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Journal of Education for

Students Placed at Risk
(JESPAR)
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Building Bridges of Home,

School, and Community: The
Importance of Design
Joyce L. Epstein
Published online: 16 Nov 2009.

To cite this article: Joyce L. Epstein (2001) Building Bridges of Home, School, and
Community: The Importance of Design, Journal of Education for Students Placed at
Risk (JESPAR), 6:1-2, 161-168, DOI: 10.1207/S15327671ESPR0601-2_10

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 JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR STUDENTS PLACED AT RISK, 6(1&2), 161–168
Copyright © 2001, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Building Bridges of Home, School, and

Community: The Importance of Design
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Joyce L. Epstein
Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships
Johns Hopkins University

Where do children learn and grow? At home. At school. In the community. It is

simply a social fact that youngsters learn from their families, teachers, peers, rel-
atives, part-time employers, and other adults in the community. Students de-
velop in all three contexts simultaneously and continuously. Thus, the bridges of
home, school, and community are inevitably interconnected. Students travel
back and forth across these bridges for many years to learn who they are and
where they are going.
The success or failure of all bridges—real or symbolic—is in their design.
Bridges that connect home, school, and community may be well or poorly de-
signed. Therefore, it is important to learn about the most effective structures,
processes, and practices that will produce good connections and positive re-
sults. The articles in this special issue contribute several cross-cutting conclu-
sions that should strengthen the design of school, family, and community
partnerships.

1. Families care about their children’s success, but most

parents need more and better information from schools and
communities to become and remain productively involved
in their children’s education

It is important, but no longer surprising, to learn that just about all parents care
about their children’s progress and success in school. This includes parents with

Requests for reprints should be sent to Joyce Epstein, Center on School, Family, and Community
Partnerships, Johns Hopkins University, 3003 North Charles Street, Suite 200, Baltimore, MD 21218.
E-mail: [email protected]
 162 EPSTEIN

low incomes, less formal education, and those who do not speak English or read it
well (see Adger, 2001/this issue; Collignon, Men, & Tan, 2001/this issue). The
myth of parental indifference has been debunked in study after study in this and
other nations (Chavkin, 1993; Epstein & Sanders, 1998). Presently, however, only
some families are well informed and productively involved in their children’s edu-
cation. Parents’ near-universal interest in their children’s success should compel
research and practice to address the question of how to design and implement part-
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nership programs that will help all parents use their strengths, time, and talents to
ensure their children’s success in school.

2. Students learn more than academic skills at home, at

school, and in the community

Students’ success in school and in life is measured by many indicators, including,

but not limited to, achievement test scores. Adger’s (2001/this issue) study reminds
us that student attendance, homework completion, report card grades, leadership
skills, course credits, and postsecondary educational plans are important indicators
of student success. All of these variables can be positively influenced by parents,
peers, teachers, and others in the community if activities are designed to mobilize
their support and action on these goals.

3. Students are influenced positively or negatively by their

peers, by their families, and by the organization of activities
in their schools and classrooms

Azmitia and Cooper (2001/this issue) showed that most White and Latino students
see their peers and friends as companions, but only some have friends who are seri-
ous about schoolwork and problem solving. Gándara, Gutiérrez, and O’Hara
(2001/this issue) studied Latino and White students in urban and rural schools.
They concluded that the students’ geographic locations explained their behavior
more than did their ethnicity; that is, urban students differed from rural students,
whether White or Latino.
Importantly, these articles confirm that even as students’ time with peers in-
creases across grades, parents remain important influences in their children’s
lives on academic decisions about schoolwork, behaviors, and postsecondary
plans. Parents, community leaders, teachers, and other adults may serve as im-
portant counterpoints to friends and peers who challenge or distract students
from learning.
Other studies also report that students who feel connected to their families are
less likely than other adolescents to engage in risky behavior (Resnick et al.,
 THE IMPORTANCE OF DESIGN 163

