Fourth Grade - Building Family Partnerships

Our Core Beliefs About Family Partnership

Two smiling women with child
  • All families have dreams for their children and want the best for them.
  • All families have the capacity to support their children’s learning.
  • Families and school staff should be equal partners.
  • The responsibility for building partnerships between school and home rests primarily with the school staff, especially school leaders.

Family Teacher Conferences

Family hugging

Building Family Partnership

Family Teacher Conferences are an opportunity to work in partnership with all families to support students to discover their spark, a strong sense of self, and purpose.

Scroll through this postcard carousel for recommendations and resources to help you plan for meaningful and impactful family teacher conferences.

Tips for Teachers
three adults and a child sitting around a table with papers

Communicate Students' Growth

Share what their student knows and can do, how they have grown, and what they will work on next.

Conference Agenda Slide Deck
an adult and a youth reviewing an assignment

Share Artifacts of Student Learning

Build a mini-portfolio of each student's work to show their progress in the standards. Select examples in several content areas that highlight the specific skills and knowledge they have built over time.

Family Conference Template
a student and a parent sitting side by side looking at a binder

Listen to Families

Invite family members to share their concerns, questions, hopes, goals, and dreams for their students. Note them and discuss a possible plan of support and/or enrichment.

Learn more
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Involve Students

Encourage students to be present and to discuss their learning, goals, challenges, hopes, and dreams. Prepare them in advance to share how they have grown, what they are proud of, and what they want to improve next. 

Proud, Help, & Improve Reflection
A man carrying a child and a woman holding another child are meeting with a man in a school

Dig Deeper

This Rubric for Family Teacher Conferences can be used to identify best practices for Family Teacher Conferences.

Rubric for Family Teacher Conferences

Goals for Building Family Partnership

Reach out to your fourth graders' families to learn about their experience with your school. Ask them: What has worked for you, and what has not? What are you excited about, and what concerns you? These conversations will help you support students through the challenges and transitions of the school year and foster strong family engagement that is essential to their positive development academically, socially, and cognitively.
Family Partnership Tools and Resources

Collaborate with families, and the greater community in support of student achievement based on authentic relationships, mutual respect, and shared responsibilities.

Recommendations from SFUSD Family Liaisons
Family Partnership Planning and Implementation Process (FP-PIP)

Establish ongoing and reciprocal communication with families to promote student growth.

Recommendations from SFUSD Family Liaisons
Build Authentic Relationships

Engage caregivers to inform your curriculum, instruction, and relationship building with students.

Recommendations from SFUSD Family Liaisons

Resources for Building Family Partnerships

How does your school build family partnerships? Get to know the systems and structures your site already has in place. Use the checklists below as more concrete guidance for your practice.

Before School Starts checklist

The First Week checklist

Back to School Night checklist

Maintaining Family Partnerships checklist

Reflection Questions

  1. What does collaboration and effective partnership with families look like in your role and at your site?
  2. How are you continuously building towards authentic relationships?
  3. How are you practicing cultural humility in your partnership with families?

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This page was last updated on October 20, 2023