Building Bridges The Power of Family Engagement

Building Bridges The Power of Family Engagement

Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
One reason Ari’s on the show, dear Ruckus Maker, is because his book, which I highly recommend, it’s called on the Same Team Bringing Educators and Underrepresented Families together, it’s a way to redesign education in a specific example.  In family engagement, I love to say Ruckus Makers do school differently, and that’s shifting from old, traditional, often broken ways of educating to new, better, and different ways of educating. So, long story short, status quo, the way we’re doing family engagement, zero parents at the table. Okay, that’s data you’re getting back. And do you want something better for your campus, for your families, or not? And I’m assuming if you’re listening to this podcast, you actually want a thriving family and educator partnership. So how might a Ruckus Maker do school differently when it comes to family engagement? 

Ari Gerzon-Kessler
Yeah, love the question. And when I think, Danny, about some of the best practices that emerge in the FET teams, like relationship centered home visits, positive phone calls, which was my favorite practice of all as a former principal. It’s really looking at how do we foster a two way relationship? It’s taking families from being spectators to, as the title of my book captures truly being on the same team. So this mutual relationship that’s grounded in we as educators can learn expertise, how deeply they know their child, and that can not only propel better relationships and a stronger sense of school community, but it propels student learning. And that’s what the research from flamboyant and other places shows is some of the best practices, like home visits, positive calls, texting for two way communication, all those translate into higher learning. So that’s one shift. 

Another shift is for us to really engage in some of those practices to push our own comfort levels. I think there’s been a lot in recent years about vulnerability, and I think for a teacher to take off their expert hat, leave the comfortable confines of their school and go do something like a home visit involves a lot of vulnerability. Those are the kinds of things that shift our practice. And the research shows home visits push our cultural responsiveness and relationship skills more than pretty much any PD or anything else.  I’d say for us as educators, really engaging in those activities that are interactive and relational in nature. Something Danny I didn’t know when I was a principal and teacher was when they have done surveys of teachers and asked, where is the area you feel least confident? The number one area was engaging with like? And I talked to a superintendent last week and he said, ‘Hey, if I can be blunt with you, Ari, a lot of the teachers I worked with at times feared parents. They feared that parents could make their life really difficult with the principal.’ So at the heart of it, I feel like it’s cultivating regular, ongoing communication. That’s come up a lot for me this month. So a number of parents will confide with us within FET meetings. It’s not enough for me to hear from you at parent teacher conferences and see it back to school night and maybe get one or two discipline calls and maybe a number of emails. I’d really love to get a photo of my kid in action learning with two, three words. I’d like a positive call every couple weeks or months. 

I’d say one of the biggest shifts is us being really more intentional around our outgoing communication, but then using apps and other things to open the door to some great two way communication. That really is how we build relationships. That’s not so one sided as it’s often been. 

Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
I’m hearing the play it safe principle and I haven’t named the naughty teachers yet. I need to come up with a name for them, too. I will. I don’t know if I’ll do it improvisationally. But I could see the critic saying, well, Ari, these are great ideas and it sounds wonderful and it even leads to better student outcomes in learning. But I don’t have the time. I’m curious, what could system level leaders do? Because I think you’re at the central office level now, but your former principal, too. How can you support educators in doing these things? One of the biggest pet peeves in education, they pile on. It’s an all you can eat buffet. Such a stupid approach to education. It’s completely misaligned with reality. People can’t do it all. This seems really important. So how do we navigate? 