1997). Because school is a big part of children’s lives, parents can remain con-
nected only if they exchange useful information with educators every year about
school programs, children’s progress, academic decisions, and other school mat-
ters. These connections are the reason for designing programs of productive part-
nerships.
Henze’s (2001/this issue) main question also concerns the interactions of peers
and friends in school: Can school organization of specific activities promote posi-
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tive intergroup relations among students with different abilities and diverse racial
and ethnic backgrounds? Her case study shows how one elementary school de-
signed activities to encourage interactions among diverse students. In this school,
students were separated by ability and language in their core classes for 80% of the
school day. Nevertheless, one team of teachers brought two classes of diverse stu-
dents together for academic work. In addition, the school organized electives, af-
ter-school programs, lunch, recess, assemblies, and other activities to increase
interactions of diverse students to try to improve race relations, reduce intergroup
conflict, and increase interethnic friendships. Although the case study school has a
long way to go, it is clear that, by design, school and classroom organization and
activities can affect peer interactions and student behaviors. In addition, it also is
imperative to bring diverse groups of parents together to create a unified school
community.
These exploratory studies should encourage renewed interest in research on
peer group processes in school and community contexts. The researchers identify
several variables that may affect patterns of peer influence, including location
(urbanicity), gender, poverty, ethnicity, risky behavior, homework habits, school
and classroom organization, attitudes toward school, and family interactions. The
full constellation of variables should be analyzed in studies with larger samples,
longitudinal data, and within-group analyses to isolate the effects of home, school,
and community on peer interaction, the selection of friends, and the influence of
friends and peers on important attitudes, behaviors, and achievements (see earlier
research by Epstein, 1983, and recent studies by Plank, 2000, on these issues).

4. Community-based programs may support schools,

assist families, and increase students’ chances of success

The articles in this issue reveal three important features of successful commu-
nity-based programs: essential elements, connections with schools, and high content.

Programs that include essential elements are more likely to succeed.

When a bridge is built, engineers must meet design and construction standards.
So, too, partnership programs must meet high standards for design and implemen-
tation to reach all families and to help students succeed.
 164 EPSTEIN

Adger (2001/this issue) identified several essential elements of effective com-

munity-based programs. Interestingly, colleagues and I have been measuring indi-
cators of successful partnership programs at the school level (Sanders, 1999) and
at the district and state levels (Epstein, Clark, & Van Voorhis, 2000). Adger’s and
our studies identify many of the same important program components including
teamwork, time, adequate budgets and other resources, goal-oriented plans tail-
ored to the needs of the participants, strong internal and external support, and on-
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going evaluations.
With a growing consensus about these basic program components, new
questions should be asked about the details of each essential element. For
example, cash-strapped schools and school districts want to know the mini-
mum budgets needed to support staff and activities for high-quality partner-
ship programs (e.g., see Epstein, Sanders, Clark, & Van Voorhis, 1999, on
sources and levels of funds for effective partnership programs). Educators
want to know how to attract and sustain productive community partnerships
(e.g., see Sanders, in press; Sanders & Harvey, 2000). There is much to
learn about the underlying details of the essential elements of partnership
programs.

Community-based programs that are connected to the schools, not

isolated from them, are more likely to assist families and increase student
learning and success. Sometimes community groups or leaders construct
walls rather than bridges with schools (Newmann & Sconzert, 2000). Several stud-
ies in this issue indicate that students and families benefit when community-based
activities are connected or complementary to the schools. For example, a commu-
nity-based summer school that aims to boost student learning or an after-school tu-
toring program should know about the curricula, goals, and indicators on which stu-
dents will be measured.
Community programs also help parents connect to their children’s schools.
Well-organized community-based programs may act as brokers, interpreters, and
guides to help all parents, and particularly language minority families, negotiate
with their children’s schools (see Collignon et al., 2001/this issue; Durán,
Durán, Perry-Romero, & Sanchez, 2001/this issue). Equally important, commu-
nity leaders and programs can help educators understand students’ families, cul-
tures, and customs, as when families served as cultural consultants to a summer
school program.
Ultimately, students must succeed in school to advance to postsecondary edu-
cation, training, and employment. Therefore, educators, families, and community
leaders have an obligation to talk and work together so that students benefit from
all available resources and support.
 THE IMPORTANCE OF DESIGN 165

