Family engagement at high poverty schools can poise a great challenge to educators, but also much hope for improvement and empowerment of parents and students. At my school, one way we improve the school to home connection and increase family engagement involves visiting students in their homes, home visits.
We use home visits to meet a student and their family. We give parents the opportunity to ask questions and let parents share any information they want their child's teacher to know about their child. Seeing a student at home also provides a teacher with anecdotal information about a student (i.e. home situation, challenges to strong study habits, interests, behaviors, etc.)
At a school with a large bilingual and/or immigrant population and varying literacy levels in English or primary language, like mine, parents may be empowered by a personal explanation of HW expectations, written communication, reading logs, etc.
All in all, home visits are a fabulous means of building and investing in a relationship with students and their family, while making the year begin with a great start.
