The Authority Podcast — Expert Insights and Fresh Ideas for Education Leaders

Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Welcome in everybody to another episode of the Authority Podcast on the BE Podcast Network. Thanks for being with us here for this episode. We're going to touch on some topics around family partnerships, parent engagement and how they relate to the roles of school and district leaders and how everybody kind of participates in that.

So my guest today is Ari Gerzon-Kessler. He leads the Family Partnerships Department. for the Boulder Valley School District in Colorado. And he's also an educational consultant working with schools and districts committed to forging stronger school family partnerships. Ari is the author of a new book called On the Same Team, bringing educators and underrepresented families together.[00:01:00]

Ari, welcome to the show.

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: Thanks so much, Ross. It's really a pleasure and privilege to join you.

Ross Romano: So I don't, Typically, we don't usually go outside of the scope of the book, but I do think it's it's relevant to start here which is how did you get into the role that you're in now, if I'm understanding, I think you've been been there for several years now after being principal, teacher, variety of roles before, but yeah, how did that come to be?

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: Yeah, so I was leading a school. I was a principal for about nine years, a teacher for seven years before that, and had seen the impact of family engagement strategies that were really meaningful. And then I also, I looked back on my principal years with some real regrets, wishing I knew then what I know now, and I was really drawn to the role because it was a chance to work closely with 56 schools within our district, and really move steadily from the more traditional family involvement practices.

to the more authentic partnership [00:02:00] ones. And I love blending research and then doing real work on the ground inside schools. So it's been a real satisfying seven years leading the family partnerships department here in Colorado.

Ross Romano: Excellent. So the book is titled on the same team and in kind of contextualizing and then we'll get into a lot of this and then maybe some of the, the status quo and then the barriers, etc. And then, of course, the effective approaches, but. What has your experience been and, and perception regarding whether educators and schools and families in general do they feel like they are on the same team or should be on the same team or do they not feel like that?

I mean, a lot of times I think of it as that schools would believe that we are, but don't necessarily do a great job of communicating [00:03:00] that or making that so, but then families often feel as though they don't have a lot of clarity on, on the educator's objectives in that regard. But Yeah, like what is your experience been with that?

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I would say that I see a lot of surface level rapport and the absence of high levels of Relationships, trust, and communication especially for underrepresented families, often being on the margins of schools, and then I hear Ross all the all the time from parents, even at schools where we're making good strides, I only hear from the teacher a couple times a year conferences are rushed, so this sense of, Both sides wanting more of a relationship and not necessarily knowing the best pathways to get there.

And then I think educators surveys show that it's the area educators feel least confident. So I think that translates sometimes to more status quo approaches. And [00:04:00] I also think, as we know, with everything related to teaching and school leadership, time is such a limited resource. So I think that the absence of sometimes the confidence, the knowledge on best practices, and then finding efficient ways.

to do it really serves as a major barrier.

Ross Romano: Yeah. So, when we talk about the underrepresented families in this case, who are we referring to?

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: Yeah, so the Families and Educators Together teams that the book really was born out of, that are at 24 of our schools, the major focus is on immigrant families, families that speak languages other than English at home, families of color as well, families, That in general have been othered or on the outside and not often on the same team.

I was reading a quote from Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot from Harvard this morning where she talks about parents and teachers are often actually adversaries. And while I think that's a skeptical lens on it, I don't think we can [00:05:00] assume that just naturally families and educators are on the same team and have a solid foundation.

I think it requires a lot of intentionality, especially on educators part, to build a solid foundation. Build these bridges steadily over a year. And when that doesn't happen, I think we maintain those more status quo involvement approaches where it's more gauging how, how many parents came to back to school night, how many came to literacy night and not looking at what really makes a difference in supporting student learning.

