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Ohio's public schools serve 1.6 million children - 90 percent of students in the state! What happens in the classroom has impacts far beyond the walls of the K-12 school building or higher ed lecture hall. So, on behalf of the 120,000 members of the Ohio Education Association, we're taking a deeper dive into some of the many education issues facing our students, educators, and communities. Originally launched in 2021 as Education Matters, Public Education Matters is your source for insightful conversations with the people who shape the education landscape in Ohio. Have a topic you'd like to hear about on Public Education Matters? Email us at educationmatters@ohea.org
Intro - Various members and students speaking 0:08
Public Education Matters. Public Education Matters. Public Education Matters because every student matters. Public Education Matters. Public Education Matters because it is the foundation of our democracy. Public Education Matters because we are stronger when we speak in one voice. Public Education Matters. Public Education Matters. Public Education Matters. Public Education Matters. This is Public Education Matters, brought to you by the Ohio Education Association.
Katie Olmsted 0:41
Thanks for joining us for this edition of Public Education Matters. I'm your host, Katie Olmsted, and I'm part of the communications team for the Ohio Education Association and the 120,000 teachers, education support professionals, Aspiring Educators and others that are part of our organization statewide. We'll have more on some of the important opportunities for those Aspiring Educators a little later in the show. But first, I want to talk about some important opportunities for all educators to work with their students' caregivers to set everyone up for success. We know family engagement is absolutely a critical piece of the puzzle when it comes to helping students achieve their full potential. And we know educators want constructive collaborative relationships with their students families, so they can deliver the great education every child deserves. But there's a lot more to it than just wanting it. There's a lot of research and resources to help make those relationships successful. Dr. Barbara Boone is the director of the Ohio Statewide Family Engagement Center at the Ohio State University. And she joins us for this episode to talk about the Center's work to support educators in building positive relationships with students, families and caregivers, and to offer some practical advice for navigating around some potential roadblocks in that relationship building journey.
Katie Olmsted 2:09
Dr. Boone, thank you so much for joining us for this podcast. Family engagement is something that so many educators have been talking about, because of the importance, what can you tell me about what you're seeing, and the research that backs that up?
Dr. Barbara Boone 2:28
You know, family engagement has benefits for teachers, it has benefits for our students. And it also has benefits for families. So we know that when teachers and families are partnering well together, when we have that engagement, that sort of commitment to working together, we see teachers who are feeling much more satisfied in their work. They also feel supported. They seem to have a better understanding of their students and in higher expectations of their students. We just see that it's beneficial for students, for teachers and less of sort of a stressful aspect of their work. And for our students, we see gains across the board, in academics, in really pre-K through graduation. You know, at all stages, family engagement looks different, and how teachers and families interact with one another, of course, is going to be different. Kids are different, right? But, but there are gains across that whole span. And for families as well. Families understand better about what their kids are learning, how to support that learning. They learn so much from teachers when they really had that good communication with one another.
Katie Olmsted 3:36
But I'm sure sometimes it feels like building that communication is a daunting task.
Dr. Barbara Boone 3:41
It is.
Katie Olmsted 3:42
Where do you start?
Dr. Barbara Boone 3:43
Yeah. So I do think that it's easier for teachers to reach out than for families often to reach in. So especially when we're starting out early beginning of the school year, as families are coming first coming into our schools, for us to reach out, for educators to reach out and sort of initiate in a sense, welcome, invite that partnership, that relationship we want to have: 'Here's how we can communicate with one another. Here's what we're going to be doing this year. Here's how what I'm going to be doing. And if you have questions or concerns this is how we're going to communicate.' So we want to start early, early in a school year early when a student first transfers into our school, so that we are not sort of focusing on problems maybe that have occurred, but just starting with a very positive relationship and really having, taking that responsibility to sort of be do the reaching out. If we wait for families to reach in, many families won't there's many things that keep families from whether it's a busy schedule, whether it's sort of prior interactions with schools that haven't been great. So for educators to reach out to families early and initiate that good relationship and get that communication flowing. And also sort of let families know that I have things to share with you. There's so much that families learn from their kids' teachers. But also, I want to learn from you as a family, I want to learn about your child, I want to learn about you, the interests you have, so that the instruction in our classrooms is really connected well with kids lives outside of school.
