Since 2009, AT&T and United Way have partnered around Family Engagement for High School Success, an initiative that helps families of disadvantaged children get more involved in their child’s education in order to improve their academic success. AT&T, a United Way Global Corporate Leader, has contributed $2 million to the program through AT&T Aspire—a $100 million initiative focused on high school success and workforce readiness.
The Family Engagement for High School Success initiative responds to AT&T-funded research that found the majority of teachers (63%) and principals (51%) felt increasing their schools’ parental outreach programs would help reduce the number of high school dropouts. AT&T and United Way are implementing the Family Engagement initiative to provide much-needed support for parent engagement planning and programming in local communities.
Highlights of Success:
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Creating one-on-one connections with students. Local United Ways have launched family engagement projects that have reached hundreds of parents and students in communities across the U.S. In Florida, United Way of Broward County hired five school-based student advocates to coach 150 teens to keep them on track for high school graduation. The advocates are parent leaders with the experience to help students with academic success. They’ll bridge the home-school divide with weekly dialogues with parents about students’ academic progress, reminding parents about school activities, and coaching them through teacher communications.
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Supporting parents leads to inspiring results. A main component of this initiative is connecting parents with the tools, resources and information they need to help their children successfully complete school. In Cape Giradeau, MO, a parent liaison has been hired to build one-on-one relationships with parents of 43 targeted at-risk students. Parents have been made more aware of resources to help their teens, and have been connected with school leaders who can help. Already, 32 of the targeted students are back on track academically.
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Leveraging technology to boost family engagement. Technology is enhancing direct, two-way communication with busy parents who don’t get details from their teens. Grantees are using websites, online data systems, automated calling and text messaging to get information to parents, and making computers and training available to more disadvantaged families. For example, in Brownsville, Texas, United Way is pursuing options to automatically inform parents of student absenteeism through text messages.
Learn how you can support education in your community by joining United Way’s challenge to recruit one million volunteer readers, tutors and mentors.