Lessons from Recent Federal Efforts to Support Statewide Family Engagement

This study describes the work of the first cohort of 12 grantees of the Statewide Family Engagement Centers program, focusing on the extent to which program priorities were being implemented. Family engagement in education is a long-standing policy priority to promote student success, yet families with low incomes continue to face barriers to involvement in schooling. In 2018, Congress established the Statewide Family Engagement Centers (SFEC) program as a small but key federal investment to help address these disparities. Although the program provides substantial flexibility in how grantees spend their funds, it also requires them to partner with a state education agency, seek wide input on which services to deliver through an advisory committee of families and other representatives, and “serve areas in the state with high concentrations of disadvantaged students.” This report examines how the first set of SFEC grantees carried out their work, including how well aligned they were to program priorities and the factors that affected implementation. Key findings include the following: Reported implementation four years after the grants began mostly reflected the 2018 federal priorities, including an emphasis on providing direct service to families and schools, some use of other approaches and topics, and expected ways of collaborating with state education agencies. The districts the SFECs worked with largely had high concentrations of students who were disadvantaged, another priority specified in the law.   In determining how to implement their activities, more SFEC grantees appeared to value direct input from families and education leaders over program requirements or priorities, such as special advisory committees. Staffing issues, both related and unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic, were challenges for SFEC implementation.