HEARD is a private communication platform that takes an open approach to engaging families at school: facilitating transparency, ensuring equal access, and bridging student learning across school and home.
HEARD enables two-way communication not only between families and teachers, but among parents. It provides all members democratic access to features — no hierarchy of controls. And it provides easy ways for teachers to share class insights and help families support their child’s learning at home.
The result? Nearly 100% of messages sent every week are positive. More than 80% of members contribute month over month. Posts on HEARD have a read rate of 70%.
Engaging families is critical to school communication, and HEARD is built upon enabling and encouraging parent voice for the benefit of all — teachers, admins, parents, and students.
The Power of Parent Engagement
Parents are a child’s first and life-long teachers, and family involvement in their child’s education at school is one of the most accurate predictors of student achievement (Natl. PTA, 2000). Regardless of family income or background, students whose parents are involved in their schooling are more likely to attend school regularly, do better in school, and enjoy school more (Mapp, 2002).
But despite the positive impact parents have on student success, family engagement is one of the most neglected supports for children’s learning at school (Weiss, 2009). In fact, a 2008 monitoring report found that family engagement was the weakest area of compliance by states (U.S. Dept. of Ed).
Most parents believe they can make a difference in their child’s learning and yearn to be more involved at school, but schools often fail to inform parents on what their children are learning, how they are performing, and how parents can help them do better (Public Agenda, 2011).
> Only 4 out of 10 families report receiving a phone call from school about their child over the preceding year (Noel, 2016).
> 60% of secondary parents feel their child’s teacher did not adequately inform them about classroom happenings and requirements (NSPRA, 2011).
> Only 22% of parents could name a basic milestone that their child should have learned in the past year (Public Agenda, 2011).
When it comes to parents’ satisfaction with their child’s school, family engagement is the biggest driver of overall satisfaction. Yet only one-third of parents feel very satisfied with family engagement at school (Mattal, 2017).
Engaging Black and Hispanic families is even more critical as a student’s race and immigrant status have been shown to be factors in whether or not teachers contact their parents. Math teachers are more likely to contact parents of Black and Latino youth about disruptive behavior than parents of White youth; math and English teachers are less likely to contact immigrant Asian parents about academic and behavioral concerns, even when students are struggling; and teachers are less likely to contact minority parents with news of accomplishments (Anderson, 2016).
Yet, 75% of Black and 67% of Hispanic parents say a parent can never be too involved in a child’s education. About half (47%) of White parents agree (Pew, 2015).
Parents are not alone. K-12 teachers cite a lack of parent involvement in the classroom as a top three source of frustration and nearly all want parents to get involved in their classroom by “communicating regularly” with them (Univ. of Phoenix, 2014). The teacher-parent partnership is key to family engagement, which positively impacts student achievement. A University of Chicago study following 400 schools found significant academic gains by students in schools that prioritized relationship building between families and teachers, compared with schools that didn’t.
Barriers to Engagement
Project Appleseed highlights ineffective school communication, insufficient teacher training, and a lack of trust between teachers and parents as barriers.
In a 2012 survey by NEA, 68 percent of teachers reported difficulty in dealing with parents while 63 percent of parents reported never havin