Partnership programs should be goal oriented. No one would build a

bridge to nowhere. Similarly, school, family, and community partnerships need
clear goals and important content. Two articles focus on the content of involve-
ment activities that draw on family strengths and knowledge to support student
learning.
Durán et al. (2001/this issue) offered a thoughtful and thorough curriculum for
a community-based family literacy program that builds parents’ and children’s
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computer skills, writing skills, and interactions to produce desktop-published fam-

ily stories. The study reports dramatic changes in parents’ computer skills, and
points to the need for future studies of program effects on students. Durán et al.’s
study shows that all parents—including those who do not speak or read Eng-
lish—have important knowledge to share with their children if, by design, they are
engaged in purposeful activities.
González, Andrade, Civil, and Moll (2001/this issue) addressed the content of
partnerships with the concepts of funds of knowledge and parents’ experiences
with math at home (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & González, 1992). In contrast to most
family involvement activities that focus on students’ reading and reading-related
skills, this article explores mathematics in its “natural” state, and how family
knowledge in math may be used in classrooms.
Colleagues and I have been addressing a related challenge to connect students’
in-school learning with families’ out-of-school experiences through the design of
homework. In Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork (TIPS), educators design
interactive homework that enables all youngsters to conduct guided conversations
with parents about their practical experiences in math, science, language arts, and
other subjects (Epstein, Salinas, & Jackson, 1995). For example, a TIPS language
arts activity may ask middle school students to write a story about someone who
helped them, read the story to their family partners, and conduct a conversation
with their parents about someone who helped them when they were in the middle
grades. The student records the family story—a variation of the family literacy ac-
tivity described by Durán et al. (2001/this issue). A TIPS math activity may guide
elementary school students to show their family partners how they are learning to
write fractions, and then conduct a conversation about how parents use fractions at
home, much as González’s examples intend to do. Because homework is assigned
to all students, weekly TIPS activities reach families who are unable to attend spe-
cial projects or workshops.

A DESIGN CHALLENGE: BUILD BRIDGES THAT

CONNECT AND UNITE ALL PARTNERS

The overriding lesson of all of the articles in this issue is the power of design for im-
proving programs of school, family, and community partnerships. Well-designed
 166 EPSTEIN

bridges among home, school, and community can increase student success and sus-
tain family involvement in education across all the grades. Poorly designed
bridges—or bridges unbuilt—leave students without the support they need to do
their best work in school, and leave families unconnected to their children’s
schools.
One of the most difficult challenges in developing programs of school, fam-
ily, and community partnerships is to create a unified, integrated school commu-
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nity for all students and families and, at the same time, assist students and
families with special needs. This can be done if teachers, parents, administrators,
and community partners know the families and students served by the school,
work together, and write plans for partnership activities designed to meet both of
these goals.
For example, all parents may be invited to an end-of-summer picnic that
welcomes students and families back to school. There also may be translators
at the picnic (and at all school meetings and parent–teacher conferences
throughout the year) to ensure that parents who do not speak English feel
welcome. During the year, Latino, Hmong, or other groups of parents may
meet regularly to discuss the kinds of activities and services that would help
these families boost their children’s success. Their suggestions could be sub-
mitted to an action team for partnerships and considered for the school’s next
1-year action plan. Without an organized team of educators and parents and
systematic processes for families to influence plans for partnerships, there is
likely to be the kind of bickering that Henze (2001/this issue) described if
one group of families thinks it is being shortchanged in its opportunities for
involvement.
Educators who are interested in building stronger bridges among home,
school, and community can obtain help from the National Network of Partner-
ship Schools at Johns Hopkins University (Epstein, Coates, Salinas, Sanders, &
Simon, 1997; Sanders & Epstein, 2000; see www.partnershipschools.org). The
National Network provides research-based guidelines, publications, and other
tools that enable schools, districts, and state departments of education to design
and maintain comprehensive programs of school, family, and community part-
nerships.
The articles in this issue call attention to the need for greater equity in the design
and implementation of school, family, and community partnerships. Some stu-
dents, including some who are at risk of failing, presently succeed in school be-
cause their parents, teachers, friends, and others in the community communicate
well with each other and help students focus on their attendance, classwork, home-
work, and other important behaviors. More students, especially those who are at
risk of failing, need this kind of coordinated support so that they, too, have a better
chance to succeed in school.
 THE IMPORTANCE OF DESIGN 167

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