On the Same Team: Deepening Relationships, Trust, and Community with Underrepresented Families

Parent Engagement Webinar Series - 22 Jan 2025
In this webinar, we take a brief look at the crucial difference between family involvement and building authentic partnerships and then explore the Families and Educators Together team framework at the heart of Ari’s book, On The Same Team: Bringing Educators and Underrepresented Families Together, which recently won the Gold Medal for Best Education Book of 2024. Ari will share insights into the strategies, research, and practical applications that bring this team-based approach to life. Discover why every school can benefit from a dedicated team focused on fostering stronger, more reciprocal relationships between educators and immigrant and other underrepresented families.
This webinar will provide a compelling overview of the purpose of FET teams, what strategies, research, and frameworks inform it, and what it looks like in action. It will make the case for why all school communities would benefit from having a FET team. It will also place a particular emphasis on how teams cultivate and sustain relationships with underrepresented families and create space for meaningful, reciprocal interactions with immigrant and other underserved families. As we have seen from our exemplary teams, centering relationships leads to a greater sense of trust between families and educators and helps families feel safe enough to genuinely engage and make their voices heard. Ari will share lessons learned -- both from successes and pitfalls -- around effective outreach, meeting design, and facilitation.
Ari Gerzon-Kessler is author of On The Same Team: Bringing Educators and Underrepresented Families Together, a groundbreaking book which won the gold medal for the Best Education Book of 2024. Ari has 25 years of experience in education (K-12), as a principal and bilingual teacher and, since 2017, the leader of the Family Partnerships department for a 56-school district in Colorado.