Family Engagement in Action: TalkingPoints

Helping millions of families and teachers communicate with each other without language barriers

By Heejae Lim June 22, 2021

This essay and video are part of a series that supplement Embracing a New Normal: Toward a More Liberatory Approach to Family Engagement by Karen L. Mapp and Eyal Bergman, a report commissioned by Carnegie Corporation of New York that explores the dynamics and barriers that stand in the way of effective family-school partnerships and outlines how to reach a more liberatory, solidarity-driven, and equity-focused family engagement practice that supports educational excellence for all children. The essays and videos highlight five grantee partners of Carnegie Corporation of New York that are innovating and leading in the field of family-school partnerships and are rethinking their family engagement practices amid the COVID-19 pandemic and a renewed national reckoning on systemic racism.

At TalkingPoints, our mission is to unlock the potential of families to fuel their children’s learning, especially in underserved communities. We do this by facilitating meaningful connections between schools, teachers, and families through accessible technology. Through our web and mobile applications and text messages, millions of families and teachers communicate with each other without language barriers.

Our vision is for every child to have the support needed to learn, grow, and succeed and every family member to be empowered to partner with teachers and schools in their children’s education. We believe that family-school partnerships are critical to developing the whole student, creating a world where learning does not stop when students leave the classroom. We also want every family member to have the knowledge and expertise to collaborate with school staff and vice versa. We recognize that the barriers to this type of engagement can be high for families and educators working to support students in underresourced, multilingual communities. Our work is centered around the Dual Capacity-Building Framework in order to systematically lower these barriers in a cost-effective, scalable way (hence our use of technology).

School closures in response to COVID-19 have made TalkingPoints’ vision ever more salient and its mission even more important. The platform has become a critical channel for keeping families informed and connected and supporting students’ learning. During COVID-19, TalkingPoints pivoted to offer expanded access to the platform to those who needed it most, with priority for Title I schools and districts. We also shifted to developing and distributing distance learning resources for families and educators. We tripled our number of families reached within three months in the spring of 2020, and 96 percent of teachers reported finding it helpful for improving student behaviors, engagement, homework, and attendance in their classrooms.

Family engagement, especially in underresourced and multilingual families, is crucial to mitigating learning loss. One principal told us that “parents are the most underpaid staff members that any school can have.” Distance learning has blurred the lines between teachers and parents and in some ways increased empathy and understanding. Whatever school looks like in the future, we are hopeful that teachers and parents will continue to invest their time in establishing and maintaining those connections, cultivating empathy, and communicating with cultural sensitivity. TalkingPoints is committed to seizing the opportunity presented by our current moment to find new ways to develop the capacity, mindsets, and confidence of educators and families.

Heejae Lim is founder and chief executive officer of TalkingPoints, a nonprofit organization focused on family engagement for families of underresourced, multilingual communities.

Photo Credit: Staticnak1983/Getty Images | Video Credit: Carnegie Corporation of New York