McKinley School is proud to be a designated Epstein model school. The Epstein model of Six Types of Involvement provides a framework to tie together family and community involvement in schools to produce positive student outcomes.

Introduction

The Joyce Epstein Model for School, Family, and Community Partnerships assists schools in developing school and community involvement, organizing more effective Action Teams for Partnerships, strengthening Partnership programs, implementing interactive homework for students to show and share their work with family partners, organizing volunteers in the middle grades and conducting state and district leadership activities.

Six types of School, Family and Community Involvement

The framework of six major types of involvement helps educators to develop more comprehensive programs of school and family partnerships.  Each type of involvement includes many different practices of partnership and presents particular challenges that must be met to involve all families and needed redefinitions of some basic principles of involvement.  The six keys to successful School, Family, and Community Partnerships are:

1) Parenting - Assist families with parenting and childrearing skills, understanding child and adolescent development, and setting home conditions that support children as students at each age and grade level. Assist schools in understanding families.
 
2) Communicating - Communicate with families about school programs and student progress through effective school-to-home and home-to-school communications.
 
3) Volunteering - Improve recruitment, training, work, and schedules to involve families as volunteers and audiences at the school or in other locations to support students and school programs.
 
4) Learning at Home - Involve families with their children in learning activities at home, including homework and other curriculum-related activities and decisions.
 
5) Decision Making - include families as participants in school decisions, governance, and advocacy through PTA/PTO, school councils, committees, action teams, and other parent organizations.
 
6) Collaborating with the Community - Coordinate community resources and service for students, families, and the school with businesses, agencies, and other groups, and provide services to the community.

For more information on the Epstein model, read this article about building community partnerships or visit the National Center for School Engagement.