Family engagement is one of the most powerful levers for improving student success. Yet, many schools struggle to build effective family-school partnerships, especially with multilingual families who face systemic barriers to engagement. Fortunately, technology and AI are offering new ways to bridge these gaps and unlock the potential of every family to support their children’s learning.
At TalkingPoints, we’ve spent nearly a decade developing solutions to remove the barriers that prevent families and schools from forming meaningful connections. In this post, we share four best practices—and the technology that powers them—to help schools partner with multilingual families to drive student success.
1. Remove barriers to engagement
We know that when families are involved, students do better in school. However, not all families are able to engage in their children’s education due to:
- Language barriers
- Limited access to technology
- Time constraints and work schedules
- Cultural differences
- Not knowing how the U.S. education system works
TalkingPoints enables the use of Universal Family Engagement to eliminate these barriers, especially for underserved communities. Any school staff member can send a message in English, and families receive it as a simple SMS in their home language. No apps, downloads, or logins required. With two-way automatic translation in over 150 languages, even a basic mobile phone becomes a powerful tool for family-school partnerships.
2. Move beyond translation to true understanding
Language access is only the first step. Effective communication requires understandability—messages that make sense within the cultural and educational context of each family.
That’s why TalkingPoints built a proprietary translation engine specifically tailored for K–12 education. It’s the only platform that combines:
- Custom machine learning models
- Human translator insights
- Education-specific glossaries
- Real-time user feedback
This ensures messages are not just translated, but truly meaningful and clear to families, allowing them to take action.
See TalkingPoints in action—watch a 90 second explainer video.
3. Build trust-based relationships with AI-powered coaching
Trust is at the heart of family engagement. Yet many educators struggle with time, confidence, and training to communicate effectively, particularly when discussing challenging topics.
TalkingPoints uses AI to embed best-practice guidance directly into everyday educator workflows. Our Message Mentor tool is a prime example.
Teachers write a message, click the Message Mentor button, and receive real-time suggestions to make their messages more inclusive, supportive, and action-oriented, without losing their voice. Educators maintain full control and can edit or ignore the suggestions.
At the same time, families receive messages that help them better understand the school system, support learning at home, and feel seen and respected as partners in their children’s education.
4. Focus engagement on impact: Tackling chronic absenteeism
Once schools build strong communication channels, engagement must be intentional and focused on driving student success. One of the most pressing challenges today is student attendance.
We designed the TalkingPoints Attendance Improvement Plus to help districts adopt a proactive, relationship-centered approach to absenteeism. It includes:
- Attendance Messaging Series: Weekly, grade-level-specific, research-grounded messages that help families understand the importance of attendance and how to support it.
- Targeted Attendance Messages: Tools to quickly identify students in specific attendance tiers and follow up with the right intervention.
- Attendance Dashboard: Real-time data visualizations to track patterns, diagnose root causes, see trends, and take timely action.
- Automated Daily Absence Messages: TalkingPoints’ text-first model and industry-leading translation reach more families with clear, accessible messages they can reply to in their home language, helping resolve attendance issues quickly.
Looking ahead: Start with communication, build trust over time
In uncertain times, trust between families and schools is more important than ever. The first step? Open the lines of communication. With the right tools and intentional strategies, every school can create an inclusive, supportive environment where families feel empowered to partner in their child’s education, no matter what language they speak or what barriers they face.
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. Designed for K–12 schools and districts, our award-winning, text-first platform reaches every family—automatically, in their home language, and on the devices they already use. No smartphone, Wi-Fi, downloads, or sign-ups required. With trusted two-way translation in 150+ languages and built-in best practices, TalkingPoints makes school-home communication simple, inclusive, and effective. We equip educators with the tools, insights, and support they need to build strong partnerships that boost attendance, learning, and student well-being.
