Strengthening Home-School Partnerships in Multilingual Communities: Culturally Responsive Approaches in PreK-12 Schools

Schools that serve multilingual learners often struggle to build authentic, two-way partnerships with families due to barriers such as language differences, limited access to resources, and inconsistent communication practices. This thesis capstone project addresses these challenges by creating a professional development (PD) session designed for K-12 educators. The PD focuses on fostering culturally responsive, strengths-based family engagement practices to help bridge home and school cultures. The session gives teachers strategies to improve communication, reflect on personal beliefs about family engagement, and develop schoolwide structures that make participation more inclusive for multilingual caregivers. By comparing both elementary and secondary school contexts, the project highlights patterns and approaches that can be adopted across grade levels to sustain authentic family partnerships. The intended outcome is to strengthen trust and collaboration between schools and multilingual families, creating more equitable learning environments where all families feel valued and informed. Future recommendations include expanding the PD into a multisession series, providing follow-up coaching for educators, and exploring district level supports to ensure ongoing, systemic improvements in family-school relationships.

Grantor dc:publisher

SUNY Brockport Department of Education and Human Development

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• McMahon, Cassie

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Altalouli, Mahmoud

• Education
• Culturally responsive teaching
• Multilingual

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12648/83199

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:soar.suny.edu:20.500.12648/83199