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Preface

Family-school-community partnerships are a shared responsibility and reciprocal process in
which schools and other community agencies and organisations engage families in meaningful
and culturally appropriate ways, and families take the initiative to actively support their children's
development and learning. Schools and community organisations also make an effort to listen to
parents, support them, and provide them with the resources they need to be active partners in
their children's school experiences.
Partnerships are critical for assisting students in reaching their full potential, and while parent
and community involvement has always been a cornerstone of public schools, greater
recognition and support for these collaborative efforts is required.
This e-book will be discussing about the concept of school and community partnership, the
activities that school can carry out with other parties such as parents, other schools,
organisations and community as well as the importance of school and community partnerships
for the development of the students. We hope that our e-book will be useful for everyone.

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Table of Contents

Topic Page
1. Concept of school and community partnerships 3
2. Models of School, Parents and Community Partnerships
4-6
- Parental Involvement (Swap, 1993)
3. Activities to Boost Parent Involvement 7-8
4. Activities that the school can carry out with other schools 9
5. Activities that the school can carry out with other organisations 10
6. Activities that the school can carry out with the community
7. The importance of school and community partnerships for the 11

development of the students 12
8. The importance of school and community partnerships in other aspects 13
9. References

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Definition of school and community partnership

Family-school-community partnerships are a shared responsibility and reciprocal process
whereby schools and other community agencies and organizations engage families in
meaningful and culturally appropriate ways, and families take initiative to actively support their
children’s development and learning.

Through collaboration:

No. Minimise problems Maximise results
1 Poverty
2 Child development Promoting well-being
3 Crime
Protective factors
4 Employment issues
Empowering families, communities and
schools

the concerted effort of all stakeholders.

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Models of School, Parents and Community Partnerships
Parental Involvement (Hoover-Dempsey & Sandlet, 1997)
Divided into 6 categories:

1. Parenting
The first way parents can support their children’s education is by providing a healthy home
environment. As an educator, you can help parents by offering parenting workshops, helping
their families find needed support programs and government assistance programs, and
encouraging them to model pro-education behavior, such as reading to and in front of their
children.

2. Communicating
Keeping parents informed and making it easy for them to ask questions or express concerns is
vital to parent involvement. You want to make sure you’re holding parent-teacher conferences
(with language translators, if needed), sending student work home with explanations of their
grades, sending out regular emails or memos describing the work you’re doing in the classroom,
and making yourself available to take parent calls and parent-teacher meetings (with an
administrator present, if needed).

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3. Volunteering
One of the most direct ways for parents to involve themselves in their children’s education is to
volunteer in the classroom and/or school. You should invite parents to help out in the classroom
and make sure they are aware of volunteer opportunities within the school, such as helping out
with office work, aiding safety patrols, running concessions at games, etc.

4. Learning at home
Parents and other family members can be great educational resources for students. To help
parents provide at-home learning, you should keep them informed about homework
assignments and projects. You can also provide resources designed to help them understand
the subject matter you’re teaching. Additionally, sending home lists of voluntary reading and
other activities can help parents ensure their children have ways to learn outside of the
classroom.

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5. Decision-making
Good schools and districts run as a partnership between parents and educators. You should
encourage parents to join the PTA/PTO and participate in local advocacy and support groups
focused on education. Likewise, you should make sure parents know about local school board
elections.

6. Collaborating with the communities
Parents who are involved in the community are typically going to be involved in the school
system, too. To help them connect, you can provide information on community activities at local
museums and parks; develop community service projects that bring together parents, teachers,
and administrators; and invite community leaders to speak in the classroom and at parent
events.

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Activities to Boost Parent Involvement

Once schools have put in the time and effort to create the conditions for parent involvement,
there are many fun and engaging activities that can be done to involve parents in their children’s
education and school community. Here are activities at the beginning, intermediate, and
advanced levels for schools to use to get families involved in schools.