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Ross Romano: Over your years in, in schools and in education have, has there been any any shifts that you've observed? Because I do, I mean, in recent years, and this, this would be probably more particular to the represented families, right? This adversarial approach toward schools, toward educators, or adversarial particularly in terms of seeing it not, not [00:06:00] necessarily that me as the parent and you as the educator are in opposition, but that even you as the educator and my child are in opposition and beliefs about what kids are supposed to be achieving or what their future is and what the role of the educators is.

And I certainly believe that it's, it's born out of one, like Ms. perceptions, misunderstanding, or lack of caring about what educators really stand for and what they're committed to, but also some shifting you know, attitudes among parents and the way that they are approaching things.

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: Yeah, I would say schools have become more politicized than ever in the last few years. And, and at the same time, I'm hopeful and optimistic. I think when we make space for parent voices, and there's more collaboration it ultimately benefits students. I [00:07:00] also think there's a lot of practices that are now becoming more commonplace.

I'm thinking about relationship centered home visits. Schools becoming more aware of the value of ongoing text and positive communication. I mean, those are some of the things that have emerged out of our Families and Educators Together team gatherings over these last seven years, where we're really learning from parents, hey, don't bombard us with emails like, send us some text, find ways that will lead us.

To a genuine relationship. And I think like some of it is almost common sense yet. We're so caught in our traditional practices and what's easy for us as educators of just sending emails. That's one good example. Whereas I don't know when you think about your family, your close friends, I'm guessing you text them more often than you email them.

Right. So, so that sense of. what, what is most practical in building that ongoing connection both ways. So, so I am hopeful. And I think as a [00:08:00] former principal, I get why it often goes down the totem pole of priorities of, oh, building stronger ties with families is a nice thing to do. And I wish more schools and districts would do that.

You know, see that it actually translates to a host of great academic outcomes for students, in addition to just building a stronger, more inclusive, connected school community. So, my hope is similar to other fields like social emotional learning that 20 years ago, people didn't know. And then five years ago, people saw all the benefits and we really invested more that the same thing will happen for school family partnerships in the years ahead.

Ross Romano: So, if you write about the contrast between called family involvement the approach that many schools are taking versus like actual authentic partnership can you describe what the difference is there?

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: Absolutely. Yeah, that's an area I feel particularly passionate about. I [00:09:00] mean, one concrete example is a shift from One way we communicated to you. We sent you the newsletter about that. We emailed you to a much more two way communication where we're making it easy for families to communicate with us. A couple middle schools I'm working with, it's literally, especially for families that speak languages other than English at home, it's a one pager of, here's the name of our staff members.

Here's who's bilingual. Here's how you can reach them instead of just the tech or website kind of involvement approach. One other, I think, really concrete example is, The idea of co creating events with families. I mean, I look back, Ross, with tremendous regret. Every time we were designing an event for families, we had zero parents and caregivers around the table helping us, even though it was for families.

So that would be another example of like shifting to actual collaboration. And then just simply [00:10:00] prioritizing and centering relationships and care for families. And trust building over a lot of the, the more traditional, let's tell you about our attendance policies, our grading policies, starting with what Angela Valenzuela calls like more of an institutional care approach that public schools, hospitals still take in most in many ways throughout our country today.

So that's shifting more towards a, a relationship centered approach. That's what partnerships are really based on, not this like one way we're going to judge each other. I'd say that those are some examples of the shift from involvement to partnerships.

Ross Romano: Yeah, one, I guess broadly, why does that seem to have persisted? I I'm thinking particularly in the case of obviously the fact that a certainly a high percentage of educators and administrators, et cetera, are parents themselves. So they would have some perspective on their own [00:11:00] experiences and frustrations with the engagement or lack thereof they would get from their own child's school and, and so that should make it easier.

I mean, because so much of this, right, is about perspective taking and empathy and seeing it through the eyes of others and, and Sure, that takes, if I'm somebody who's like working in the school I'm going to have to also take it a few steps further to put my self in the shoes of a family that's traditionally underrepresented and doesn't have that level of connection to the system.

