National Standards for Family-School Partnerships 

PTA’s National Standards for Family-School Partnerships set the bar for how schools and parent organizations can work together to support student success. We know that families are essential partners to providing a high-quality education for every student.

Decades of research shows that students whose families are engaged are more likely to attend school, avoid discipline problems, achieve at higher levels and graduate. Although there is consensus that family engagement matters, parents and educators often struggle to figure out how to engage with one another in ways that reach all families and have a positive impact on student success.

National PTA identifies six Standards that can help schools, PTAs and school districts improve their family-school partnerships so that all students can thrive:

1. Welcome All Families
2. Communicate Effectively
3. Support Student Success
4. Speak Up For Every Child
5. Share Power
6. Collaborate With The Community

Get to know the National Standards and put them into practice with additional resources from National PTA including…

• Reflecting on the Standards: Questions for PTA Leaders

• Strengthening Family-School Partnerships: A Reference Guide for PTA Leaders

• Supporting LGBTQ+ Students & Families

• Strengthening Family-School Partnerships for Students with Disabilities

Seattle Public Schools Family Engagement & Partnerships

Research indicates that parental involvement at home has more than double the impact on student test scores compared to parents’ education level and socioeconomic status. Families have a major influence on their children’s achievement. When schools, families, and community groups work together to support student learning, children and teens tend to do better, stay in school longer, and like school more. SPS families are critical partners.

Seattle Public Schools 4 Pillars of Family Engagement Framework is designed to engage students, families, school staff, and district staff on various levels and to provide an accessible path for creating and maintaining best practices for family engagement that lead to true partnership! Family engagement work is done through the Dual Capacity-Building Framework and Seattle Public Schools’ 6 standards of family engagement.

Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships 

Based on existing research and best practices, the Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships is designed to support the development of family engagement strategies, policies, and programs. It is not a blueprint for engagement initiatives, which must be designed to fit the particular contexts in which they are carried out. Instead, the Framework should be seen as a compass, laying out the goals and conditions necessary to chart a path toward effective family engagement efforts that are linked to student achievement and school improvement.