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Our Work

TPTC 2024 Gallery

The Challenge

Family engagement in our schools is broken.

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For too long, parents, teachers, and school administrators have failed to collaborate effectively toward the shared goal of student success. This lack of unity has obstructed progress in addressing systemic barriers to learning, especially in under-resourced schools, limiting schooling options for students. Barriers such as strained parent-teacher relationships, disempowered community voices, and overworked educators can be eliminated through collaboration. 

Image by Nubelson Fernandes

Strained Relationships

Educators and parents lack positive working relationships and remain disconnected when it comes to collaboratively supporting student needs

Image by Xia Yang

Disempowered Voices

Families and educators often lack the practical knowledge to effectively organize their communities and advocate for institutional change, hindering parent engagement in schools. This disconnect can leave parents feeling disempowered and unsure about how to get involved in their child’s education.

Young Teacher

Overworked Leaders

Already overworked school leaders lack the bandwidth to facilitate collaboration between key stakeholders - families, educators, and community partners.

Our Charge

“Parents are partners with educators, administrators, and school district boards of trustees in their children’s education. Parents shall be encouraged to actively participate in creating and implementing educational programs for their children.”


-Title 2, Sec. 26.001(a), Texas Education Code

Our Method

The Parent Teacher Collaborative uplifts student success through:

Taking Notes
Holding Hands

Building Bridges

  • Facilitating healing conversations to foster understanding between parents and educators

  • Providing training for collaboration skills to replace division with a common purpose, emphasizing the importance of family involvement in education

Teacher Assisting a Student

Amplifying Voices

  • Equipping families, teachers, and communities with advocacy capacity to create change, focusing on the difference between engagement vs involvement

  • Offering workshops on effective organizing to make stakeholders' voices heard, providing parent engagement ideas and activities

Studying

Removing Barriers

  • Providing childcare, meals, and incentives eliminate participation barriers, and making it easier for parents to get involved and collaborate in their child’s education

  • Networking and leadership development empower sustained community action, promoting parent engagement in schools

The Possibilities

The Parent Teacher Collaborative believes that with understanding and skill-building, we can equip these communities to transform their childrens’ schools through effective parent and family engagement strategies. When families, educators, and students come together around their shared interests with empathy and purpose, they become an unstoppable force for equity and justice.

 

By breaking down barriers to engagement and amplifying the collective voice of those closest to students, we can address systemic inequities. Families and schools united by common purpose have the power to shape responsive policies that allow all students to reach their full potential. 

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As an organization dedicated to empowering families, TPTC focuses on the key aspects of engagement vs involvement, emphasizing the important roles parents and caregivers play in driving positive change in schools.

What We Do

TPTC provides programming that breaks down the barriers that have often kept parents and teachers from becoming partners and working collaboratively towards student success. We aim to effect change by:  
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  • Creating safe spaces for parents, educators, and community members to engage in transformative healing conversations about their experiences
  • Educating parents, educators, and community members on strategies for working collaboratively to improve student outcomes ​
  • Building the capacity of parents, educators, and community members to effectively organize and advocate for student needs
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TPTC is open to parents, grandparents, caregivers, teachers, campus leaders, school support staff, and community members with a vested interest in improving outcomes for students

Programs & Services

COMMUNITY EDUCATIONAL ENGAGEMENT & ADVOCACY COHORTS

The Parent Teacher Collaborative Offers:

Community Educational Engagement Cohorts

TPTC offers in-person and virtual training cohorts that teach parents, families, educators, and community members strategies to best organize and advocate around the needs of children in local schools. Cohort participants receive stipends, childcare, and additional resources throughout the program. Training topics include:

  • School & District Governance 
  • Effective School and Community
  • Communication
  • Parent/Educator Roles & Responsibilities
  • Local Community Research
  • Advocacy & Organizing 
  • Site-Based Decision Making 
  • Securing Resources for School Needs

Consulting & Professional Learning Services

TPTC provides consultative services to districts, schools, nonprofit organizations, and education-focused businesses seeking to improve parent and family engagement efforts and/or support educators in building capacity to work collaboratively within their communities. Services may include:

  • Strategic Planning for Community Engagement Efforts

  • Professional Learning Offerings for District/School Staff

  • Parent Teacher Association/Parent Teacher Organization Development

  • Community Resource Landscape Mapping and Analysis 

  • Strategic Planning for Site-Based Fundraising Efforts

Youth Enrichment Programs

TPTC offers a range of after school and summer programming for K-12 students to strengthen their academic and social-emotional development. TPTC also offers engagement and advocacy trainings that teach students how to use their voice to help shape their school community. Youth enrichment topics include:
  • Exploring Leadership Characteristics
  • Goal-Setting for Success
  • Amplifying Youth Voice 
  • Communicating with Peers 
  • Community Research
  • Youth Entrepreneurship for Social Impact

Individual Coaching

TPTC works with parents, educators, and community members who want to advance their advocacy efforts. Coaching services can be customized to meet a range of needs from thought partnering on a local advocacy initiative to building capacity to launch a community organization.
  • Improving Communication Skills
  • Brainstorming Parent and Family Engagement Strategies
  • Designing Family Outreach Campaigns 
  • Building Confidence
  • Creating Campus Conditions for Partnerships 
  • Coaching Educators on Family Engagement 
Shadowbriar Elementary Parent & Educator Workshops - Fall 2022

Through our innovative school-based initiative, The Parent Teacher Collaborative created a platform for bridge-building between Shadowbriar Elementary parents and teachers, focusing on effective parent and family engagement strategies aimed to strengthen the connection between home and school, promoting the importance of family involvement in education.

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Over the course of twelve weeks, TPTC staff facilitated a series of interactive workshops aimed at bringing teachers and parents together to share hard-won lessons and best practices for bolstering student support - both at home and at school. These workshops provided a space for collaboration and knowledge-sharing, emphasizing the difference between engagement vs involvement and highlighting the crucial role of parent engagement in schools. Sessions included:

  • Tools and strategies to build relationship and effectively communicate with your child’s teacher 

  • Strategies for approaching and engaging with school leadership 

  • Strategies for partnering with your child’s teacher to support classroom  learning goals 

  • Strategies for supporting your child’s learning at home

  • Special populations information session

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