Father (father figures) Engagement
Challenge/Scenario
Last month Melissa Gutierrez, nine year principal of Middletown City Elementary School, came across a parent that she did not recognize in the hallway. He looked perplexed holding a sack lunch. Dr. Gutierrez asked how she could be helpful. He held out the lunch saying that his little sister Krystal, whom he is raising, had forgotten it that morning. Sean Monroe was able to give Principal Gutierrez his sister’s last name and grade, but was unsure of her teacher’s name or classroom number. Dr. Gutierrez took the lunch and assured its safe delivery to Krystal. She then invited Sean to come back another day to have lunch with his sister. He accepted the principal’s invitation. Although the interaction was positive, something still did not rest well with Principal Gutierrez. Dr. Gutierrez’s school has a strong Parent Teacher Association (PTA) that is very engaged in building bridges between the school and community. Two years ago when the school’s reading scores took a dip, the PTA organized a lunch reading program. Families and adults from the community came to school to read with students at all grade levels. Reading performances increased and the program is now a staple at the school with funding from a local organization. Last year the school received an award from the district recognizing their exceptional family engagement work. However, even with a strong PTA, Dr. Gutierrez had overlooked the fact that the majority of its members were women. These women are the same faces that she regularly sees in the school building.
* Fathers, male caregivers, male family members, and other male role models tend to be present for main events like parent-teacher conferences, back to school night, sporting events, student showcase events, career day, and promotion, but they do not tend to participate in everyday activities. Dr. Gutierrez also noticed that when men are at school to have lunch with their child, visiting classes, or even walking their child to his or her classroom there is a different energy at the school. This excitement is clearly observable in the students. Dr. Gutierrez is struggling with how to engage them in activities that extend beyond the PTA and more traditional events.
Dr. Gutierrez wants to spend this year working with her Leadership Team to improve the engagement of fathers-father caretakers in the school.
* For the remainder of the activity the term Father(s) will be in reference to the following: fathers, male caregivers, male family members, and other adult male role models.
- What initial thoughts come to mind when thinking about the engagement of fathers in the school?
- How is “father” being defined at Middletown City Elementary School? Is the definition inclusive of all of the men who play significant roles in the lives of the students?
- How are fathers encouraged to be part of the school culture? Are there immediate steps that the Leadership Team can take to create a more welcoming environment for fathers?
- What are some ways to acknowledge and affirm the significant role fathers play in student success? How can that information be used to create opportunities to strategically engage these men?
Step 1: Needs assessment and collaborative inquiry. Ask. Explain. Encourage. Communicate. Ask them if they would like to participate in school events and activities, and, if so, how? Explain the importance of their presence in the lives of the students and the positive outcomes for their children. Encourage them to come to the school and invite other men from the community to develop a cadre of male role models within the school. Communicate with them in messaging specific to men, to the point, and straight up…”We need you!” Then recognize and celebrate their involvement. (National PTA).
Tools:
- Father—Father Figure Interest Survey. It is important to get fathers involved in ways that they are willing and able. The best way to do that is by simply asking. This tool is a sample survey to capture the interest of father-father figures in school engagement. The intent of the tool is to identify areas and frequency of interest for fathers, so that the school can be direct in its efforts to include them in school activities and events.
- Building Parent Bridges. Getting to know the families that the school is serving takes some effort and intentionality, but it is important for addressing barriers and creating bridges to engage families fully. The information gathered from this activity can help the Leadership Team identify particular barriers to engagement as it relates to fathers, and generate some creative solutions to breaking down those barriers.
- Community Asset Mapping. A school community, both inside and outside of the building walls, can prove to be full of ample resources, but they must be identified. Community asset mapping offers a method to capture the resources available and gaps from a strengths-based, community-driven perspective. By mapping community assets, the leadership team learns about the specific skills, services, and capacities present in the community that can support school staff, students, and families. This process may also uncover gaps and concerns, and while important, these should not hinder the strengths-based approach.
- Collaborative Inquiry. This is a method by which members of a school leadership team, or any professional learning community, come together to systematically examine their educational practice. Teams work together to ask questions, develop theories of action, determine action steps, and gather and analyze evidence to assess the impact of their actions. Collaborative inquiry is executed in a four stage process: (stage 1) frame the problem, (stage 2) collect evidence, (stage 3) analyzes evidence, (stage 4) share and celebrate. For collaborative inquiry to be successful the elements of operating a productive leadership team and the use of SMART goals must be embedded.
Step2: Goal setting and action planning. Clear and targeted language is an important component to creating an inclusive and welcoming environment for fathers. Be clear that you are trying to engage them (e.g. in this case, fathers, grandfathers, stepfathers, other male family members, foster parents, etc.). Once you have created language to solicit father participation, planning is required to ensure that participation turns into long-term engagement. The action plan provides a process for planning the implementation of ideas in a SMART way. Using the data collected earlier in the process should generate an action plan that is guided by the feedback and ideas generated by the fathers (male role models) themselves.
Tools:
- In Our Own Words… The use of common language is critical to achieving a common goal. The look and feel of families has evolved over time and it is important to ensure that the language used when describing families is as inclusive as possible, to foster maximum engagement between families and schools. The purpose of this activity is to develop common language for identifying family members that are supporting students in school and at home, so schools can better engage with all of the important adults in the lives of students.
- How to Achieve Our Goal Worksheet. This activity provides an opportunity for the Leadership Team to work together to refine their goals and outline how to go about accomplishing each one. It also ties into the Community Asset Mapping activity by identifying resources that will best support each specific goal.
- Action Plan Template. The Action Plan Template provides a structure to organize and incorporate earlier pieces of the process into one document (i.e. Goals, SMART Objectives, Theory of Action, etc.) as well as a place to record roles and responsibilities for accountability for implementation.
*Use Increasing Father Engagement (found in additional resources) for additional ideas.
Step 3: Implementation and monitoring. It is vital for the Leadership Team to monitor the action plan activities and track progress. Thinking through the potential outcomes of the action plan will help set some guidelines for assessing progress. At follow-up meetings, it will be important for the Leadership Team to check that the action plan is on target, all members know their roles and responsibilities, and they are still willing to support this effort.
Tools:
- Let’s Create Our Implementation and Monitoring Plan Worksheet. An implementation and monitoring plan is an efficient way to monitor action plan activities. It describes the progress indicators linked to achieving the action steps, and indicates whether the action steps had the expected impact.
Wrap-up
Family, School, and Community Engagement (FSCE) initiatives are essential to helping families, community members, and educators work together to promote school reform and improve student achievement. Families are student’s first and lifelong teachers and they must be part of the educational process to improve school climates and increase academic achievement. As schools and families develop a mutual trust for one another the level of engagement and in turn student achievement will begin to increase.
Additional Resources
National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse
https://www.fatherhood.gov/
National Center for Fathering
http://www.fathers.com
Increasing Father Engagement
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/increasing_father_engagement_370145_7.pdf
Fathers Engagement Project
https://www.childwelfare.gov/management/funding/funding_sources/sitevisits/washstate.cfm#page=summary
United We Serve Toolkit – Create your own community based service project
http://www.serve.gov/?q=site-page/toolkits/general/index-started
Men Working: A How-to Guide on Promoting Father Involvement
http://www.pta.org/files/Father_Involvement_How_To_Guide.pdf
A Call to Commitment: Fathers’ Involvement in Children’s Learning
http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/parents/calltocommit/chap2.html
Additional Readings
Head Start Father Engagement Birth to Five Programming Guide
http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/family/docs/father-engage-programming.pdf