Katie Olmsted 5:21
And I think that really hits on the collaboration in this. You can't talk at somebody, and you don't want someone talking at you. Having that that actual relationship. How important is that?
Dr. Barbara Boone 5:35
You know, we find it's very important. That relationship leads to this underlying trust, that we are both going to kind of have each other's best interest in mind, we're going to work together around this common goal of supporting this child's learning together. And when we see levels of trust teachers have in families and families trust in teachers. And that all comes from that sort of what you call relationship, building that communication, that working together, we see those levels of trust rise. And when we see that, we know that it leads to both families and teachers having higher expectations of students, and student achievement, and behavior, improving because of that trust that's built between those two adults.
Katie Olmsted 6:24
The student behavior is really one of the big things we're hearing about from educators around the state, chronic absenteeism, it kind of feels like especially coming out of the pandemic, some families feel like they've checked out is sort of the vibe that people are getting. How do we repair that? How do we move forward from there?
Dr. Barbara Boone 6:45
You know, there is not sort of one answer. And I think in each local community and each school, there are different answers. So part of it is really working together to sort of what we might call find the root causes. What's really going on here? What are families facing? What are students facing in school, what are the different sorts of pushes and poles that are either contributing to students staying away, or really drawing students back. So we know that within the school setting, students feel like they have a sense of belonging there, that somebody knows them, someone's expecting them to come. They have that connection to school, that this is a place that where I belong, and that it's meaningful and important in my life. But we know schools can do that alone. There's pressures at home, we know around just family life, right, around work and the daily living and challenges that all families face. And so really understanding what those are, is it a lack of sort of warm clothing to get to school on a cold day? Is it issues with transportation? Are there things that oftentimes I think parents are also struggling, maybe maybe the same behavior that the school is? And it's if we lean on one another? Or say, Well, it's because of you or it's because of home, you know, that doesn't help us really solve the problem. It's really coming together. What, what can we do together? Let's get on the same page. We have the same common goal that this child is going to learn, they're going to grow, they're going to move through their grades and graduate. We know we're all there. But how do we get there together and really understand what the challenges are and find common solutions together. I think it's important. So it's really making making time for those conversations to happen, which is really part of family engagement. I think part of the push and pull is really all of us advocating that our teachers have time to do this. And that there is you know, this, we know it's important, but yet, sometimes teachers are just, you know, there's not time in the workday to get this done.
Katie Olmsted 9:00
They don't have time to go to the bathroom half the time.
Dr. Barbara Boone 9:02
Right? Yes! Yes! And so I know what I'm saying is really when when you hear anything, well, that all is going to take time that's going to take resources. And I think together both families, teachers and administrators, we need to be advocating that teachers have that time and have those resources.
Katie Olmsted 9:17
And speaking of resources, the Ohio Statewide Family Engagement Center at the Ohio State University has, I mean, just a treasure trove of resources for educators, for families and for community partners. What can you tell me?
Dr. Barbara Boone 9:32
Well, we do have a lot of resources, and I'm so glad that you are familiar with them. And I would love if every Ohio teacher was familiar with the resources that we have and would access those. We have been able to reach so many families. We feel like in the last five years as we look at our data, we've reached over 19,000 families and we have provided some sort of professional learning and support to about 12,000 educators and so we welcome more. And we're really excited to continue that and grow that. So we have a robust website that has close to 500 different resources for educators around family engagement, whether that's family engagement in math, literacy, middle school, high school, preschool, whether it's around behavioral supports or mental health. We have a lot of resources for professional learning. So we offer a free summit, a day of learning every September, that has lots of different sessions that a teacher could attend, and we record them all. And they are all available on our website. So if you didn't make it to one of our summits, you can listen to any one of those, those sessions. We have a lot of learning on demand, where we have recorded professional learning sessions that we've done, and those can be accessed at any time, any portion of it, you know, you may not want to listen to a whole hour, but boy, you may find 15 minutes of that, that really works for you. We have a lot of seminars as well. So those are maybe more extended seminars for teachers where they might do a module on their own, and then meet together online with a with another group of teachers and then come back to a module. So some extended around foundations of family engagement, and then other other topics around family engagement. One of the resources that we had that I think is really useful for teachers is we partner with the National Association for Family School Community Engagement. And