A group of people meet in a room with multiple tables

Calvert City Elementary School hosted a math night during the spring of 2024. Photo courtesy of Kendra D. Glenn

In the fall of 2020, I took on the role of principal at Calvert City Elementary School in the Marshall County School District. As you know, that was a very challenging time for educators, not only across the Commonwealth, but across the country. COVID’s impacts are still felt today, however, we have worked hard to reverse some of those impacts, including family and community engagement.

After my first year, I started trying to build back that sense of a welcoming school environment. We had to rethink everything, with some COVID restrictions still in place. I started slowly working in family events, as well as working with members of the community for various support. At one point, I came across an article discussing Family Friendly Certification and the positive results schools were seeing after going through the certification process. Intrigued, as well as knowing the need to continue building back our family and community support and engagement, I began my journey down the rabbit hole of how to become Family Friendly Certified, and the work began! At the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year, we officially developed our family engagement action team.

Once we started combing through the requirements, we realized that we had several things already in place that would stand as evidence for the family engagement objectives. Working with our team, composed of teachers, our family resource coordinator and parents, we decided to spend the year making improvements in each objective before submitting for certification. We used parent and teacher surveys to provide feedback for perspectives. The team met monthly, looking at the rubric provided, citing evidence, and then thinking about small changes and initiatives we could make to not only move up the rubric, but make positive impacts within our school

One thing that we changed that has made a huge impact is ensuring that all staff members are using the same platform for communication. Previously, we had a variety being used, including SeeSaw, Remind and Otus. Beginning this school year, everyone is using Class Dojo. At our open house, we made a huge push to ensure that parents downloaded the app, and signed up for notifications. As principal, I use the app to send messages to parents for various things, as well as checking up on students when they are out sick. It has become a one-stop shop for our families.

We also looked at how we are helping families through materials that we are distributing, as well as how we are sharing that information. We ensured that during our Math and Reading Nights, that parents weren’t just in attendance, but were active participants with their children. We provided take-home math kits, booklets about helping their children read at home, as well as simple activities for both reading and math that could be used at home. We wanted families to see that we weren’t expecting them to teach their children at home, but through fun games and activities, they could reinforce work that their child is doing at school. In addition to our Math and Reading Nights, we were very purposeful in sending home the family guides provided by the Kentucky Department of Education at our open house event, and referencing those throughout the night. We also provided each family portions of the “Read at Home Guide” as we met with families to develop reading improvement plans. Using diagnostic assessments, we were able to drill down on reading deficits and provide families activities that could help in those areas.

To become Family Friendly Certified, you need to be very purposeful with communication with your families. If you can be reflective and consider, “Will this help families learn more about their child’s education?”, or even, “How can we use information from the families to help us here at school?”, you will be on the right path! We have been able to use our family resource coordinator to help us in so many ways. In all honesty, I feel confident that there are a large number of schools already doing most of this work, and with small improvements here and there, could also be Family Friendly Certified. In my opinion, this process will do so much for your school culture. As most school principals will agree, seeing growth and improvement is really what we are after! This process will ensure improved relationships with your families, and will require you to be reflective, which will create those desired results.

Since receiving notification that we were certified, our Family Engagement Action Team has continued meeting monthly. We are going back through the same process, but this time making those small changes in policies or procedures, to hopefully become Gold Certified! We hope to continue building strong relationships with our students, families, and community, to ensure student success here at Calvert City Elementary School. Working with the Prichard Committee has been wonderful, and I am so thankful for the support they have provided, which in return, has helped us improve our school. Are you interested in starting this process? My advice is just dig in and get started! Attending the monthly webinars provided by the Prichard Committee is a great place to start. I am sure that once you begin your own journey, you will be so thankful that you did! As I reflect on the entire process, even without the recognition of being Family Friendly Certified, it is absolutely worth it! I’m thankful and proud of the improvements that we have made here at Calvert City Elementary School because of this process.

Kendra D. Glenn is principal of Calvert City Elementary School.

Each year, the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence awards Family Friendly Schools Certification to a group of schools and early care centers. This school and 53 others earned the certification in 2024. For more details on Family Friendly Schools Certification, visit the Prichard Committee’s family engagement website.