But still you know, it would seem that There should shouldn't be a great mystery around much of what's lacking, I guess, traditionally.

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: Yeah, no, it's such a great point. And I think, I mean, the reality is teachers and school leaders work incredibly hard. I think that some of the hardest jobs that exist and having been a principal and [00:12:00] assistant principal for nine years I know how much we're stretched. And so I think part of it, Ross, is like falling back.

on it's easier to send a uniform email to 25 families versus doing some things to personalize it or to shift the structures. So I think part of it is really like, we're overwhelmed. What's the easiest, most familiar, most safe method? However one of my greatest learnings the last two years, as we came back from the pandemic and folks are as overstretched as ever, is the importance of building in time for educators to engage in some of the better practices.

So I no longer am pushing a school, hey, invite me in to do a two and a half hour home visit training. A month or two ago, it was. Have me come in for half an hour, commit to doing one home visit between January and May. And you know, similarly, one of the best practices that made my week as a principal was carving out 15 minutes a week to do positive [00:13:00] phone calls for five, six, seven students.

A, that adds up. That's like 200 some students by the time the year's over, but also it's 15 minutes. It's not a lot of time. So one thing I'm encouraging principals to do is. You know, find a staff meeting that you can end 10 15 minutes early, and weave in time for educators to engage in these practices, which will then lead them to start doing it more as their own practice.

So that, that, and then I'm also thinking about the New York Times this morning had a pretty long, in depth article about our struggles around chronic absenteeism. And one of the things that stronger family engagement does, of course, is. That connection between the family and the teacher helps increase student attendance.

So that's on my mind because it was showing the last two school years nationally, we're averaging about 27 percent of students being chronically absent. So that's, I think, 10 or more absences a year. Whereas before the pandemic, it was more [00:14:00] like 13, 14 percent of students. So to be up to where we're like, Nearly three out of ten kids isn't coming to school on a consistent basis is a huge challenge for our system, and I really believe stronger family partnerships is one of the three or four main levers to kind of move that in a positive direction.

So that's, that's just been on my mind a lot today.

Ross Romano: Yeah, absolutely. And it it seems as though in kind of reading throughout, you could sort of characterize some of the barriers that have been present to, to establishing better partnerships into like kind of more systemic things. And then. Educator specific things. There's a lot of them, but you know, what, what are some of those?

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: Yeah, we, I mean, we talked about barriers of time, which is relevant for a family working two or three jobs or a teacher who is already stretched, taking home tons of grading. So time is one barrier. I think there's also a cultural and linguistic [00:15:00] gap. Often, a majority of the U. S. teachers are white women.

I think it might even be as many as 80 percent in one kind of recent study. So there's. There's this piece of we're not creating enough space and time to invest in learning about our students and their families, culture their home life. I think that's a barrier. We talked a little already about communication.

I mean, this barrier of most parents, especially underrepresented families are saying. Hey, can we do text? And schools are falling back more on emails and websites. So even the communication channels are barriers and just the lack of time we're investing in, I think, relationship building. And making space to listen to families ideas around how do we create better school communities, which has been what's so powerful about these families and educator together once a month gatherings is hearing some pretty straightforward insights.

that then transform a school's approach. So I think those [00:16:00] are a handful. I mean, there's, I touched on about a dozen or more barriers. Unfortunately there's a lot of great pathways to overcoming the barriers but they're very real.

Ross Romano: Yeah. And I mean, there's a variety of them from what I've kind of seen her talk to people about on both sides that sort of fall under an umbrella of like, Intimidation, right? And it's like, particularly we're talking about underrepresented families, language issues. Okay. I am not super comfortable in my English.

And when I go into the school, I'm kind of intimidated and they don't really seem like they have a lot of time or patience for trying to connect with me. And there's not a resource for that. The only times I ever seem to hear anything from the school is when there's a problem. So I'm sort of just automatically nervous anytime I'm interacting with the school because I'm used to just getting bad news from them.

