A father once said something to me that I haven’t been able to shake. I had called home about a student’s behavior and not for the first time. But on this particular call, he paused and said, “I’m trying. But do you have any other ideas? Because all I know how to do is whoop him.” He wasn’t defensive. He wasn’t dismissive. He was asking for help.
That moment shifted my thinking. This was not a disengaged parent. This was a parent who was present, reachable, and willing but needed support, tools, and partnership to engage in ways that schools often expect. And that’s when it hit me: We don’t have a family-engagement problem. Families are engaged, just not in the way we expect.
Now, I know what some of you might be thinking. “At least he answered the phone.” Because in schools like mine where the majority of the students are economically disadvantaged, there are times when you can’t reach a parent at all. But even that reality deserves a second look. What if a parent is working during the hours we call? What if phone service changes frequently based on what’s affordable at the time? Sometimes, what we interpret as disengagement is actually a gap between how we’re trying to connect and how families are able to respond. And when we don’t adjust how we engage, we risk mislabeling families who are still trying to show up.
In many schools, especially at the high school level, we envision family engagement something like this: Parents attend events. They show up to conferences. They respond consistently to communication. They volunteer and participate in visible ways. When families don’t meet those expectations, they are often labeled as disengaged. But those expectations don’t always align with families’ realities. What if transportation is unreliable or shared among multiple family members? What if housing changes more frequently, making consistency difficult? In these cases, there’s mismatch between how schools define engagement and how families are able to demonstrate they care about their children’s education.
In my experience as an assistant principal in a big city high school, I’ve seen families engage in ways that schools don’t always recognize. I’ve had parents tell me, “I make sure my child gets to school every day. That’s how I support.” And in many cases, that consistency happens despite real transportation challenges. I’ve seen stronger communication through text-based platforms than traditional phone calls, because families may not be able to answer during the workday, but they will respond when they have a moment. I’ve worked with families who don’t generally attend school events but are deeply invested in their child’s behavior, decisions, and future. These are reflections of commitment, care, and responsibility just as much as the visible, school-based forms of engagement we often prioritize.
I’ve seen families engage in ways that schools don’t always recognize.
There’s another layer to this that we don’t talk about enough. Once we decide a parent is “disengaged,” our behavior as educators can begin to shift. We stop reaching out as intentionally. We make decisions with limited input. We move forward with scheduling, discipline, or academic planning without finding ways to include families. In trying to solve the problem, we sometimes end up reinforcing it. Instead of asking how we can bring families in, we unintentionally begin to work around them.
If we continue to see engagement through a narrow, school-centered lens, we will continue to misinterpret families’ actions and miss opportunities to build meaningful partnerships. Instead, we can move away from assumptions about what families are not doing and toward a more responsive understanding of what they are doing and what they need. The change means recognizing families as necessary to the school enterprise and building on the strengths they already bring.
For school leaders, this shift is not just philosophical; it’s practical. It requires us to rethink how we design opportunities for engagement and how we meet families where they are.
Here are four starting points:
1. Redefine what counts as engagement
Expand your definition beyond attendance at events. Recognize home-based support, a variety of ways of communicating (text, social media) with school, and everyday efforts families make as meaningful engagement. Make this shift clear to your staff.
2. Go where families already are
If families are showing up to athletic events or community spaces, meet them there. Set up engagement opportunities at games or local gatherings. Consider hosting events in the neighborhoods where families live, not just at the school. When schools step into the community, barriers like transportation begin to shrink.
3. Design for their access, not your convenience
Offer flexible meeting options, including virtual opportunities and varied times of day. Consider surveying families to learn what works best instead of taking a one-size-fits-all approach.
4. Build capacity, not just compliance
Some families want to help but don’t always know how. Create opportunities to share strategies and decisionmaking, model support, and even learn together. Position families as partners in the process.
When that father spoke to me so memorably about his son, I didn’t take over the problem. He didn’t know what to do to get better behavior out of his son, but I didn’t either. So we agreed to continue troubleshooting together. We would communicate almost daily via text and a couple times a week on a call. I would share strategies in school that seemed to engage his son and triggers that caused disruptions. Dad would share the same information at home. Through this process, we were able to identify patterns of success and see real improvement in this young man.
When we broaden our understanding of what engagement looks like, we begin to see families differently. We shift from labeling to listening, from assumptions to partnership. And ultimately, we create stronger conditions for student success. Because the problem isn’t that families aren’t engaged. It’s that we haven’t been looking for engagement in the right places.