Our professional development builds trust

Experiential activities are an integral part of ParentCorps's professional development. The training is engaging and rigorous, while also maintaining a spirit of care and playfulness.

We are so excited to share that our findings about the power of our professional development are officially out in the world! Published this week in Frontiers in Education, our analysis is the first to measure the impact of professional development on family engagement according to families themselves. 

Despite the evidence that family engagement is an incredibly important ingredient in student success, very few studies have evaluated how best to do this work – how do educators create inclusive school environments where families feel welcomed? 

“With these studies we have actually been able to measure changes in the relationship between parents and teachers,” said lead author and Associate Professor of Population Health, Dr. Spring Dawson-McClure. “This is the next piece of the science demonstrating what we believe is true about how our professional development works and the difference that it can make in how teachers show up, and how leaders show up with families.” 

The fundamental premise of ParentCorps professional development is that children thrive when the adults in their lives are connected, supported, and equipped to build strong relationships between home and school. But we know we operate within education systems that rarely provide the conditions, training, or infrastructure necessary to make those relationships possible. In this spirit, ParentCorps works to strengthen the relational capacity of entire school communities.

Trends in Pre-K parent ratings of three domains of family engagement over four cohorts, by randomly assigned intervention arm, in high-poverty schools (study 1). The vertical dashed line indicates the time of randomization to intervention arm.

“We really didn't know when we set out to do these studies,” Dawson-McClure said. “I felt like it was a giant leap and a giant question: ‘Will the New York City School Survey pick this up?’ I mean, we believe our professional development is great, but is it going to make a big enough difference to be picked up on this survey that goes out to every parent? And it was. So I think that's a pretty big deal. Parents are feeling more trusting, more welcomed and included. And it's still kind of flabbergasting to me that these are the first studies of PD that have actually asked parents.”

We’re at a time when both NYC and New York State are massively reinvesting in early childhood, in families and young children. What we know is that expanding early childhood education isn’t just about access – it’s about quality. These studies were done during Pre-K for All, in partnership with NYC Public Schools Division of Early Childhood Education. This professional development was co-facilitated by ParentCorps and the early childhood social workers who support family engagement and social-emotional well-being throughout the entire system.

“To me,” Dawson-McClure said, “This is one demonstration that you can do both.”