Understand and advocate for communities first

Culturally responsive parent-school relationships require educators to consider the cultural practices and understandings of families as a necessary condition of greater academic achievement. The establishment of healthy parent-school relationships is a complex and dynamic process. A school-community overlap, with a priority given to community sensibilities and histories, will help schools sustain positive relationships with parents. If communities have experienced racism or other forms of marginalization, they may become distant or uncooperative. What’s more, most educators feel they were hired to teach, not to perform community outreach. But in the absence of school outreach to their communities the strengthened relationships between schools and parents that increase the educational opportunities for children are often lost.