I want to know more, but I just don't know what are the right questions to ask. So I'm sort of nervous about initiating that conversation. [00:17:00] On the educator side, Okay, my school or my district isn't putting a lot of resources and effort into community engagement, so I kind of feel like the parents in the community have sort of a negative attitude toward teachers here, and so I'm a little nervous about trying to engage them myself because I don't I don't know if they're really open to that, right?

And all of those require like really seeing it through those lenses and saying, okay, yeah, if you were in this position, you would it's one thing it's kind of, it's like, oh, so much of it is show. Don't tell. Right? Okay. We say that we want people to be more involved, but our actions actually demonstrating that we really want them to be involved are our communication channels indicating that. This is a one way directive or that we want a response or that whatever they respond with actually matters and contributes to what we might do next. Or are we kind of doing the bare [00:18:00] minimum or doing what's convenient for us versus what suits them? You know, you mentioned time factors, right?

Time factors one of the simplest ones that A lot of schools have figured out at this point, but some still haven't, and it seems like it shouldn't be a mystery over all these years. We have parent teacher conferences at two o'clock in the afternoon. Well, guess what? Like, for a lot of parents, that's not a reasonable time for them to be able to make it to the school.

Right? And we're not providing other options, so if they don't show up, we just assume they don't care. Not that it was, they couldn't take off from work or other commitments at that one particular time. And things like that that again you know, but if you're not used to, or you're a.

You're a parent whose experience in school as a student was similar where you didn't necessarily feel like these things were prioritized. You're carrying that with you and you still kind of have that [00:19:00] intimidation or nervous factor in how to interact with that system.

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: yeah, exactly. Well, and I appreciate you bringing up intimidation because I think it's on both sides. Like you were describing a lot of families based on their own experiences as students themselves or their kids experience having that distrust, fear, reluctance, and then educators That lack of training that we didn't have on how to engage with families in our teacher training programs and that time barrier or practice barrier.

I hear a lot of principals and teachers at the middle and high school level say, yeah, I don't know if you could get my colleagues to pick up the phone and call families. That's a little intimidating. They're not accustomed to doing that regularly. I'm also glad you brought up parent teacher conferences, because to me, that's an example of an easy pivot we can make from the more involvement to partnership approach, and I recently wrote a piece about this for Egitopia.

Two concrete things. One is asking teachers to pose more questions to families. So it's not that sit and get [00:20:00] information dump and then with a minute to go, Hey, what questions do you have? A lot of the schools I've been working with have made one little shift of sending home a one question, one question on a piece of paper that simply says, what would be most important for us to touch on during conferences and getting that input from each family to cater the conference more.

And in addition to asking them more questions. The other real change has been giving parents questions that they can ask. I think, like you were touching on, a lot of families come in not necessarily having a lot of time to prepare for the conference. And so a couple years back, I just crafted here ten questions you can ask your child's teacher.

And that builds their confidence and leads to just richer conversations. So we're not having to increase the amount of time or shift any demands on any stakeholder. It's really just making it more reciprocal and engaging.

Ross Romano: Yeah, absolutely. So you've referenced the Family and Educator Together [00:21:00] teams, FETs, a couple of times. So, tell us more about this. What are these teams? Who's on them? What do they do?

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: Yeah, they're remarkably powerful teams. I believe so much in these teams that five years ago, they were 20 percent of my job today. They're 90 percent because. They are a vehicle for schools to do this deeper partnership work on an ongoing basis instead of the more random acts of involvement or we're going to do one practice amongst some of our staff.

So the teams bring together underrepresented families, teachers from the school leader, once a month for 90 minutes. to engage in meaningful dialogue, break bread together. So we always start with dinner and brief team building activities that get people laughing and building just safety and trust.

And then there's consistently a time, Ross, where families get to learn some aspect of the school, the role of the counselor, our approach [00:22:00] to bullying or discipline, things that we often assume families know and they don't. Necessarily have that information, and as a result, we have some of these achievement and opportunity gaps because families don't, all families are not gaining access to these hosts of opportunities that the school has for students.