they have developed over a number of years, working with educators across the country, a set of core competencies. So if we're really going to serve have a lot of knowledge and skills and other practices that really make a difference in building those partnerships with families. They've sort of they've, they've sort of sketched those out for us. And then we develop for teachers a self reflection tool, that you can sit down and say, How am I doing in my partnerships with families? How am I really engaging the families of my students? And where can I grow? And that really helps us identify what are those things that I would like to maybe partner with a colleague to say, hey, let's do let's read a book about this, or going to our principal and saying, Hey, I'd really like to find some professional learning on this topic. So we have, like I said, so many resources, for family engagement, say, in working with different family groups. So we know we have a lot of grandparents in Ohio raising grandchildren, and that they are really a unique group. And working together with grandparents takes some different strategies and different approaches. And so we have guidance around that and ideas for how we can do that well. Or working with our families of our English learners, strategies that educators and administrators can use to really form those strong partnerships for that community of parents, as in our schools. We have just so many resources, whether it's those videos, podcasts, tools to to utilize for writing those letters to families. We know that in Ohio, we have new laws around dyslexia and screening for that. So we have created timelines for educators to understand what are those interactions with families, and, and when are they occurring. And then we've written sample letters that are family friendly, but help families to understand what we're doing in our schools, and what they can do at home. We've also written letters for families, so if they have questions, and they aren't quite sure how to say it, we have letters that they can use to share with their child's teacher to say, I'd like to know more about this about my child. So we have sample letters, we have professional learning, we have guides and resources, not just that we've created ourselves, but we really look at resources from around the country. And we vet those resources, we say, are these really evidence based? Do we really feel like these will be helpful to teachers? And are they available at no cost? And that's when we will then host that on our on our website. So we really hope that folks don't feel like they need to sort of Google family engagement and start searching for things that they can start on our website, because we've done a lot of searching for them.
Katie Olmsted 14:22
And you have a whole team of people working at the center who are continuing to develop these resources, correct?
Dr. Barbara Boone 14:28
Yes, every day. Every day, we are developing new resources. We are in the process of developing several more interactive online seminars and workshops for teachers. And we have teachers on our staff, folks who are now in sort of, kind of on this side of building those resources for family engagement, but they've been teachers for many years, they've been administrators as well. We have folks from who've come to our team from many different roles and so bring that understanding of what it's like in the classroom day to day, and administrators see day to day, but also folks coming sort of from that more perspective of working with families outside of the school, because we know it's really bringing all of that together that we need to understand. So we're really excited to have staff that are informing and building these resources for Ohio teachers and families.
Katie Olmsted 15:22
Do you have any advice about sort of creating a positive and constructive dialogue on this one? We again hear anecdotally, sometimes it can feel like an adversarial relationship. Parents who do reach out are are accusing or why am I child? Why this? Do have any practical advice for sort of defusing that and building from there? I mean, they've reached out that's a good first step, right?
Dr. Barbara Boone 15:49
So it can be hard in the moment, when someone does you mentioned like, if you feel accused or someone is unhappy. I think what we want to what we want to first go back to is one is, if we've started out on a positive note, when there isn't a problem, that's a better place to start. And oftentimes, we can we have a ground, we have a foundation to work on, when a parent is not understanding something, whether they have an issue with something, so we've already sort of gotten to know one another a little bit. And without any problems, right. But then when problems do arise, we really want to encourage our educators to one presume positive intent on the part of that parent, they have come out of an act of love care, trying to do their best. And that's their sort of role as a parent to advocate for their kiddo. And so if we can see that, see, pass, sometimes the angry words, the anxiety, and any kind of see this person is coming to this out of some sort of sense of care or concern. And then really listening. We know that there's a real difference between debating and having a dialogue. Debating, you know, I've got a point, you've got a point we're both trying to win the point, right, that my point is the better one. I think if we can help our frame our conversations more as a dialogue, one where we are listening, hearing one another's perspectives, looking for that common ground. We may not agree, but I hear you. And I think sometimes feeling heard, feeling recognized being acknowledged, can move us a long way, and keep us from inside and help us to move in a more constructive way.
Katie Olmsted 17:36
On the other side, another perhaps anxiety about building these relationships is the parent that doesn't interact back. What happens when you're getting ghosted?