Beginning Level Activities to Get Parents Involved in
Schools:

● Assign a reading journal or log for homework where parents have to sign when it is
completed

● Send a class newsletter home weekly or monthly with curriculum themes and highlights
● Send student work home with notes on what they did well and where they can improve
● Host Muffins with Moms, Donuts with Dads, and Grandparents Day with light

refreshments and a craft to do together in the classroom

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Intermediate Level Activities to Get Parents Involved in
Schools:

● Ask parents to present to their children’s class or different grades about their profession
or business

● Send supplementary material for parents to work with their children on at home
● Host Family School Lunches where families can come and eat with their children in the

cafeteria or other spaces each quarter or month
● Plan talent shows, engineering nights, movie nights, award ceremonies, book fairs,

dances, and more for parents to attend

Advanced Level Activities to Get Parents Involved in
Schools:

● Assign family STEAM projects to be completed at home
● Create classroom website pages for families to receive curriculum tips, knowledge,

announcements and more
● Host parent workshops where they can receive information from different service

providers and educators
● Create a parent resource center where parents can find a variety of information

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The activities that school can carry out with other schools.

● School higher authorities can consider learning in other schools by making a
series of inspections and bringing the students from different schools to the
different schools. The inspection must be done by choosing a higher rate school
in order to inculcate the values or specialties that are possessed by the best
performing schools.

● Inviting the other schools to visit our respective schools for events that would
consist of school collaboration. There are so many activities that can be achieved
together such as the celebration for the Independence day, the Maulidur Rasul
day, and also any motivation program.

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Activities that school can carry out with other organisations.

● Construction of youth centre. The NGO has built a centre where youth could
learn and improve themselves in learning progress.

● The NGO also can establish reference library. This kind of activity is going to help
in leveraging the school progress in education. The resources are going be ready
for them in order to refer it as a learning medium.

● School also could engage in ICT training activities with the NGO. This activity is
going to build a nation filled with geniuses in programming the ICT world.

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The importance of school and community
partnerships for the development of the students

1. Give opportunities for students
● School and community partnerships give chances for students to apply what they have

learned in the classroom to a meaningful project (Bouillion and Gomez, 2001). By
enhancing the collaborative digital learning environment at your school, students will be
able to gain more opportunities to access and interact with learning materials,
collaborate and receive feedback.
2. Build better relationships
● Stronger relations with the school students' homework completion, homework effort,
good conduct, and initiative were all improved by teachers and principals. This might be
due to the fact that excellent partnerships with schools can promote high-quality,
engaging, and challenging activities, as well as staff involvement (Miller, 2005).
3. Increase students’ attendance
● The greater the link between school and community relationships, the higher the rate of
school attendance. (Sheldon, 2007) When schools collaborated with the community,
students' achievement test results improved (Sheldon, 2003).

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The importance of school and community
partnerships in other aspects

1. Families
● Provide access to a variety of learning opportunities and developmental supports,

allowing students and instructors alike to try out different teaching and learning
strategies.
2. Schools
● Receive access to mentors, afterschool staff, and other resources to help support
in-school learning and improve classroom teaching and learning.
3. Community partners
● Improve programming alignment to create a unified vision for learning that matches
curriculum with state and local standards also maximise the utilisation of resources
including buildings, personnel, data, and curriculum.

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References

1. https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Courses/Fresno_City_College/Education_30%3A_Introduc
tion_to_Education_(Perez)/08%3A_Effective_Schools/8.04%3A_What_are_the_benefits
_of_school_and_community_partnerships

2. https://www.expandinglearning.org/expandingminds/article/school-community-learning-p
artnerships-essential-expanded-learning-success

3. http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/pdfdocs/partnership/scpart1.pdf
4. 24 Activities to Get Parents Involved in Schools | Kickboard (kickboardforschools.com)
5. https://www.waldenu.edu/online-masters-programs/ms-in-education/resource/six-types-o

f-family-involvement-every-school-should-consider
6. https://in.pinterest.com/mayananda1999/ngo-activities/
7. https://www.humanrightscareers.com/issues/ngos-right-to-education/
8. https://www.educationworld.in/26-ngos-enabling-indian-education/
9. https://sampleproposals.fundsforngos.org/document/activities-3/
10. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/school-community-collaboration-brendan-okeefe
11. https://world-schools.com/the-importance-of-collaboration-at-school/
12. https://gradebees.com/school-family-and-community-collaboration/

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