Customer Service and the Tuition Crisis
February 4, 2025
Towards Parent Partnership: Reflecting on Our Journey
February 4, 2025
Dr. Chaim Botwinick
One of the opportunities facing parents today is their capacity to forge meaningful and lasting relationships with the faculty and administration of their children’s schools. Parent involvement and engagement in their children’s day school and yeshiva learning experiences have been shown to strongly influence and inspire student academic achievement, engagement, and motivation. To be sure, one of the best predictors of student success is the extent to which parents and families encourage learning at home and involve themselves in their children’s chinuch[1][2][3][4] – whether it be Judaic or general studies.
In addition to hands-on involvement in their children’s formal cognitive development in school, over the past many decades parents have assumed an impressive array of volunteer roles to enhance the impact and effectiveness of Jewish day schooling on students, the school, and the community at large. This demonstrates a growing number of parents and families who are inspired and motivated to engage in their children’s schools. It is the result of an amazing level of volunteer commitment and drive, inspired and motivated by a passion on the part of parents to support Jewish day school and yeshiva education in a very direct, tangible, meaningful, and personal fashion.
Some schools have excelled in forging the parent-school partnership, with an impressive cadre of parents who assume a wide variety of school-based roles as staff members and volunteers, while other schools still aspire to reach these levels of parental engagement with varying degrees of success. These disparities vary due in part to a variety of factors and variables such as parental availability and capability, proactive school leadership and culture, and whether the parent-school partnership is a priority for the school and the parents.
It’s important to understand that these “partnerships” never happen or exist in a vacuum. They require a very conscious and deliberate effort on the part of the school’s administration and faculty and an unswerving willingness and motivation on the part of parents. Parental engagement, collaboration, partnership, and involvement require a level of empowerment on the part of the school’s professional leadership. This means that the hanhala of the school, together with the school faculty, must view the role of parents as a critical component to the student’s learning, growth, and development.
I have seen a variety of outstanding parent engagement and partnership initiatives, whether they be school-wide or classroom-based programs relating to the celebration of the completion of a tractate of Talmud, special chesed projects, science fairs or special teacher appreciation projects. They are all anchored in a serious and conscious effort. They require time, energy, thoughtful planning, and an unswerving willingness to devote an inordinate amount of focus to detail and measurable outcomes. Schools must create an inviting culture and a warm, respectful, and welcoming environment for parents so that they feel inspired and motivated to engage in a true partnership with the school. This is an undeniable reality. There are no shortcuts and no detours.
The Epstein Framework for Parent-School Engagement
Several years ago, I offered a series of seminars to Jewish day school and yeshiva senior educational administrators, as well as separate sessions for teachers and parents. The overall theme was “How Do We Create and Sustain Meaningful and Effective and Impactful Parent-School Partnerships in our Schools? The sessions focused on the Epstein Framework[5] which is an engagement model, or framework, developed by Joyce Epstein from Johns Hopkins University. Essentially, it assists educators in developing school-family partnerships that are meaningful and sustainable, and which can overcome the stresses and strains of day-to-day challenges facing schools and parents.
The Epstein Framework for parent-school engagement is divided into six discrete yet interrelated domains. By dividing the parent-school partnership into these six domains, Jewish day schools and yeshivot can more easily compartmentalize how they engage and involve parents in the school’s education process. By compartmentalizing these activities and relationships, school leaders will be able to engage parents and present unlimited options geared to their interests, areas of expertise, skill sets, and availability.
They are:
- Parenting – Helping all families establish home environments to support children as students. This helps families structure their schedules and physical environment with an awareness of the importance of school and the appropriate balance between family, free time, and scholastic responsibility.
- Communicating – Using effective forms of school-to-home and home-to-school communications about school programs and children’s progress, allowing parents to support their children and giving teachers or school staff a window into understanding the whole child.
- Volunteering – Recruiting and organizing parents to help and support their children and the school, allowing parents to be involved, helping them to understand what goes into running a classroom or school, and feeling welcome and valued in school.
