use what works for that particular communication. But if you can pair them, it does work very well for all of them.

Sherri Wilson:

Yeah. And I also think, something you’ve mentioned earlier today, and quite often to be frank, you say it all the time, is that this is not something you learn the first time you hear it. It is something you have to practice and work with to get to where you really understand which frame to use and when to use it, right?

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Yeah.

Sherri Wilson:

It takes ongoing practice, which we are here at NAFSCE to help you with. So, that’s awesome. Here’s a question from Jean. “Any funding support or free training to empower parents advocacy?” I’m thinking, Marisa, this is probably a NAFSCE question, and I would say, Jean, that if you are a member of NAFSCE, awesome. There are a lot of opportunities to participate in some of the ongoing training that we offer. We also have connections to and provide information about a lot of other organizations and the training that they might provide, particularly if you are in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and I suspect that many of you are.

Sherri Wilson:

You also fall under the Statewide Family Engagement Center there, which is CAFE, the Collaborative for, Carmen, please forgive me if I get this wrong, Collaborative for Active Family Engagement? Anyhow, CAFE offers a lot of training to empower parents advocacy. So that’s a great resource, and Carmen, if you’re on here, please put some links in the chat box for Jean.

Sherri Wilson:

One other comment here from Jenna, she said, “I recently completed a family engagement course, and much of what you shared this week and last week definitely overlaps. Such great work. And one of the books we read was Authentically Engaged Families: A Collaborative Care Framework for Student Success.” Excellent book. And she added the good stuff. Thank you, Jenna.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Thank you.

Sherri Wilson:

That is our last question. Does anybody else have questions before we wrap up today? We are very early, plenty of time. And if you would like to ask your question live, raise your hand and Alice will promote you and you can ask a question to Marisa yourself. Young Chan just wrote in the chat box, “I think the key question is how well do we know our families? The answer to this question may shape our framing.” That’s probably true, right, Marisa?

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Yeah. Again, knowing who your audience is and what’s going to work well with them. And also, so this is a learning process, right? In several ways. Like one is just learning how to frame takes time. You need to practice a lot. Some stuff you might sort of figure out really quickly and some stuff might take more time. But also framing with your audiences can take time. And it might be that you’re using certain frames with groups and it’s just not working, and you want to change your tactic and try something else. And yeah, there are frames as great as many of these streams did with members of the public. No frame is a magic bullet. So you need to practice it. You also need to use frames over, and over, and over again to really change people’s understanding and support over the longterm. So, just thinking about the fact that I can’t do this once, I need to keep doing it, and ideally everybody in my district, or in my state, or in the field are doing the same thing. That’s how we create change in thinking faster.

Sherri Wilson:

Awesome. Well, Marisa, this has been amazing. Between now and next week, is there anything that you think our participants could do to practice and be better prepared for the next and final session?

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

I think using all of the frames would be great. Maybe if there’s one you feel most comfortable with, sort of keep working with that until you’re like, “Yeah, I got this,” and then go to the one you feel least comfortable with and play around with that. I think it would actually be kind of fun if everybody just maybe wrote, took one frame, or maybe two if you want to combine them, wrote a couple of lines, like maybe how would I use this in a tweet or something like that, and just brought it with them next time and shared them in the chat box and we get to see some examples. I would really enjoy getting to see what everybody does with that.

Sherri Wilson:

I think that’s a fantastic idea. Tweets are so easy and there’s so few characters. You can whip one of those out in no time. And if you want to tweet it and tag me, I will happily retweet you. I’m @isherriatwork if you want to find me on Twitter, I’ll put that in the chat box for you. And then I guess we will see you next week, Marisa.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Yep. Sounds good. Thank you.

Sherri Wilson:

Thank you everyone who joined us today, we really appreciate your time and energy on this. We know how important it is to change the way that we think about family engagement, and we can’t do that without all of you. So thank you again for participating and we will see you next week.

Marisa Gerstein Pineau:

Thanks.