Training for Schools

Strategies for Teachers to Engage Families and Foster Student Success
A free virtual learning opportunity for Colorado educators to boost family engagement by creating inclusive schools, building trust through communication, and fostering strong family-school partnerships.
📅 Next series begins January 23, 2025

NAFSCE Reframing Academy
This course tackles common challenges in communicating about family engagement and introduces research-backed strategies to shift perceptions and drive meaningful change. Participants will join a cohort with four virtual meetings while completing self-paced modules.
📅 Fridays at 3:00 PM:
Jan 17 • Jan 31 • Feb 14 • Feb 28
School Resources

Building Trusting Relationships with Families
This guide helps educators build trust with families through meaningful conversations that center on care, mutual respect, and collaboration. It offers practical strategies and questions to better understand families’ goals, needs, and cultural insights, fostering stronger partnerships to support student success.

Positive Communication: Reaching Out to Families
This resource highlights the importance of maintaining a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative interactions to strengthen family-school partnerships. It provides sentence starters for sharing good news, celebrating student successes, and acknowledging family support, fostering trust and collaboration.

What Is Culturally Responsive Family Engagement?
This resource focuses on appreciating families' diverse identities and strengths while challenging biases and deficit thinking. It provides strategies to build trusting partnerships through empathy, listening, and responsive communication, fostering collaboration to support student success.

Supporting Student Success Family Conference Guide
This guide provides a step-by-step approach to planning effective family conferences that build trust and foster collaboration. It emphasizes co-creating agendas, valuing family input, using clear communication, and sustaining partnerships beyond the conference to support students’ growth and success.

Having Challenging Conversations with Families
This guide offers strategies for addressing sensitive topics with families respectfully and effectively. It emphasizes active listening, validating emotions, and using specific, evidence-based communication. By focusing on solutions and maintaining trust, educators can foster productive family-school partnerships.

Family Engagement Problem of Protocol
This resource provides a structured process for collaboratively addressing complex family engagement challenges. It includes roles, guided questions, and strategies for reflective problem-solving, empowering educators to generate actionable solutions and build stronger partnerships with families.

Equity in Communication Reflection Tool
This resource helps educators evaluate and improve equity in their communication with families. It encourages reflection on outreach patterns, identifies gaps, and promotes strategies to ensure all families receive consistent, positive, and actionable information to support student success.

Past Webinars
Missed a live session? Our Past Webinars for Educators are available for you to revisit valuable content covering topics like family engagement, building trust, and fostering effective collaboration. These recordings offer strategies and insights to help you strengthen your connection with families and drive student success.