- Learning at home (homework) – Providing information to families about how to help students at home with homework and other school activities, allowing parents to support their children while balancing family time, and informing parents regarding the instructional program.
- Decision-making (policy) – Including parents in school decisions and developing parent leaders, resulting in policies that are family-friendly and in line with the values and needs of the school’s families.
- Collaboration and interaction with the school community – Identifying and integrating resources and services from the community to strengthen school programs, family practices, and student learning and development.
The six aspects of the parent-school partnership and collaboration are essential, and schools must do everything possible to ensure that parents are engaged at the highest level possible.
Finally, it is important to note that the parent-school partnership does not take place in a vacuum. To be sure, it is greatly dependent upon the interrelated relationships between the following six social attributes or characteristics that are the essential components of a long-term, effective, and meaningful parent-school relationship:
- Purpose: The parent-school partnership must be purposeful to be successful and effective. Parents must always be careful, mindful, and cautious about the reasons they engage with the school and the school with the parents. It is not about ego, visibility, or power but rather the growth, development, and welfare of the child.
- Perseverance: The “partnership” is never about a one-off engagement or opportunity. It requires an unswerving and continuous effort on the part of parents to be involved in the school, its activities, and their child’s progress. This demands that the school administration and faculty be consistent and deliberate in their efforts to reach out, involve, and engage parents in a meaningful manner.
- Empathy: Teachers and administrators often subconsciously overlook the sensitive nature of a parent’s involvement in their child’s academic growth, achievement, and development. To this end, it is essential that the teacher and administration exhibit the utmost sensitivity when addressing a child’s progress. Parents are people with a profound personal interest in their children.
- Being Present: Although it is not always easy, “being present” is something that warrants serious attention. It is essential that the parent, irrespective of other commitments or workload, devote significant attention to their child’s schooling. This does not suggest micromanaging the teacher or administration but rather remaining in close contact with the school and faculty. Here, too, schools must find creative ways to be proactive in informing parents about the progress of their child.
- Positive Mindset: The faculty and administration must inform parents not only when there are challenges with the student but also to celebrate academic or social successes and milestones. This is important for parents, as well; they should freely share nachas and appreciation with the teacher and school. Those with positive mindsets usually bring a level of attention and positivity to the relationship, which is invaluable. There are even schools today that offer parents workshops and seminars on ways in which to develop positive and meaningful relationships with teachers and administrators.
- Modeling: One idea which has worked in some day schools and yeshivot, is to pair new and novice parents with experienced parents. By doing so, the experienced parents can help mentor and even coach the other parents. This arrangement can be implemented by the administration in partnership with the PTO. The impact of this modeling can potentially be extremely impactful.
People Support What They Help to Create
In the final analysis, any successful parent-teacher partnership will depend upon how the school leadership team and its faculty support, promote, and publicly celebrate the relationship, and upon a parent body that embraces the mission, vision, and value proposition of the school. The partnership between parents and the school can have a tremendously inspiring and meaningful impact on the school, parents, and students. Above all, it requires an unswerving commitment and a sense of urgency and importance.
Dr. Chaim Botwinick is a senior educational consultant and executive leadership coach. With over 30 years of experience as a head of school, principal, and master teacher, he served in a variety of communal and educational leadership capacities. He is the co-founder of LEV Consulting Associates, specializing in strategic planning, resource development in education, and leadership development. Contact Dr. Botwinick at drbot1@aol.com.
[1] Family Characteristics as Predictors of School Achievement: Parental Involvement as Mediator, R. Deslandes, P. Ptovin & D. Lecler, McGill Journal of Education, Vol 34, No.2, Spring 1999.
[2] The Impact of Parental Involvement in Student’s Academic Performance, International Journal of Academic Research for Business and Social Sciences, January 17, 2014.
[3] Parental Involvement in Academic Performance of Children, International Journal of Education and Research, 10 (1), 2022,
[4] Parental Involvement and Students’ School Engagement and Achievement: A Meta Analysis. Educational Research International, 1-13, 2023
[5] Joyce L. Epstein, Ph.D., et. al., Partnership Center for the Social Organization of Schools