Three-part webinar series session information

Overview: Three CEC leaders who focus on family and school engagement will present a 3-part webinar series on culturally responsive family engagement. The series expands on the 2025 TEC Special issue on Families (Vol 57 # 3), which highlights the growing requests by many teachers and school leaders for strategies to engage families of children who struggle in school, due to learning concerns, English as a second language, immigration status, or cultural differences.  The webinar series presents practical and useful ways to engage families with their children’s learning at the classroom level, at the school level and community level.  Evidence-based action steps are offered for teachers and school and community leaders to encourage and sustain family school partnerships. 

Session 1: October 23rd

Title: Engaging Linguistically Diverse Families through Enriching Science

Session Description: High-interest, hands-on, interactive science activities offer an ideal way to connect classroom and home learning experiences for elementary school students. This session will explore the use of enriching science take-home activities that promote academic dialogue and discovery to support student’s success. Concrete examples and practical strategies will be share for connecting with families whose primary language is not English. Building academic bridges between home and school is essential because it takes a team.

Session 2: October 30th

Title: Developing Relationship-Rich Partnerships with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Families to Improve Students’ Long-Term Life Outcomes 

Session Description: This presentation provides a pragmatic illustration of how school leadership can build relationship-rich partnerships with families using the four fundamental high-impact family and community engagement strategies (relationships and trust, communication, culture and diversity, and collaborative partnerships).  Actionable steps and examples are offered for facilitating effective collaboration with culturally and linguistically diverse families and those of students with special needs to improve student learning outcomes.

Session 3: November 6th

Title: Making Meaningful Connections: Facilitating School-wide and Community-based Family Engagement with Culturally Diverse Families

Session Description: The importance of strong family partnerships has long been considered essential to supporting the success of students with disabilities. Special educators are uniquely positioned to enhance school-wide family engagement strategies. The focus of this practitioner-based presentation is to provide building-level school administrators and other school personnel with planning tools to implement culturally sustaining family-engagement for families with children with disabilities.