Dr. Barbara Boone 17:48
Yes, and that happens. You know, we like to say that when a parent doesn't respond, that's data. Let's think of it as a data point for us. So I reached out in this way or about this thing and I didn't get a response back. So was my approach not a good fit, in that this parent doesn't use the technology that I used or read that and didn't necessarily think there was a response needed? You know, what, what was it? I didn't, the communication didn't work. As opposed to, sometimes we can get frustrated and think they don't care. They don't want this to happen. They disagree. I think we, it was, is better for us to sort of refrain from going to some sort of judgment and think this parent does care about their kid, they want their child to learn. So that didn't work. Let's what's another approach that I can take?
Katie Olmsted 18:46
And I assume in the resources from the center, there are some good ideas about other ways you can approach that.
Dr. Barbara Boone 18:53
There really are. You know, sometimes when we work with, with educators, we like to look at some of the some of those typical letters we might send home if a child has had a lot of absences. Or if they are, we're recommending that they be on a reading improvement and monitoring plan, right? They've got that diagnostic assessment. And we looked at those and sometimes realize that there's a lot of jargon, a lot of words that can sound a little threatening or confusing. And so one of the things we love to do is to redesign those, sit down with educators and rewrite those in a way that starts to build trust with a family. We're, we see something that we believe will be helpful for your child. Here's what we would like to do. Let's work together on this. So it's got the same message. It's still meets all the requirements of the communication we need to have with families. But we've worded it in such a way that we're sort of inviting that parent to be our partner in this.
Katie Olmsted 19:59
And at the end of the day, that is the bottom line, that it's a partnership, that educators and families are on the same team, and they have that common interest in the common goal of helping the children succeed, right?
Dr. Barbara Boone 20:13
Yes, yes. I think one of the things we want to recognize is that while we're talking about teachers and parents and other caregivers working together, and we're all doing this sort of on behalf of in support of our students, but what we know is that, how the student perceives that, what they think about what our school is doing, and what are families doing, that's what really matters. And we know that sometimes, what teachers perceive what's going on in their supportive students, and what parents think often is not what students perceive. So thinking about how are students experiencing this? What do they think about it and bringing them into the conversation is really important, especially when we're thinking about the high school years and middle school years. We want students to own their learning. We know they do. And we want them to be sort of planning for their future. And it's really about us supporting them in that. So having communication where our students are part of the conversation, like a student led conference is a great sort of concrete example of this, where they're at the table with their teachers, with their parents, and they're talking about their experience, what are their challenges, what sort of support would help them to keep moving forward and to improve? I think we need to remember that to keep students in, in the, as a part of this partnership that we're building between the adults at home and the adults at school. Students are really important to that.
Katie Olmsted 21:52
Well, Dr. Boone, thank you so much for coming in and sharing your perspective. We will make sure we link all of the resources to the show notes for this episode.
Dr. Barbara Boone 22:02
Well, thank you for letting me come and talk with you today. And I welcome anyone who's listening to the podcast to go to our website, ohiofamiliesengage.osu.edu and you can search for resources, but you can always email us and let us know what you're looking for. Let us know what you're thinking about. So that we can really be helpful to you. We welcome your emails, your phone calls and for you to come to the website.
Katie Olmsted 22:30
Of course, the Ohio Education Association recognizes the crucial importance of family engagement for our public school communities. OEA also recognizes how important it is to build up our public school communities with a diverse workforce of quality educators to serve our beautifully diverse student bodies in our schools. That's why OEA is so invested in supporting the next generation of educators who are in the pipeline now to enter the profession. The OEA Board of Directors voted to waive OEA dues for members of OEA's Aspiring Educators division on college campuses around the state for this year. And OEA continues to create opportunities for Aspiring Educators to come together, build their leadership skills, and use their United voices to shape their future working conditions. Rachel Grabowski is a uniserv organizer who works in OEA's Organizing and Member Engagement department. She has the details on some of the upcoming events that are bringing AEs together.
Katie Olmsted 23:34
Rachel, thank you so much for coming on the podcast to talk about our Aspiring Educators and all the fun stuff that's happening. For people who are not really familiar with the structure, what are the aspiring educators? How do they fit in to OEA?