Ari Gerzon-Kessler
I love the question, Danny. And my mind was starting to go there and then it went off on that other track around the example. So thank you so much for coming back to mean. First thing I’d say, just to completely resonate with the point you just made. I remember as a principal reading a book that said, you need to create a stop doing list because between district initiatives and your own, you’re going to overwhelm your staff. You’re going to be spread thin. And there’s a book called the one big thing. There’s John Wooden who says, do not mistake activity with achievement. One of the most insightful quotations, I think, from any coach or anyone ever. I’m a profound believer in doing a few things deeply and well, and that’s been a part of my journey in this actual current role.  I think a piece of the puzzle systematically is for us to break away from a different initiative every month. That whole approach we’re well familiar with, and really identify those top three to five high leverage priorities. And all the PDI do, that’s what I emphasize, is here are three efficient, effective, deeply impactful strategies. And then to address Danny, your timepiece, because that’s been on my mind for 15 years, 9 as a principal and then 6 in this role of leading family partnerships, is how do we work with that massive barrier? Because every year it feels like teachers and school leaders tell me we have even less time, not to mention bandwidth. I recently wrote a piece on this called 5 pathways to partnerships, that the key to implementation is school leaders carving out the time. And I’m not saying extensive amounts of times, because I know their PD calendars and their 27 different obligations are a true burden. And I remember that deeply as a principal, how frustrating it was to not be able to focus on the areas where I truly felt like we could create the levers for change. So to give you just to close the loop, super concrete examples. As I work with school now, our leaders and I go meet with the principal for 15 minutes, maybe every two, three months, and we say things like, hey, could we get 15 minutes for a staff meeting to end early so the staff could all go make three positive calls? That’ll be 85 families getting surprised. Can we do a 30 minute training on home visits? One school, one of our middle schools at Affetmek in April, and this still stirs me up inside, a mom said, I just found out my kid is failing. Why in April am I finding that out? Why did I not communicate? January, February, March, and that seed. Then last year in year two of that middle school they began. The principal said, I’m going to build in every six to eight weeks, 15 minutes for each teacher to send three to five academic text updates via talking points so it’ll be accessible in every language. And that’s been a real game changer. 

I’d say instead of being overwhelmed by the time burdens, how can we strategically ask principals to partner on some really small pockets of time that expose staff as well to these best practices so that they might choose to make a positive call on their drive home and when the time isn’t built in? 

Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
There’s other things you could do now, shout Liz Kirby, principal at Kenwood when I was a teacher there, now superintendent, I think somewhere in Ohio. But long story short, I remember her telling every teacher, ‘Listen, if you’re one of your students who knows that week you call home period and turn in the time log for that. And her point was like, there’s no way we’re getting to April, and a parent is going to tell me as principal that, what do you mean the kids are failing? And we’re going to have a record of reach outs anyways. That was so she could have our back. It wasn’t the message, you can’t fail kids. And that’s a whole nother podcast topic and whatever. And I’m not saying I agree or disagree, but I’m saying that system, like carving out time, 15 minutes for positive phone calls, 30 minutes for how to do a family engagement or, excuse me, home visit, that’s when your vision and the resources allotted to that vision are connected and people believe you as a leader versus saying, here’s all this great stuff we’ll do, and then there’s no time or space or money put toward it.  I appreciate you sharing that. My stop list is the avoid at all cost list, which also includes people. People, meetings, events, tasks, and just whatever energy vampires in general. 

Ari Gerzon-Kessler
And Danny, you’re sparking in talking about events. That’s reminding me a piece I failed to add to the vision of how it could shift is that when we look at family partnerships, there’s a disproportionate focus on the events we do for schools. And something that I’m regularly talking to our fet leaders about is how do we change the day to day, week to week way that educators engage with families in meaningful, productive ways and shift this focus to these isolated nights that happen every six to ten weeks. That can be a great opportunity for relationship building and community building, if done right, but that we look more at the relational piece, the ongoing piece, instead of this very hyper focus on we’re engaging families because we did those five events. It’s kind of shifting our mentality to a more relational approach. 

Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Yeah, and kind of like tiny deposits over time, which probably creates exponential value, versus a large deposit for tiny deposits for 100% of your people, versus a large deposit, let’s say for 25%. So it’s like, obviously that’s how I break it down. Another thing I was looking at is you mentioned families shadowing students in school. I love the idea. This is great. As a teacher, I had an open door for anybody, admin, other students, other teachers. I didn’t care. I had nothing to hide. And I think I’m a bit weird in that I was also super confident. So when it comes to the home visits or having an open door, I think teachers sometimes get a little nervous about that, potentially. There’s probably other things going on there too. But if families come in and shadow students, I see that as a value add. But again, teachers might be a little sketched out by that. So how do you make that successful for everyone involved? 

