Creating Welcoming Schools: A Practical Guide to Home-School Partners with Diverse Families

This engaging and rich resource details how schools and diverse families throughout the country have formed partnerships that support and enhance student learning. It is designed for teachers who care deeply about students and welcome diverse families as partners; for parents who want to be active partners in educating their children; and for administrators in diverse schools or districts who know there is no quick fix for building lasting partnerships among families, schools, and the community. Going far beyond traditional “parent involvement programs,” this essential volume:

• Offers exciting ways teachers and parents together can explore their rich and diverse cultural perspectives through storytelling and cultural memoir.
• Shows how to establish and sustain genuine dialogue at school conferences, open houses, and through classroom projects such as home–school journals.
• Suggests ways families, schools, and communities can collaborate for democratic schools and a more democratic society.
• Includes “Action Opportunities” throughout for readers to actively engage with the ideas and make them their own.
• Links these partnerships with research demonstrating that building respectful and trusting relationships leads to increased student achievement.