Rachel Grabowski 23:51
Yeah, well, thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here and share some of this information. So our Aspiring Educators is actually a division within the Ohio Education Association. Aspiring Educators is actually on the national, the NEA level as well. But this is the unique community that is designed and built to support our undergraduate and graduate students that are preparing for careers in education. So it could be our students that are going to be teachers, they could be going to be school psychologists. They could be current ESPs that are going to grad school so that they can have a teaching license and enter the classroom. So this is our community for undergrad and grad students in the state of Ohio that want to work in education, the best career there is.
Katie Olmsted 24:37
And why should they be AEs? I mean, I know you know, we have people across the state in, how many different chapters do we have?
Rachel Grabowski 24:44
Yeah, so we have over 75 chapters and this is open to all of Aspiring Educators throughout the entire state of Ohio. So if their university or college doesn't have, we'll call it a "club" - but it is an association - if they do not have their own local association, which we refer to as chapters, instead of locals in the AE vernacular, they can still be members. And there are a ton of benefits to membership just like it is for typical membership or ESP members or higher ed members, etc. So, of course, you know, we offer the support and relationships; they have all of the network available to them, whether that's within their own college or university community, local school districts that they partner up with - Ashland University does a really great job of partnering with the local public school system to support them. In addition to their local network, they can tie into some of our districts, they can tie into the state level. And of course, they have the network on the national level. The big piece, though, is the influence and power though, right? This gives them a voice. These are our next generation of educators that are going to be steaming through and starting their careers in the near future. Some of them are even doing their student teaching or field work or observations right now. And they're experiencing what it is like to be in the classroom or to be into in the school. So this gives them the voice when there's issues on the table like paid student teaching, or, you know, book bans, or diversity and equity in the classroom and inclusion. So this gives our Aspiring Educators have voice before they even step foot into the classroom. And of course, they have the protection and advocacy as well. They get the complimentary $1 million of liability insurance, so that is huge for them, especially as they're entering the classrooms in the schools for the first time.
Rachel Grabowski 25:12
And then, coming soon, they're going to be using their united voices together with an upcoming conference. What's that about?
Rachel Grabowski 26:54
Yes, so this is one of my favorite conferences that we host within the Ohio Education Association. Every year there is a joint conference between Ohio's New Educators, which we often referred to as ONE and our Aspiring Educators, which we call AE. And this has been going on since I was in Ohio's New Educators and I attended this joint conference as an early career educator. So it is the last weekend of January, it's going to be in Columbus at the Nationwide event center and conference center. And it is a weekend jam packed of professional development, networking and socials and fun and excitement. And they're going to be able to see different tabling events, different classroom and school experiences, but how they can also work together across the continuum from aspiring educators all the way to retirees. So joint conference, yes, annual last weekend of January. And the Aspiring Educators also get their own conference in the springtime, which is their Spring Leadership Conference where they learn all about their leadership skills and strengths and how to work together in public education. And they actually host their elections there. So at the state level, there is a Board of Directors for AE, those are elected positions, and we hold those elections at the spring conference. So two big conferences coming up in 2024 that we're really excited about.
Katie Olmsted 28:24
And if we have AEs, who would like to attend to be part of this, what do they need to do?
Rachel Grabowski 28:29
Absolutely. So our link to register for the joint conference will be coming out through their email communications posted on our social medias and on the website. Our website is the www.ohea.org/AspiringEd, and they will be able to register for those events there. We also have a regular newsletter that a communications committee has been working on so keep your eyes out for your email, communications and social media posts. Our ONE Member Ambassadors have been sending postcards and making personal connections as well as doing some campus visits throughout the state. So we are excited to see how many early career educators and Aspiring Educators are able to come together here in January.
Katie Olmsted 29:14
Rachel, thank you so much for laying it out for us. I'm excited to see what the AEs do in the year ahead.
Rachel Grabowski 29:19
Thank you so much for having me.
Katie Olmsted 29:24
You can find the link to the AE website in the show notes for this episode. Links for more information on the Ohio Statewide Family Engagement Center and those resources are right there too. And while you're there, don't forget to subscribe to Public Education Matters wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss an episode in the future. Until next time, stay well. And remember, in Ohio, Public Education Matters.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai