EDUC/545 - Family Engagement and Community Involvement

Course Description

This course focuses on family engagement and community involvement in K-12 education. Participants examine strategies for establishing and maintaining collaborative relationships with culturally diverse parents, families, and communities. The emphasis is on building relationships, family outreach, and developing an understanding and appreciation of families from diverse backgrounds. Participants explore methods to improve communication and collaboration to support learning, and explore ways to connect students, parents, families, and schools with the community.

This graduate course is 4 weeks.

PLEASE NOTE:
Attendance and participation are mandatory in all university courses, and specific requirements may differ by course. If attendance requirements are not met, a student may be removed from the course. Please review the Course Attendance Policy in the Catalog for more information.

This course is not available for enrollment to residents of Alabama, Arkansas, and Kentucky.

Course Objectives

Communicating With Parents and Families

• Examine ways to promote regular, two-way, meaningful communication between parents, families, and schools.
• Explore ways to promote an atmosphere for parents and families so that they feel welcome, valued, and connected to school staff.
• Discuss strategies for working with students, parents, and families from diverse sociocultural backgrounds.
• Determine methods to improve parent-teacher conferences.

Collaborating with Families and the School Community

• Discuss the characteristics of effective collaboration.
• Explore ways to foster collaboration and involvement between parents, families, and schools.
• Identify approaches to promote school–home connections.
• Describe ethical issues to consider when working with parents and families.
• Synthesize current research findings on school and community relations.
• Assess the demographics, dynamics, issues, and trends of a diverse school community and the implications for partnerships and collaborations.
• Explore ways to promote collaboration of parents, families, and schools with the community.
• Describe ethical issues to consider when working with community groups.
• Develop a multifaceted plan that enables the community and school to serve each other to develop relevant and needed services.

Collaborating With the Business Community

• Examine a school’s current partnerships with business groups in the community.
• Identify opportunities for establishing partnerships with community businesses.
• Describe ethical issues to consider when working with business groups.
• Create a process for building and maintaining a reciprocal partnership with community businesses.

Empowerment, Advocacy, and Decision Making

• Describe ways to empower parents and families to advocate for their children.
• Explain ways to promote an equal partnership between parents, families, and schools with regard to decision making.
• Examine ways to get parents and families involved in informing, influencing, and creating school policies, practices, and programs.

Disclaimers

The University of Phoenix reserves the right to modify courses.

Although our continuing teacher education courses are accepted by some state agencies in the United States toward teacher certifications and endorsements, this may not be the case in all states or foreign jurisdictions. If you plan to use courses for certification or endorsement, please check with your own state agency and your school district for applicability. Continuing teacher education courses are not eligible to apply to degree programs at University of Phoenix. These courses are not eligible for federal financial aid.

Transferability of credit is at the discretion of the receiving institution. It is the student’s responsibility to confirm whether or not credits earned at University of Phoenix will be accepted by another institution of the student’s choice.

While widely available, not all programs are available in all locations or in both online and on-campus formats. Please check with an Enrollment Representative.