Our Family Meeting Toolkit Project

It was empowering to understand how parents play a valuable part in charter school success. There’s so much that goes into starting and sustaining a charter and it’s important for parents to know.

- Cindy P. | Rainier Prep parent

WA FAB recently partnered with the school leaders and new Family & Community Engagement Managers at both Rainier Prep and Why Not You Academy to launch the first in a series of meetings that we have been developing called Family Meeting Toolkit.

The pilot meeting for this series was at Rainier Prep and it yielded positive feedback from both staff and families. Families shared that they did not know exactly who the Charter School Commission was before this meeting and they also appreciated learning that they could attend meetings for their school's board as well as the Commission.

Within the first meeting, families are introduced to who their school leadership and Board of Directors are as well as who the Charter School Commission is and what they do. They are also educated on how a charter school differs from district public and private schools, the history of how their school came to be, and how they can support their school and the charter sector as a whole by being engaged. Schools are able to customize this meeting and any of the other meetings to best fit with their school's mission and vision.

The purpose of the Family Meeting Toolkit is to be a template of a series of meetings for charter schools to build relationships with and educate their families on all the ways they can engage with their school. It accomplishes this goal by empowering them with useful information about their school structure and the charter sector as a whole, giving them strategies for advocating for their child as well as introducing specific topics such as special education. 

Rainier Prep is grateful to have had Emily McLeod from WA FAB present to Rainier Prep families an "Introduction to WA FAB and Charter Schools." This was especially helpful to NEW families in our school community who are just recently becoming familiar with public charter schools. All families left with another resource and connection (WA FAB) with whom they can collaborate with in support of our students. We're looking forward to having WA FAB give this presentation earlier in the school year next fall.

- Karen Lobos | Rainier Prep Executive Director

If your school is interested in reviewing the Family Meeting Toolkit for possible implementation, please reach out to the Program Lead: Emily McLeod, emcleod@wafab.org.