Moving Past the Door: Forming Meaningful Partnerships With Families

Our story has taken place over 2 years. We opened a new middle school and have tried to push the norms of what strong family/school connections look like.

An important goal for CMS teachers this year is to build relationships with families that encourage open dialogue, mutual respect, and transparency.

Several deep questions guide our work this year:

• We wonder how facilitating deep family connections will impact student success in intellectual, personal, and social and emotional proficiencies?

• How can we encourage relational learning opportunities that celebrate the incredible families that make up the Canyon Falls community?

• What learning opportunities will bring joy to students and families and lead to meaningful engagement?

• How can we best show up so that all learners and their families feel seen, heard, and understood?

Here is a link to the intention letter that we wrote at the beginning of our journey to make our thinking visible.

We invite you to listen to our story about how we are changing the narrative around teacher to family communication in our school to foster true, meaningful partnerships.

We created this video to make our thinking visible:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEFUaM5xooQ

Please visit our website to learn more.

by Michelle Harvey and Christina Hidalgo