How Family Engagement Impacts Student Success (2024)

Here’s a simple fact: students are more likely to succeed when their families engage in their education. When parents and guardians are active in their child’s learning, this leads to greater student success when it comes to schoolwork, attendance, and learning. Having the right tools can make this task simpler and more streamlined for families. This article will discuss how family engagement aids in student success and offer some tips for engagement that can be bolstered by district resources.

What Do Engaged Families Monitor?

When families regularly monitor student progress, assignments, attendance, activities, and events, students stay on track, stay in class, miss fewer assignments, and have higher grade point averages.

The result of stronger family engagement is a stronger student relationship at home that bolsters students at school. In turn, their involvement is easier when their district offers simple tools and resources to make information clear and make teachers easy to reach and collaborate with.

What Does the Research Say About Family Involvement in Education?

Family/parent involvement has been studied by researchers for decades. The research consistently shows that their engagement can make a large difference in student outcomes.  

Students are more academically motivated, engaged in school, and achieve more when parents are involved, according to a report by the American Psychological Association that reviewed over 400 independent studies on family involvement in education. 

When families are involved in math learning, more students score at or above proficient levels. When parents/guardians are involved with reading, there is a positive impact on achievement, language comprehension, expressive language skills, student interest and attitudes toward reading, and level of attention in the classroom, according to the National Literacy Trust.   

Family engagement also has a positive impact on students’ emotional engagement in school, meaning that students are more likely to enjoy school and have high self-esteem.  

In short, the benefits of family engagement are well-researched and boundless. But, how can schools make this happen?

Ways to Boost Parent, Guardian, and Family Engagement in School

The results of family involvement are undeniable, but how can schools facilitate engagement in the modern era? Fortunately, there are multiple channels that allow parents and guardians to stay involved in their student’s progress beyond the traditional methods of phone calls, teacher conferences, and mailed report cards. 

Now, parents can stay intimately connected through mobile apps—including Schoology Learning, PowerSchool’s learning management system (LMS) and PowerSchool’s flagship SIS, or student information system.

Through systems like these, teachers can quickly and easily email families, who receive push notifications on their mobile devices and access online parent portals that are updated in real time and available at their convenience. With Schoology Learning, families can also stay updated on student progress and contact teachers in real-time. 

Notably, the communication doesn’t just flow one way. Instead, it’s a genuinely collaborative process with two-way communication between teachers and parents, along with students and administrators. Parents can respond and ask teachers questions specific to their student’s education and receive personalized feedback. 

What is the Future of Family-School Engagement?

Today’s forward-thinking schools and districts are taking an active role in improving parent engagement through education tech tools that facilitate communication via digital channels. Here is what they have to say:

• “PowerSchool SIS and Schoology Learning have provided both a platform and a means for our District…and every stakeholder in that district (Students, Educators, Parents) to engage in discussions about digital tools for learning that breaks through the siloed walls of our ten school buildings. Our use of these tools is constantly expanding and evolving, but throughout our journey, having this platform (and knowing others with this same platform) enables a focus on individualized learning and family involvement in learning.”
  — Christopher Stengel, Director of Technology at Mt. Lebanon School District   
• “PowerSchool has helped teachers engage with parents in amazing ways. A parent has access to all the information they would need to become active members in their child’s learning. PowerSchool encourages the teacher-parent partnership that is vital to any school’s success.”
  — Steven Knight, Instructional Technology Coordinator at Falls Church City School District 
• “One of the big things that Powerschool has helped us to do is to increase our parent engagement with both student grades AND with filling out required forms throughout the school year. Both of those things have been game changers.” 
  — Nate Simmons, Director of Technology at Louisville Public Schools

Needing the Right Tools

It’s not news that engaged families positively impact their students’ educational success. It’s a certainty backed by teachers and administrators who see the results firsthand. With the right collaborative educational tools—including modern student information systems, teachers’ digital gradebooks, and learning management systems—teachers, families, and students can collaborate effectively. 

One such system is MyPowerHub, a centralized platform where families can see a single-screen overview of their child’s educational journey, eliminating the need to switch between various systems. From assignments and grades to attendance and communications, MyPowerHub addresses the key challenges for schools and districts when it comes to family engagement.