News Photo by Reagan Voetberg Irving Entertainment films a scene for one of the MiFamily Engagement Centers videos that Jean Kowalski, MiFamily engagement coordinator is creating.

ALPENA — Jean Kowalski, MiFamily Engagement Centers family engagement coordinator for Region No. 3 and Lauren Van Almen, Literacy Hub coordinator with Northeast Michigan Family Resource Center are working to get families and teachers engaged with the school community.

They work both with schools and families, giving teachers and education professionals the strategies they need to engage with parents more, and helping parents engage with their child’s learning experience.

“For a multitude of reasons parents and schools have started to feel very, very separate,” Van Almen said. “They both matter because teachers are with your child, sure, for eight hours of the day, but then your child goes home and spends all of that time at home, so it has to be that working partnership-relationship to truly offer the support that child needs to be successful.”

MiFamily Region No. 3 offers grants to support engagement opportunities with schools and families.

One district in the region is hosting a family engagement night every month through a grant. There’s a meal and activity for families, and teachers stick around to interact with parents.

“Some of the teachers stay and interact with those families so that they really feel like they are part of their child’s school, that they know the teachers, that they know their way around the school,” Van Almen said.

Van Almen said that family engagement is twofold.

“A teacher would be able to reach your student better or know how to handle maybe difficult behaviors if they have a stronger relationship with the parent right?” Van Almen said. “But when you don’t have a relationship with a parent and you’re calling home only to say a bad thing then it’s a pretty natural feeling for the parent to feel defensive or to feel like they’re maybe being attacked.”

If teachers can begin to build a relationship with parents before running into a problem, then that trust can be used to work with the parent and solve the issue together.

MiFamily meets teachers and families where they’re at, Van Almen said. Knowing that teachers are maxed out, the program aims to help teachers tweak little things to improve their engagement with families rather than make drastic changes.

Kowalski has been putting together a series of videos with the help of Irving Entertainment aimed at developing teachers’ engagement with families.

Two of those videos have been released, with the first one providing an introduction to family engagement and the second explaining the best method to call parents about a child’s behavior. That method focuses on building a relationship with parents and finding a solution that both teacher and parent agree on.

Coming soon will be videos focused on welcoming school environments and family engagement in middle and high school. There will be nine videos in total.

Kowalski highlighted how important it is for parents to stay engaged when students are in middle school and high school. It may seem counterintuitive since that’s when students are expected to gain more independence. She noted that there are not as many opportunities for parents to engage like there are at the elementary school level.

Van Almen added that sports events are one of the few ways that parents of high schoolers can engage with their kids’ learning. She said it’s something that they are trying to address.

“That’s when they need the parents the most is during high school, because you’re really getting down to the edge like where they have to make a decision, and if they’re not involving parents or families, what are they doing?” Kowalski said.

Kowalski noted how engagement at parent-teacher conferences tends to decrease as well, but Kowalski believes that parents should be more engaged than ever at that critical period in a child’s life.

Reagan Voetberg can be reached at 989-358-5683 or rvoetberg@TheAlpenaNews.com.