Family engagement is critical to student success, and PTA has emphasized this for decades. With one in ten public school students being English language learners, engaging with immigrant families is becoming a growing challenge for PTAs and schools. The Carnegie Corporation of New York recently released a report, Becoming an Ally: Partnering with Immigrant Families to Promote Student Success, that details how schools can better engage these families. Though aimed at schools, the report contains a lot of information that PTAs may find useful in their family engagement efforts.

The report notes that immigrant families are diverse, with families influenced by factors such as immigrant generation, geographic location, ethnic or racial background, immigration status, job status, and more. All of these factors contribute to the challenges schools and PTAs may face when working to engage immigrant families. These challenges include:

  • Cultural Differences
  • Language Barriers
  • Limited Resources
  • Undocumented Immigration Status
  • Anti-Immigration Climate
  • Unaccompanied Youth Immigrants

The report discusses effective family engagement strategies for reaching immigrant families and improving student success. The recommendations closely parallel National PTA’s National Standards for Family-School Partnerships. Among the recommendations are:

  • Build Mutual Trust
  • Link Engagement to Learning and Development
  • Focus on the Assets of Both Families and Educators
  • Be Culturally Responsive and Respectful
  • Be Collaborative and Interactive

Note that many of these recommendations, in addition to paralleling the National Standards, also connect with PTA’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion materials and PTA programs such as School of Excellence, Reflections, Family Reading Experience, STEM + Families, and Healthy Lifestyles.

The summer, especially just before the start of the school year, is a great time to meet with your school principal (or superintendent for PTA Councils) to discuss family engagement for the coming year and sharing what PTA has to offer. Sign your PTA up for the School of Excellence program now, check out the full Carnegie report, and develop a plan for how your PTA will engage the families in your community that may have been left out in the past.