So, that learning time is a portion of it, and then the heart of the gathering is, Flipping the traditional paradigm, and us treating families as experts, and posing a handful of questions that get us as educators learning from them and that's really like the bulk of the meeting, and we follow a lot of Best practices for adult learning.

And then another piece there's a lot of network building between parents that happens, stronger ties between the staff and family so that it's not just the principal and a liaison or one or two special teachers that have those ties. And a final piece I would just highlight. Is you've got built in staff leaders around family partnerships, and every [00:23:00] month we're checking in and planning the next meeting and saying, Okay, how do we maintain momentum?

What projects can we put in place that will actually create systemic change? Because in the early years of our teams, I'd say the one weakness was we would get to May and we'd be able to say, Oh, wow, there's a lot higher levels of trust. But what have we changed that have impacted the majority of staff's practices?

And sometimes it was not very much. So that's something in December and January, I'm regularly pushing on our 60 some team leaders so that they're identifying what are some concrete changes we can make that'll really help everyone in our school community?

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Ross Romano: Why, why is it necessary to have teams? Why can't it just be something that we do?

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: Yeah, I mean, we touched on some of those barriers of, oh, we're so frenzied, there's so many challenges. You know, I believe each educator You know, is doing 1. 5 jobs. So I think teams are absolutely [00:24:00] vital because leadership has to be distributed with all the things that public schools are trying to be for students, for families, for those that work in them.

We need to harness teams and there is the element of. We, as educators, don't know our blind spots, our biases, well enough, and so to be on a team where families can illuminate those pieces as well as where we create the space, for them to build those stronger relationships that lead them to reach out with a question about their kids homework or something that will allow them to support more deeply their kids learning at home.

So yeah, I think the team part, even if schools don't launch actual families and educated together teams, I see a strong need for teams. that focus on this partnership piece, because otherwise it goes on the back burner, even though research shows it's one of the five key levers to move from being a good to a great school or district.

So yeah, huge believer in the power of the teams.

Ross Romano: What what's [00:25:00] the appropriate level, at which the team should be initiated and led? Like, school level, district level, and then who's You know, who's really accountable for bringing it to life, but then also like investing in the sustainability

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: Yeah, I love that question. So the teams are always at a school level. We've seen that families feel much more invested when it's their own school community versus coming to give that broader perspective. And it should be initiated by schools where there's I had a hunger to do this partnership work better.

I learned in the third or fourth year of leading the FET team effort that I didn't want to convince any principal or teacher to start a team. It had to come from their own determination. So that's a key piece of somewhat of readiness. vital to identify two to five teacher parent leaders who can [00:26:00] galvanize the initial chapters and the principal is a core ally in it.

And I found early on that if they weren't really invested, the teams wouldn't thrive. But what's nice for principals is they play a more supportive role and they're really, their primary job is just to sit in the gatherings and listen. So it's really. Sparked usually by one parent or one staff member saying, Wow, we could do so much more meaningful work if we came together in a team and, and then they reach out to me and we just kind of kickstart all the steps we've learned along the way, building a really solid foundation for a successful team.

Ross Romano: and how do you go about determining success and kind of, evaluating how the team's working, if it's working what you need to focus on more.

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: Yeah, yeah, that's a core question. I mean, one is, that we're getting feedback regularly from both parents and educators at the end of meetings. You know, like we often ask the question, what was most [00:27:00] meaningful for you tonight? So getting some of that anecdotal data. We've also done an annual summit where we bring together parents from various schools.

And have some concrete data of this is how connected, this is how welcome, this is how much trust I felt for the school before I was a part of the Families and Educators Together teams, and now after being a part of it, so there's some of that real data, and then I think another way to evaluate the progress is seeing what headway are we making on staff implementing Actual practices, as well as other things like for creating certain events, what does parent turnout look like?

