The Puerto Rico Partnership aims to improve student outcomes by building educators’ capacity to design and implement clear, data-driven communication with families about students’ academic and behavioral progress. In turn, families will be better equipped to use data to advocate for and support their children’s learning needs. Parental involvement in a child’s education and family-school partnerships can have a systematic and sustained effect on learning outcomes.1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Moreover, family engagement has been shown to be the strongest predictor of student achievement.8 The Puerto Rico Department of Education (PRDE) has embarked on a family engagement initiative to strengthen and expand schools’ efforts to promote meaningful family engagement.
REL Northeast & Islands is supporting these efforts with research-based resources and best practices to help families use and understand data to support their children’s academic experiences. This work includes assessing parents and families’ data needs and providing coaching to district and school leaders to support action planning aimed at enhancing family engagement. REL Northeast & Islands is also facilitating training for principals and teachers on effective implementation of the Academic Parent-Teacher Teams (APTT) model—a research-based family engagement model focused on parent and teacher partnerships. In addition, REL Northeast & Islands and its partners are implementing a co-developed dissemination plan to spread awareness of, deepen understanding about, and expand access to partnership resources, such as a fact sheet for families on accessing and using available data about their students and schools. Together, they are co-developing video clips that demonstrate how to implement the key elements of the APTT model in a public school in Puerto Rico. Finally, the partnership is incorporating family engagement strategies and resources into the department’s guide for effective data use.
Partner Organizations: Puerto Rico Department of Education, Puerto Rico Education Foundation, and Puerto Rico Community Foundation
1 Bryk, A. S., Sebring, P. B., & Allensworth, E. (2009). Organizing schools for improvement: Lessons from Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2 Dearing, E., Kreider, H., & Weiss, H. B. (2008). Increased family involvement in school predicts improved child-teacher relationships and feelings about school for low-income children. Marriage & Family Review, 43(3/4), 226–254.
3 DeCastro, B. S., & Catsambis, S. (2009). Parents still matter: Parental links to the behaviors and future outlook of high school seniors. In N. Hill and R. Chao, (Eds.), Families, schools, and the adolescent: Connecting research, policy, and practice. New York: Teachers College Press.
4 Henderson, A.T., & Mapp, K. L. (2002). A new wave of evidence: The impact of school, family, and community connections on student learning. Austin, TX: Southwest Education Development Laboratory.
5 Jeynes, W. H. (2005). A meta-analysis of the relation of parental involvement to urban elementary school student academic achievement. Urban Education, 40(3), 237–269.
6 Jeynes, W. H. (2007). The relationship between parental involvement and urban secondary school student academic achievement. Urban Education, 42(1), 82–110.
7 Jeynes, W. (2012). A meta-analysis of the efficacy of different types of parental involvement programs for urban students. Urban Education, 47(4), 706–742.
8 Henderson, A.T., & Mapp, K.L. (2002). A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family, and Community Connections on Student Achievement. National Center for Family and Community Connections with Schools and SEDL. https://sedl.org/connections/resources/evidence.pdf
Current projects
In this series of training, coaching, and technical support activities, REL Northeast & Islands is supporting the Puerto Rico Department of Education (PRDE) in building the capacity of leaders and educators to design and implement clear, data-driven communication with families about students’ academic and behavioral progress. The REL Northeast & Islands team is supporting PRDE in developing goals and identifying evidence-based strategies to effectively involve families in their students’ learning and incorporate those strategies into action plans. These action plans will include the district’s professional development needs (such as teacher planning time), family engagement practices, the infrastructure needed to support the new practices, and ways to monitor these practices.
Completed projects
No projects at this time.