Creating Welcoming Schools

This engaging and rich resource details how schools and diverse families throughout the country have formed partnerships that support and enhance student learning. It is designed for teachers who care deeply about students and welcome diverse families as partners; for parents who want to be active partners in educating their children; and for administrators in diverse schools or districts who know there is no quick fix for building lasting partnerships among families, schools, and the community. Going far beyond traditional “parent involvement programs,” this essential volume:

• Offers exciting ways teachers and parents together can explore their rich and diverse cultural perspectives through social justice education;.
• Shows how to establish and sustain genuine dialogue at school conferences, open houses, and through classroom projects such as home–school journals.
• Suggests ways families, schools, and communities can collaborate for democratic schools and a more democratic society.
• Includes “Action Opportunities” throughout for readers to actively engage with the ideas and make them their own.
• Links these partnerships with research demonstrating that building respectful and trusting relationships leads to increased student achievement.

JoBeth Allen is a professor of Language and Literacy Education at the University of Georgia.

“Highly recommended.”

—The Midwest Book Review

“A comprehensive resource that shows how diverse families and the schools that their children attend can form partnerships that enhance student learning. It goes far and above the call of duty.”

—The Bookwatch

“Allen’s uniqueness is in the integrity with which she walks us into everyday settings where diversity thrives.”
—From the Foreword by Concha Delgado-Gaitan, author of The Power of Community and Involving Latino Families in the Schools

“After reading this book, teachers and administrators will understand why they must seek more genuine home-school partnerships, and they will know how to get started. This is a wonderful book and one that should make a difference in the learning lives of children.”
—Jeanne Paratore, Boston University