What does staff turnout look like? But I think it's really gauging how much progress are we making? How many home visits have staff made? How many months has the principal carved out time for us to make a few positive calls? So that's a real great gauge of success is, are we shifting more towards those partnership practices?

Ross Romano: Yeah and so, [00:28:00] considering the, the goals, objectives the importance of creating these types of teams how much of the, improved partnerships, would you say is focused on, academic outcomes versus other outcomes? Seems like, I'm sure there's a lot more to it than this, but to oversimplify, one of the core differences between families and educators together team, as you're describing it, and PTA is you know, that there's a lot more of the importance of the family relationships to the academic outcome and growth of students versus just the broader relationships to schools and other things that are happening.

But how would you describe that?

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: Yeah, I would say as you were describing PTA tends to have a focus on events and fundraising. Whereas the Families and [00:29:00] Educators Together teams are centered on parent learning and even more so educators learning from families. And then that piece of relationship and trust and really creating systemic changes to the way that the school community functions.

So in terms of specifically academic outcomes, I would say when parents inform us, text would be more effective. If that opens up the door for. 15 20 text over a semester versus one phone call. You think about how that translates to a parent's capacity to know what's happening around learning and support that at home.

So there's that academic outcome piece. And then the fact that families are learning during those 15 minutes I described last month at three schools it was here's what the state test is called, here's how many days it happens, here are the subjects it's in, here's how you can support your kid the days of the test.

So there's a lot of tools that [00:30:00] do then translate. to a family knowing better how to support academic outcomes. So, yeah, at the heart of it, really, it is about both the relationships and how that translates over into families being more a part of their child's learning journey. And I'll just I'll share one quick story.

A middle school a couple years ago, in spring, a mother said I'm really upset. I just found out my kid is failing. Why is it April? And I'm finding that out. Why couldn't I have known that in January or February? Well, that middle school's team was remarkably responsive. And the practice they put in place to this day was, every six to eight weeks, the principal designates time for staff to text a handful of families with academic updates.

So those families know, okay, here's where your kid's at, here's ways we can both be part of the solution of boosting their you know, their grade. So, that's been a powerful to see that a parent's concern or [00:31:00] complaint about something that was insufficient has led staff to be so responsive and doing the right thing.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Are there, so we've looked at it a lot from obviously the opportunities and the growth that's involved looking at it kind of from a different angle, are there specific types of problems that occur in schools that the implementation of these teams. are also meant to prevent.

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think I often highlight that if we address. Some of the other gaps that I see in these gatherings. we would have less of an achievement and opportunity gap in most school communities. And I'm talking about information gap, communication gap, language gap, accessibility gap you know, and a couple others.

And so I would say one problem we want to address is families not knowing [00:32:00] about some of the great offerings the school has. That might be after school clubs, tutoring within the school day. And so one thing the teams meet is giving families information they need to navigate the school more effectively.

And to make that more concrete, Ross, I mean, two examples come to mind. A number of our teams are now working on a frequently asked question document that's co created during the team meetings with families, where it's thinking about whether it's your first day at this school or your first year, or you've been here for five years, what do you most need to know as a parent or caregiver that'll help you feel more integral part of the school community and Support your child for that, like the creation of that document transcends the problem that especially many of our underrepresented families, particularly newcomer families have of I'm not going to go on the school's website.

I don't even know necessarily how to find it easily. I want information on my fridge or on my my smartphone that I can pull up from a QR code. So, I think [00:33:00] that's a problem. We talked earlier about attendance. I think there's often some easy to navigate pieces that can bolster students attendance if families and educators are more on the same page and student engagement.

We've had some great Family and Educators Together team conversations where families have given great ideas on how schools could make class more engaging for their kid. So I think, yeah, there's a host of Insights that then help us navigate some of these problems more effectively.

Ross Romano: So for the educators you know, we talked kind of earlier about their relationship to kind of that intimidation piece or the confidence factor, that it's something that a lot of educators report that they don't have a high level of confidence in knowing how to engage and partner with families.