Ari Gerzon-Kessler
Yeah, that’s a project that’s kind of emerging at a few of our schools where families and fet teams are primarily made up of families whose education was in another country before they moved to the states and started their family. Part of it’s a curiosity of, I want to get a sense of what my child’s learning looks like and how it’s somewhere different to when I grew up in my country of origin. So that curiosity has been a spark, and I’m thinking about one elementary school in particular where the plan has really been around. Can we create a space every couple of months to not have every parent in the class coming in, but structured in a way where a couple of families are coming in to just see learning in action. As you spoke to that, it’s truly authentic. It’s just allowing the family to see learning unfold without any kind of bells and whistles that the teacher is doing because parents happen to be showing up and that it helps families feel more connected to the school just being within the walls of the classroom. Because for many of our underrepresented families we’ve sent the either subtle overt message for quite some time if we’ve got to know. Karen Mapp and others call it the come. If we call school, that’s very far away from true authentic partnerships that, as you know, we’ve got nothing to hide. You are welcome here and actually your child and the other children will probably be inspired by your presence.  I feel like while we need to do more to go out to families and not judge them based on how often they come into our schools, that there’s a lot of opportunities to deepen community and that’s part of the power of set is that once a month for an hour and a half, 1020, 30 families are meeting not just with the principal, but five to ten staff members. Really fostering trust and better communication, sitting in the comfortable confines of a school library or a classroom where they get to speak their preferred language and build this sense of this is my school too. 

Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
We’re going to go deeper into that after the break here in a second. But I’ve never heard that come when we call schools. And it’s this idea that we’re the experts, we know what’s best for everybody involved and what an egotistical point of view. It might be interesting and you probably already have done this, but it might be interesting just to ask even families.  Like if we engaged with you more frequently, what would it look like? Instead of coming when we call. So let’s pause here. I’m really enjoying our conversation and when we get back we’re going to dive deeper into who makes up what Ari’s calling the FET team and that’s the family and educators together team and talk about an example agenda. 

Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
What do you do with the time together with families and maybe some starting hurdles? So when you pick up the book on the same team, you’ll know how to cross over some of those barriers as you implement this idea and increase family engagement. You’ll hear Ari referring to the FET team over and over again. That’s family and educators together. Let’s start there, Ari, when it comes to this family and educators together team, who makes up the team?

42:00
Ari Gerzon-Kessler
Great question. And that’s one that I’m regularly asked as we launch new teams at different schools. The heart of it is underrepresented families that have often been on the. So typically many of the family members present, their child speaks a second or third language. We have many immigrant families of color, really, as the heart of the teens. But everyone’s welcome. Usually there’s about ten to 30 parents and there’s a lot we do to create that space of trust so that they are open to and then become very enthusiastic about being part of a new team. And it’s really a shift away from the kind of event focus, fundraising focus of other parent organizations to this notion. 

And I think it’s not only challenging the status quo, but kind of revolutionary in terms of families and educators collaborating, almost like a mini congress. That’s actually healthy. Representing the school community to look at how do we create a more inclusive and just school, since principals and teachers tend to hear from the more privileged, more powerful parents, often it’s creating a space to learn, as I often say in the first meeting, about our blind spots, barriers, beliefs and biases. I mean, those four b’s that have led us to unintentionally foster a lot of inequities, as well as communities where only some people feel like they belong. And the heart of the FET teams is creating the kind of space where everyone feels like their voice is deeply valued and that we’re co creating transformational change so that we’re designing a school for everyone, not just based on what’s worked in the past, as you know well. And then it’s composed of educators and the school leader. And that’s a pivotal piece I’ve learned in the seven years since we launched initial teams. So you’ve got roughly ten to 25 people starting with dinner. I can say more about the typical Fet meeting, but that’s the heart of who makes up the team. 

Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Let’s move on to that because I think the Ruckus Maker listening will be interesting. We got the team and how do we use the time so that it’s useful, valuable.  And creates some kind of positive result for our campus? You mentioned starting off with food, I will say my business coach said, Danny, the secret to running an incredible live event is just feed people the best food you can afford. And so food is always an important piece, for sure. 

44:47
Ari Gerzon-Kessler
Yes. And we had a school that was only giving folks snacks at 06:00 and I said, look, across so many cultures, food is, as you’re describing, that connective glue for us. 

45:00
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
We talked about food at the beginning of our call. 

