Family and Community Engagement Plan

1. For this assignment, you will create a plan for your second grade class describing how you would engage families and the community in the development and learning of young children with and without exceptionalities in your class.

Review the “Class Profile” and the students’ needs, strengths, and demographics. Based on the diversity of the “Class Profile,” create a 1,000-1,250 word family and community engagement plan that you will use for this class of students.

Use the “Family and Community Engagement Plan Template” to complete this assignment. Include the following in your plan:

1. Methods of communication for parents/teachers/volunteers/other service providers to promote respectful, reciprocal relationships.
2. Volunteer opportunities within your classroom and school, for the community and families, that accommodate different schedules and needs (including working families), and are designed to help build safe, positive learning environments with supportive and respectful interaction. In addition, include a description of how you will provide orientation/training for the volunteers.
3. How you will respond empathetically, ethically, and legally to family emergencies or families in crisis. Include safe intervention strategies in your plan for these unexpected circumstances for families with children both with and without exceptionalities.
4. Strategies and procedures for sharing educational and community resources with families of students with and without exceptionalities.
5. Brief rationales for each section as indicated on the template. Rationales should address how the “Class Profile” was incorporated into the section.

Include research to support and explain your choices. Specifically, include three or more resources that discuss how language, culture, and family background can influence the learning of students with and without exceptionalities, as well as the importance of family involvement in student achievement, especially in the early years of an education.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

2. Often, students enter school with delays of which parents were not aware. What resources would you offer a family when they are first discovering their child may have a disability? How can you support them, and help their child get the appropriate referrals, services and supports? 

3.  Parents may not know the expectations of them or their child when he or she first enters school, particularly if the child is a first child or the family is new to the school. How can you ease the fears and anxieties these families have and set up clear expectations? Name three ways you might accomplish and reinforce these expectations.