What does the capacity building look like for them to and help them develop those skills as they participate in these initiatives.

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: Yeah I love that question [00:34:00] because it's one thing I'm really passionate about in terms of the team leaders it's cultivating their facilitation skills other leadership skills. So that's a part of my job that I love that coaching piece. And then what's great is literally just creating the space for these 90 minute once a month gatherings.

Builds capacity. I mean, I've met a couple of colleagues from around the country who say team gatherings, home visits. They're the best PD for capacity building versus a typical training because you're right there with families and you can take risks, you can ask them questions, you can get to know them and kind of take off your expert educator hat.

And I would say, Ross, some of the things we do in the FED team gatherings that makes such a difference in educators feeling more confident is we break bread together. So we're eating and there's the ease of that. There's no expectations during the dinner time. We do these quick team builders that get everybody laughing.

We learn we do always a quick [00:35:00] circle with names and some sort of prompt, like what's your favorite part of spring and it really humanizes everyone, puts them on an equal level as we kind of sit in a circle to also equalize things. And this sense that educators leave these gatherings consistently uplifted.

They see not only how much. Parents appreciate it, but they're constantly hearing insights from families, as well as appreciation. It's not, I don't want to give the impression that it's just like, what are the challenges at our school? How do we overcome them? Families will share praise that really affirm educators efforts and give insight into, oh, those four teachers do that thing that parents appreciate so much.

How do we move towards the entire staff adopting practice like that? So, over the consistency of these gatherings. I think we also build capacity, because I think you'd agree so much professional learning for educators continues to still be more of the one off experiences. So the idea of coming nine months in a row with a variety of themes being discussed, it [00:36:00] really steeps educators.

in what's real for families and what are some of the practices that can move the whole school community to a new level.

Ross Romano: Yeah, is there also anything that comes to mind? I mean for lack of a better way of describing it, that kind of, schools can consider how forced to make use of effective partnerships toward their own self interest, so to speak, right? Like, to have engaged powerful advocates in the parents who understand now better what's happening, what the objectives are, and they're really a part of it, right?

There's a lot of things that the reason why they don't happen in schools, even though the school leader wants to do it or teachers either we can't get approval for the resources or we can't, is because we believe, or we don't know if there's community support for this or or just in communities, right?

Those parents [00:37:00] and members of the community their voice does matter. And if they get behind things there's a lot more. Pressure to make it happen. And so, of course, it's it's not strictly to the school itself and just because it's good for students, it's good for parents, but you know, things like that, that perhaps schools have felt frustrated by their inability to make some larger things happen that they haven't necessarily.

Seized upon the idea that, well, the pathway here is that we need parents to feel like this is what they also want.

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: Absolutely. Yeah, and you're reminding me of a conversation I had with a middle school principal last month where he was frustrated that many families, especially underrepresented families, had not attended an early in the year event. And while I get that frustration part of our conversation, cause we have a high level of core at this point [00:38:00] was, well, let's look at why they aren't coming.

Like, is the event appealing? Is it at a time that's convenient? Have they been a part of designing it? But more deeply even than that is, do they feel connected to any members of the staff? Have they had much communication since they arrived at this school? So I think that's a really vital piece. And in us shifting our mindset as educators is both away from events to more relationships, but also when we're not seeing parents engaging and attending those events, trying to really unpack that onion and look at, okay, what are the different layers?

That's actually illuminating we need to do better at, because when the relationships are stronger and there's more communication, I guarantee you those schools are seeing much higher participation by families at events, not to mention staff making the time at night to come as well. So I think, yeah, I think that's a huge lever for change that we need to look at instead of [00:39:00] just the more deficit mindset of critiquing parents.

for not coming, holding a mirror more to our, to ourselves.