45:08
Ari Gerzon-Kessler
And I also said, no parent or colleague should have to go home at 7:38 o’clock and have to start making dinner. That’s how we create this welcoming environment that’s ripe for connection. We start with dinner. And I’ll just say, my background a lot is in social emotional learning. How do we create really engaging, relationship centered spaces? But we learned a lot in the first four years across ten schools where we didn’t have an optimal structure. But basically in year five, why I wrote the book and why I’ve made FET teams 90% of my job, not 25% as it originally was seen in year five. Okay, we found the secret sauce that this is the rough structure that can really support all of our aims. In a nutshell, Danny, it’s 15 minutes of dinner, then three to five minutes of team builders that get people laughing, building connections across linguistic, racial, cultural, other differences, and cultivating that psychological safety that research has continued to show as the core element of building great teams. And from there, we pivot to an opening circle. Everyone shares their name, their kids name, and we always ask for one good prompt that’ll help us see each other’s humanity and know each other a little better. So this week, tonight at the school I’m going to, it’s. What’s one thing you’re really looking forward to about spring? So, nothing too deep yet. Something that’s interesting. And part of that is informed by the research of, in the first ten minutes, we’ve not only built a sense of team and psychological safety, but everyone’s had their voice heard. When we’re asking challenging questions at the heart of the meeting, families feel confident, and teachers as well, when they’re speaking in front of their principal, can feel confident to bring forth their voice. So that takes us half an hour into the 90 minutes gathering. We tend to do about 15 minutes, then, of what we call family learning. And that might be the role of the counselor and social, emotional, mental health resources for your kid or you as families, it might be. Here’s how to use this tech tool that we just expect all families to know how to use. And we do that because for so many decades our schools have just sent a handbook or emails and expected families would know how to access the opportunities and know how our schools function. And yet we have all these unwritten rules that ultimately hurt families and students who aren’t aware of it. So that part is really valuable. But then the heart of the meeting, the final 30 of the remaining 45 minutes we call meaningful dialogue. And this is really  flipping the status quo as we center parent voices and ask a handful of questions folks talk about just like in the classroom as best practice, in pairs and small groups and then back in the whole group, such as how could we improve communication with families? What are some of the ways we’re falling short in terms of the ways we’re connecting with you as families? What do you appreciate about our staff? What are barriers that you see? Questions organically, we’re responsive each month, planning based on what unfolded the conversation the prior month and truly listening to families as the experts, taking notes and being impacted by what they say. And then we close out with here’s where we’re going, some vision. We learned early on, if they don’t see continuity between meetings, they’re going to lose a little bit of trust in the team’s journey. A little clarity on here’s how we’re going to build on what you said for when we come back next month. And then we end Danny with and this know from my days as an Sel trainer was the power of bringing everyone’s voice in at the end. One word, how are you feeling as we close this team gathering tonight? And that’s when I knew Fett was special, when consistently it didn’t matter what school community were in, I was hearing parents and educators and school leaders say things like moved, uplifted, informed, community inspired. Exactly. So that gives you the rough arc of the structure we build with. But I spent an hour planning that hour and a half meeting with each set of teams. It’s really about unlike the normal way of let’s plan a minutes before we’re frenetic educators, let’s put the thought into this so it can be a truly engaging gathering for everybody. 

50:03
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
That’s fantastic. I think my favorite part of the meeting is the meaningful dialogue, but everything before it leads up to the opportunity to actually have that be real. I appreciate you breaking that down. I think in terms of time for the podcast, we’ll have to skip the challenges and hurdles and how to get around them. But we actually address time a bit in the beginning of the discussion, I don’t feel too bad about that. One more thing. I want to make sure I get in before our last questions, just for the Ruckus Maker listening. When you pick up the book on the same team, I’m going to direct you towards page 113 because it goes through some survey results. For example, there’s a good relationship between teachers and parents all the way down to my child feels part of the school community. And I’m guessing this is a five point scale. Is that true? 

Ari Gerzon-Kessler
Exactly.

Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Okay, cool. And probably one sucks and five is awesome. 

Ari Gerzon-Kessler
Exactly. 

Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
With all those survey questions, it’s basically like three and a half at the highest or lower before the family and educators teams together came to campus. And then afterwards, every marker grew and grew by a landslide. I purposely framed that for the Ruckus Maker listening because I’m just challenging you here. If you really believe in family engagement and want to do something about it, this is the book. I mean, this is the one to get. So pick it up on the same team by Ari Garzon Kessler. Last thing before the final questions. Just so you know, Ari has a tool. It’s basically a school family partnership self assessment inventory. His website’s being built. You’ll be able to get that free tool when this airs by going to the show notes. 

Maybe we’ll record in the URL later, but not a big deal. Just go to the show notes, click the link, get in touch with Ari and download that as well. Without further ado, the final questions. Ari, if you could put one message on all billboards or school marquees, I should say around the world, for a single day, what would your message be? 

Ari Gerzon-Kessler
Yeah, thanks, Danny.  I’m a huge lover of quotes. I started collecting them at the age of twelve, and I’m actually going to send you words to lead by. Hundreds of quotes organized by 30 virtues that I distilled. And this was 23 years ago when I was just out of college. I put this together, so I love quotes deeply. The one that most speaks to me today at this moment is from one of my heroes, Mahatma Gandhi. Be the change you wish to see in the world just because it speaks to, as our conversation has kind of illuminated at times, the small interactions, small steps that over time, as you were saying, kind of build that emotional bank account or that those brief texts to a family, those little actions that create the kind of relationships and learning and connection that I believe education should be all about. I think about the word educo from Latin, to bring forth. If we’re showing up and creating spaces for students, staff and families to be authentic, we’re really bringing forth their best in ways that change the school, community and ultimately the world. 

Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Brilliant. And how about your dream school?  If you were not limited by any sorts of resources, your only constraint was your ability to imagine, how would Ari build his dream school? What would be the three guiding principles? 

Ari Gerzon-Kessler
I love this question, and it’s exciting to just have a vision. One would be, we do a lot of circles in the set teams and in my classroom, in many classrooms I’ve visited, where there’s deep engagement, there’s regularly that space to bring forth every voice around engaging questions. So I’d say that principle of community and bringing forth and honoring every child’s voice strengths, dreams as one key pillar. So there’s a solid sense of community and each individual feels really seen. That’s number one. Number two is just that students get to spend more time, as do the educators and the family members align with what they’re really passionate about. When I look back on high school, Danny, there were so many wasted hours where I wasn’t asked, what are you drawn to learn about? And when I went to college, I was fortunate at a space where I got to choose all my classes pretty much across the board. And the shift it created for me as a learner was massive. And I enjoyed school more and grew more because I was allowed to truly follow my passions. So that’d be number two and then number three, which connects to that joy for learning, creating a space with lots of play that’s tied in to learning about ourselves. There’s a team builder we do in FEt called group juggling, and we’re passing a couple of balls around a circle in a pattern. And we always ask as facilitators at the end, when did you notice we laughed most? And people reflected on it and they said, oh, when we made a mistake. That’s always powerful to me. A learning space where mistakes galvanize learning, and we get to find more joy in all of it, because just like we do with the team builders at the beginning of a FET meeting, like play is just woven throughout so that you can glance around a room, as I did on Saturday when we did one of these team builders at a conference. And panoramic smiles on every single one of the 18 people’s faces in the room. That’s the kind of school I dream of. 

Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
We covered a lot of ground today, Ari, of everything we discussed, what’s the one thing you want a Ruckus Maker to remember? 

Ari Gerzon-Kessler
I want to speak to the Ruckus Makers, so many of whom are school leaders, and just echo the words of one of the principals I started a team of two years ago who said to me, and I think I quote him in the book, this team has allowed me to connect and learn from all of my communities within my single school community. And it’s something he said I can’t do on my own.  I want to say, particularly to those Ruckus Makers that are school leaders and teacher leaders, often it’s a lonely job having to be the champion of family partnerships, and maybe you’ve got one or two other colleagues that when you can create this regular space for partnership with families, it distributes and delegates leadership, where in one year, you can create the kind of advancement with partnering with families that takes many schools multiple years because of what we talked about earlier on the show, of how we’re often spread thin just as part of being in education. I just would conclude by saying to the school leaders, there is so much value because you don’t have to guide these teams. You just need to support the space and show up, and then pretty uplifting, transformative things unfold that benefit every member of your school community.