Improve Your PTA’s Family Engagement in the New Year

Family engagement is critical to student success, and it plays a big role in your PTA’s success as well. National PTA has rolled out several new resources to help your PTA step up its family engagement efforts. National PTA recently released the latest update of the National Standards for Family-School Partnerships. Accompanying the release was … Continue reading Improve Your PTA’s Family Engagement in the New Year

The New Update of the National Standards for Family-School Partnerships

PTA’s National Standards for Family-School Partnerships were groundbreaking when they were first debuted. That families should be included in the conversations around their children’s education sounds like common sense today, but 20 years ago, the idea that families and schools should work together for student success was a novel idea. Now, National PTA has released … Continue reading The New Update of the National Standards for Family-School Partnerships

Support Your Families with PTA Programs

As more and more data comes in, it is increasingly clear that many students fell behind during the first year of the pandemic. One way to help students begin to catch up academically is through out-of-school learning opportunities. A recent report by Bellwether shows that families often find barriers to participation in these learning opportunities. … Continue reading Support Your Families with PTA Programs

Team Up for Your Student’s Success

We’re big fans of Learning Heroes at Illinois PTA, not only for their fantastic family resources, but also for their enlightening research and commitment to meaningful family engagement. As the school year kicks off, Learning Heroes has launched their Ready to Team Up resources for families to help them partner with their child’s teacher for … Continue reading Team Up for Your Student’s Success

Parents 2022: Hidden in Plain Sight

Today’s guest post comes from Learning Heroes. We’ve highlighted their research and resources many times in the past. Their latest report, Parents 2022: Hidden in Plain Sight—A Way Forward for Equity-Centered Family Engagement, illustrates the opportunities for PTAs and schools to make significant progress on student success through meaningful family engagement. You can find the … Continue reading Parents 2022: Hidden in Plain Sight

Improving School-Family Communication and Engagement

One of the key focuses of effective family engagement is communication, so important that communicating effectively is the second of National PTA’s National Standards for Family-School Partnerships. The University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research has just released a research brief on the lessons learned during remote schooling about how to improve school-family communication. The … Continue reading Improving School-Family Communication and Engagement

Building Meaningful Family Engagement At Your School

Illinois PTA has focused on creating meaningful family engagement for years, as truly engaged families can make a significant difference in student success. National PTA recognizes its importance, too, having launched The Center for Family Engagement four years ago. Now, a new report from our friends at Learning Heroes further supports what PTA has been … Continue reading Building Meaningful Family Engagement At Your School

Introducing the Family STEAM Book

The Illinois PTA Local Unit Advocacy Toolkit wasn’t the only thing making its debut at the Illinois PTA Convention and Advocacy Conference. Illinois PTA also released the Family STEAM Book, a collection of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STEAM) activities for K-5 students that families can do at home or PTAs can use for … Continue reading Introducing the Family STEAM Book

Programs for Healthy Kids

Illinois PTA has long been a fan of Action for Healthy Kids, and recently, they updated their website and resources, including translating many of the resources into Spanish. If your PTA is looking for program ideas, the updated website has plenty for you. The resources are now split into three areas: NourishEd (hunger and nutrition)EnergizEd … Continue reading Programs for Healthy Kids

Parents 2021: Research Highlights Opportunity for Meaningful Family Engagement

Today’s guest post comes from Learning Heroes. We’ve highlighted their research and resources many times in the past. Their latest report, Parents 2021: Going Beyond the Headlines, illustrates the opportunities for PTAs and schools to make significant progress on student success through meaningful family engagement. You can find the slide deck, a short video, social … Continue reading Parents 2021: Research Highlights Opportunity for Meaningful Family Engagement

9 Family Engagement Strategies for Middle School PTAs

Family engagement is a lot easier at the elementary school level: kids want their parents around and events and programs are easy to come by. That changes with middle school and children beginning to assert their independence. As Illinois PTA has pointed out in the past, middle school PTAs can find success by focusing more … Continue reading 9 Family Engagement Strategies for Middle School PTAs

Right to Play and Your PTA

In our wrap-up of this spring’s legislative session, Illinois PTA noted the passage of SB654, the Right to Play Every Day bill that guaranteed every kindergarten through fifth grade student 30 minutes of “supervised, unstructured, child-directed play” every school day. Governor Pritzker has now signed the bill into law, and its requirements take effect immediately. If … Continue reading Right to Play and Your PTA