I first heard about Parent Teacher Home Visits about 13 years ago. I taught fourth-grade math at Stanton Elementary School in Washington, DC. I arrived at Stanton because Michelle Rhee, who was the chancellor at the time, came up with this idea where high-performing charter schools could partner with the lowest-performing elementary, middle, and high schools. Those schools would be granted the flexibility in the funding to turn around the school using a model that’s already proven to work for kids. 

Stanton’s condition was dire. We were, at the time, 71st out of 72 schools—the second-lowest performing elementary school in the district in one of the poorest communities in the city. We had a reputation that students who had been expelled from other schools would find their way to Stanton. My cohort found its way to the school because of that agreement to take on this transformation work. Around that time, we had stumbled upon an article that said if you want to be a high-performing school, you need to make kids feel safe at school. You need a good curriculum. You need a way to retain good teachers. We realized that the one thing we were missing was good family engagement. 

We began a lot of new initiatives. We had gotten contractors to come in and do some construction to improve safety. We found ways to pay teachers more. But we really weren’t doing family engagement. We were focused on changing the school building. I think, while we wanted partners, our approach ended up kind of isolating families. It wasn’t a very welcoming place for them, and I know many of our parents had already had their own difficult time in school growing up.

We had a great principal who constantly brought us back to the drawing board. We were continually pulling data, looking at models, and learning theory. Our days stretched until 6 pm most weeks. One day the principal gathered us in the library and introduced the idea of home visits, and she sweetened the pot—with money and food. We were a little weary from all the new initiatives, but I’ll never forget, she promised us this was going to be revolutionary. I was there in the back, joking with one of my colleagues, “What is it, magic fairy dust?”

Turns out, it was! Parent Teacher Home Visits is the magic fairy dust to have in your pocket and pour on people. It works, and you get so much back as an educator when you start a home visit practice. No kidding: it’s the fairy dust no one ever told you about.

When we did our first training, I had maybe eight or nine years of teaching experience. I’d long decided to teach at the places where I was most needed. I’d gone through a lot of professional development in those years. What moved me about training for PTHV was that even though I was well into the game, the one thing that was different about professional development for PTHV was that I’d never heard from a parent. Now I’ve been teaching for almost 20 years, and it’s still true. There’d never been a space where I was learning something from a parent. Never happened.

It was Yesenia and Alicia telling us their stories. I was spellbound. They spoke of what two teachers did for them that turned things around for their children. It’s rare for educators to hear that appreciation. I wanted families to talk about me like that, so I was hooked. I thought I had a pretty good relationship with parents before then, but I really didn’t. I am super-friendly and super-communal, so I’d walk through the halls of the school saying hello to everyone. People liked me because of that, and that strength suited me well. I thought I was building relationships, but I wasn’t doing that at all.

If fact, I would “bucket” parents quickly. I was kinder to the parents who were responsive to me. I would like them more and work a little harder for those kids. If I had to keep calling repeatedly to get their attention or worse, call other people to get their phone numbers, I’d think they didn’t care. They went into that box.

Home visits were to start in the summer before the next school year. As I shared, Stanton had had a rough year. About a third of teachers determined they weren’t coming back. Another third didn’t want to commit to home visits in the summer because they needed to recharge. The rest of us committed to the idea and began to partner up.

We’d walk into our students’ neighborhoods. Kids were riding their bikes, and when they saw us, they almost panicked. We had to assure them that no one was in trouble. That summer was eye-opening for me. We’d schedule three or four visits in a day. That had us out in the community, seeing things we hadn’t seen before. I wound up doing a lot of visits through word of mouth.

Initially a lot of parents rejected the idea. I happened to have tried to do home visits with two parents who were best friends. One had said yes, and the other not only told me no, but to never call her back asking again. Well, I had the visit with the one mom, and she called her best friend and told her what an amazing time she had. Word about home visits started spreading like wildfire. Parents would ask us when teachers from other grades would be coming. The whole community got behind home visits.

After that first year of home visits, anyone who walked into Stanton would say it felt like a different school. During the year before, if you walked in, you’d see kids everywhere, some fighting and some doing whatever they felt like. I remember the second year, everyone showed up for back-to-school night. Our principal, for the first time, could stand up in front of the crowd with no projector. Everyone was quiet and ready to listen. The kids were excited to be back in school. They had a new energy about them because they knew we knew their parents personally. Not just the parents. I also knew the Candy Lady and all these other people in their neighborhoods.

I’ve been reflecting on this a lot lately. There’s something to be said about how people show up once you see the humanity in everyone. There was this monumental shift in the air. Once parents understood we saw their humanity and that we were with them, things changed. One way it was very evident was how different the classrooms were with teachers who chose not to participate in home visits. There’s also something to be said about creating structures for home visits. Once parents started expecting home visits, the culture shifted, and it was noticeable in the parents’ interactions with the teachers who opted out.

Home visits changed my life professionally, but it also changed me personally. I had been told that I wouldn’t be able to have kids. I had already gone through the grieving process, and because I’m a teacher and around kids every day, I knew I could be fulfilled. I was blessed to have a baby, but that first year as a mom, I had a really tough time. I had just moved, and I was having trouble keeping up with all the new demands. One of my students, James, who I taught in elementary school but is now 21, had come by to help me around the house. He could see I was struggling. And he looked me in the eye, and he said, “Miss Bryant, you know we got you too, right?” I can’t think about that moment without tearing up. I was his teacher when he was nine years old, and here he was, showing up for me. He and other classmates from that time call my daughter their sister. It’s like this level of family that I never even knew I needed.

My hope and dream for PTHV is that it stays the course. We all need to be more in community with each other to make the world the place we want to see. My hope is that there are no obstacles and barriers to PTHV being able to sustain the work and continue to grow.