The community school strategy is a powerful, evidence-based approach to school improvement. These public schools leverage the power of partnership to promote equitable outcomes for all students, regardless of race, family income, or neighborhood. While no two community schools look exactly alike, the most comprehensive community schools serve as central hubs for academic excellence, family engagement, and wrap around support. Likewise, they share a deep commitment to nurturing relationships centered on a strong foundation of mutual respect and trust.

Some community schools struggle, however, to build authentic relationships, improve communication, and identify shared goals with families. Historical mistrust, bias, and structural inequities are long-standing impediments that must be addressed if community schools are to truly lift up students and their families and realize transformational change. Parent Teacher Home Visits has been proven to not just strengthen home-school relationships, but support all evidence-based, interconnected pillars of community schools including integrated student supports, expanded and enriched learning time and opportunities, and collaborative leadership and practices.

Below are other examples of how Parent Teacher Home Visits aligns with community schools.

• • Integrated Student Supports: Students’ education and life experiences are inextricable. While Parent Teacher Home Visits not only recognizes the value of a whole-child approach to education, we also understand that services alone do not make a community school; adopting an inclusive approach to integrated student supports is critical to the success of a community school. Parent Teacher Home Visits creates a climate of trust and therefore, a strong conduit for engaging families in assessing needs and assets and connecting them with service providers.

  • Expanded and Enriched Learning Team and Opportunities: Community schools strive to promote not only students’ academic growth, but also their mental, physical, and social development. Parent Teacher Home Visits improve teaching and learning by allowing educators to tap into families’ funds of knowledge and deepen their knowledge of their students so that they adopt more individualized, culturally responsive classroom practices.

  • Collaborative Leadership and Practices: Parent Teacher Home Visits builds all of the necessary ingredients for successful shared leadership. By listening to families share hopes and dreams, honoring families’ lived experiences and wisdom, and creating a process for mutual responsibility and accountability, educators lay a strong foundation necessary for the shared governance that is a hallmark of community school implementation.