ABSTRACT

Early childhood education (ECE) teachers often invest tremendous effort and energy in building and sustaining strong family-school partnerships. Issues related to parental involvement, relationships with children and their families, and the need for family support were prevalent across all interviews and observations in the data set. This chapter draws on the perspectives of family advocates, teachers, and parents who participated in family-school partnerships that are central to the work of Head Start. Their experiences illustrate some of the challenges and opportunities when working to build productive family-school partnerships in the changing context of ECE. With HS as the focus, the intent is to emphasize both the complexities and benefits of building and maintaining meaningful, mutually supportive relationships with families from low income and varied cultural backgrounds. Individuals like Brian illustrate well the need for families in poverty to have committed advocates, who are informed, helpful, and able to connect them to available resources.