The Center for Active Family Engagement (CAFÉ) offers a wide range of supports for schools interested in working with families to improve student learning, including program development, grant writing, project management, project evaluation, and training. CAFÉ’s emphasis is definitely on engagement!

Our signature service is the Family Engagement Assessment (FEA). The purpose of the FEA is to assess how welcome families are in your school and how welcome families are in the learning process. CAFÉ staff work with your schools to complete a process that includes: (1) a physical walk through of each building; (2) a review of printed materials that your schools give to families; (3) a review of the school web site and parent portal; (4) “Shopper calls”— in English and in other languages, as appropriate; (5) a survey of all building administrators; (6) a survey of all school staff; and (7) a survey of parents. The assessment process concludes with individualized building reports that provide baseline data, commendations and recommendations for improvement in 4 areas—Welcoming, Communication, Information, and Participation. The Welcoming review helps you know if your parents feel they belong on the school campus and in the learning process. The Communication review assesses how you communicate with families, while the Information review evaluates what you communicate to families. The Participation review helps you know if your family participation programs invite involvement in learning, value parents as key resources, and engage the entire school community.

For more information about CAFÉ contact Ron by email or call 319-430-4315.