The secret to a great school year? Start family engagement this summer

Written by Kate Pechacek

Summer isn’t just for sunshine and ice cream trucks—it’s the perfect time to supercharge your family engagement efforts and lay the groundwork for a successful school year. A well-planned summer family engagement strategy ensures every family feels connected, informed, and ready to partner with your schools from day one. Summer should be just as big a part, if not the most important part, of your yearly family engagement plan. 

Here’s a step-by-step guide to help your district make the most of the summer months:

Prepare for the launch of your yearly plan, starting with summer

Step 1: Assemble your dream team

Before the new school year kicks off, set the stage for success by creating a lead team dedicated to implementing your family engagement plan. This team will champion your efforts, monitor progress, and adjust the plan as needed. Think of them as your summer engagement superheroes!

Step 2: Rally your staff

Make sure everyone—district staff, school leaders, teachers, and support staff—understands your family engagement plan and that the plan is part of a strategy to support your students in the classroom and the environment around the school. When the whole team is on the same page, every family interaction becomes an opportunity to build trust and connection. It is essential that families feel a consistent sense of welcome from every school and staff member.

Step 3: Plan for training needs

Not everyone is a family engagement expert, and that’s okay! Schedule training sessions to equip your team with best practices and strategies for effective family engagement. Consider building “mini lessons” into the first or last few minutes of monthly staff meetings. Building capacity now means smoother implementation later. This becomes a lot easier if the platform you use to engage families has embedded best practices, like TalkingPoints does, so the learning happens through the work of engagement.

Step 4: Schedule regular check-ins

Keep your plan on track by setting a check-in schedule:

• Monthly metric checks—Quick progress updates to keep everyone informed
• Quarterly team meetings—A chance to analyze data and make plan adjustments
• Semester reviews—Dive deeper into what’s working and what’s not
• End-of-year reflection—Celebrate successes and identify next steps

See TalkingPoints in action—watch a 90-second explainer video.

Implement your summer engagement plan

Give key information to families

Pre-schedule one universally-designed message each week, sent from each child’s school, for the five weeks leading up to the start of school. Each message should be targeted at an outcome. Use the Announcements capability of TalkingPoints to easily message all families. (Insider Tip: New for the 2025-26 school year:  Family Check-Ins – pre-built, best practice messages aligned to the school calendar.)

• Week 1 – General Family Engagement: Set a warm, welcoming, partnership tone with your families.
• Week 2 – Attendance: Provide families with practical tips and resources to address common reasons for attendance issues. 
• Week 3 – Behavior: Let families know what to expect when their child starts school, including behavior expectations, and that their child will be welcomed and cared for.
• Week 4 – Academics: Let families know they’re a valuable partner in their child’s learning and development. Share how they will receive updates on academic progress and how they can help provide support at home.
• Week 5 – Well-being: Share mechanisms to learn more about how our students feel about starting school in the fall. Provide resources to all families to support students, addressing common causes of reticence about the start of the year.

Gather feedback from families

Don’t stop at one-way communication—ask families what they need! Send out 2-3 quick poll questions to gather insights on:

• How families feel about their partnership with their child’s school.
• How students are feeling about the upcoming school year.

This information isn’t just valuable for immediate adjustments—it’s your baseline for measuring progress over time.

Why it matters

A summer engagement plan that combines proactive outreach, clear communication, and authentic feedback sets the tone for a collaborative, successful school year. When families feel welcomed and included before the first day of school, they’re more likely to stay engaged all year long. Additionally, asking families for feedback before the school year even begins lets them know that you respect them as an equal partner. They will know they are seen as the “student experts” that they are. 

How TalkingPoints helps

Ready to put your plan into action? TalkingPoints is focused on the four key steps to unlocking family engagement as the superpower it is, to calm the chaos around the classroom, and to realize the outcomes-improving power in the classroom. 

1. REACH every family by defaulting every family into text messaging first – no apps, wifi, or emails
2. COMMUNICATE with every family through two-way translated messaging in 150 languages
3. ENGAGE effectively using in-platform best practice guidance for effective engagement
4. IMPROVE by partnering with families across your district to address pervasive barriers to learning, and partner with families and teachers in each classroom to improve the outcomes of each student.

Let’s make this summer the launchpad for a year of stronger partnerships and student success!

Want to bring TalkingPoints to your school? Let’s talk.

About TalkingPoints

TalkingPoints is an education technology nonprofit with the mission to drive student success by unlocking the superpower of effective family-school partnerships. The TalkingPoints award-winning Universal Family Engagement platform helps educators improve student and district outcomes through scalable, research-based best practices for family engagement. ​​Across districts nationwide, TalkingPoints has empowered more than five million educators and families, facilitating nearly one billion conversations that drive student success.

Named by Common Sense Education as “the best overall family communication platform for teachers and schools,” TalkingPoints leads to gains in attendance rates and academic performance, as shown by rigorous, externally validated causal research. To learn more, view our TED Talk or visit talkingpts.org.