Ross Romano: Right. Yeah, I mean, and everybody you know, is more motivated to be a part of something that is successful, right? So, if we Educators coming at night to be to do an event at night or conferences or whatever it may be. Right. Something that they may have traditionally done during their regular hours.

And now it's like, okay, to make this work better for families, we need to, I need to sacrifice, but Hey, if people are showing up and they're engaged and they're interested, I feel good about the fact that we did that. If the fact that we're now working in better collaboration with parents allows us to implement some initiative we wanted to, or try some new idea.

Okay, I'm feeling like the work we're putting into this is worthwhile. Are there things along those lines, either from your early experiences putting together the [00:40:00] family and educator together teams, or just things that maybe a lot of schools try as part of their family engagement practices that stand out as things that you've observed do not work.

You know, if you're thinking about doing this, maybe try a different idea because I've seen that this is, this just doesn't really work.

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: Yeah, yeah. Great question. And I was just thinking a moment ago one piece is respecting the bandwidth of educators as we implement these ideas that emerge in the teams. So that's been, A major learning is it doesn't work when we're putting too much extra time on the shoulders of educators.

So that's one vital piece. One is not on the front end, efforting enough around the recruiting of families. Or falling back on a one dimensional approach of whether it's a regular school family event or a [00:41:00] families and educators together team or initial gathering. Oh, well, we'll just email them and hope that they come.

We've learned on the teams over the years we need to text. We need to call individual families to invite them. We need to send something home with the student and maybe incentivize the student to bring something back that says they're their parents are going to attend. So that piece of one dimensional communication almost always is kind of bound to fail.

And then I think it also is vital, like in designing these gatherings, what we've learned over the years, is it can't be too much sit and get. That it really has to be early on family seeing that we're treating them as experts on their child. So I'd say those are some, been some of the biggest kind of challenges or pitfalls.

In addition to the one I mentioned of not moving quickly enough to once trust is built, what's something concrete we can change because Educators [00:42:00] and family members will drop off the team if they don't see momentum, continuity between meetings, and then actual changes being put in place.

Ross Romano: So, all right. It's been. Great to have you on the show here. As we're wrapping up, there's one final thing, which is okay. So for say, like that's the school leader that needs to. You know, make that shift from family involvement to authentic partnership. Is there a mindset shift involved in that?

What are the what are the kind of mental barriers we need to break through or reframe to, to really commit to and step into, all right, we're like changing our practices here in a meaningful way. So

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: Yeah. I think bringing parent voice in, as we've touched on I actually this year wrote a piece called Five Pathways to Partnerships with ASAD that essentially [00:43:00] answered your question of like, how do we implement this efficiently, effectively? And one piece, Ross, that comes up for me.

Remembering back what I wrote about it was the importance to of starting with the why and in that making it palatable and easy for educators. So I would often share the story of a family that says, this is the first positive call I've received. In seven years in your school system. And it it makes me feel greater excitement around reaching back out to the school, makes me feel more comfortable to ask questions.

So I think that's a piece too, for school leaders is not just saying here, we're going to give this a try, but like steep it briefly in the research and then try to really hit educators hearts. And then make the very practical, efficient sell of, hey, we're going to start small and here are the benefits for families, here's the benefits for students, [00:44:00] and here are the benefits for you, as well as our whole school community.

I think those are a couple key pieces, as well as the one I mentioned earlier. Carve out the time for your staff that will make them embrace some of these really uplifting strategies, because they're not having to do it on top of everything else they've already got on their plate.

Ross Romano: listeners, the book is on the same team. It's published by Solution Tree. You can find it on the Solution Tree website or wherever you get your books. We'll put the link below so that you can click through and find that. Please also, if you have not already subscribed to the authority for more in depth author interviews like this one coming your way every week, ari has some recent Edutopia articles that we'll link to there as well, in addition to the book and Ari's social media profile. Check out all those resources.

Ari, thanks again for being on the show.

Ari Gerzon-Kessler: Thanks so much for having me, Ross. It was such a joy.