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United Way of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas, NV,is partnering with five high schools that are workingto improve their outreach to families via variousapproaches. For example, school action plansinclude holding town hall meetings for parentsto network and develop topics for discussion,recruiting parents at school sporting events, makingmultilingual phone calls to parents, and conductingparent-to-parent outreach. Through their outreach,the high schools plan to offer orientations forfamilies of rising ninth graders to inform parentsabout credit and attendance requirements andresource programs for students.Strategy development includes identifying the actions that schools andcommunity partners need to take in order to help promote family engagementin students’ education and enhance the likelihood that families andstudents will reach their desired outcomes. Strategies provide an overarchingframe to addressing obstacles, while school and community partneractions are the specific activities that comprise those broader strategies.The following examples illustrate the relationships between obstaclesand broad strategies (examples of specific school and community partneractions appear later in this section):FamilyOutcomeObstacleStrategyBecome and/or remain involved in student’seducation as student transitions into high school.Family engagement tends to drop off as teensenter high school because families are intimidatedby the high school environmentand feel less confident about supporting theirteen’s academic progress at that level.Create a more seamless family engagement pathwayinto and out of high school so families remainengaged throughout their teen’s high school grades.FamilyOutcomeObstacleStrategyAccess relevant out-of-school support services,such as tutoring or mentoring, that cansupport their student’s academic work.Families are not aware of out-of-schoolsupport services that can help studentswho are struggling academically.Increase families’ awareness of relevant support servicesfor their students at both school and communitypartner settings.Your development of strategies to address obstacles to family engagementshould be informed by research on effective and promising practices forfamily involvement in student learning, as well as by your understandingof local factors so that the application of research findings is appropriatelytailored to the needs of families in your community.26 Family Engagement for High School success Toolkit