special education teacher home visits

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The Teacher Home Visit Program Works!

of parents surveyed felt that home visits improved relationships with their children's teachers.

of teachers surveyed felt that home visits strengthened their understanding of their students' cultures and home lives.

of teachers surveyed believe that home visits improved students motivation and attitudes toward school.

Why It Works

HOME WORKS! The Teacher Home Visit Program from Karen Kalish on Vimeo .

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Knock Knock, Teacher's Here: The Power Of Home Visits

Blake Farmer

Ninety percent of students at Hobgood Elementary in Murfreesboro, Tenn., come from low-income households. Most of the school's teachers don't. And that's a challenge, says principal Tammy Garrett.

"If you only know middle-class families, you may not understand at times why they don't have their homework or why they're tired," Garrett says.

When she became principal four years ago, Garrett decided to get her teachers out of their classrooms — and comfort zones — for an afternoon. Once a year, just before school starts, they board a pair of yellow buses and head for the neighborhoods and apartment complexes where Hobgood students live.

En route, the bus driver describes over the intercom how he picks up 50 children at one complex each morning. The teachers pump themselves up with a chant. After all, they're doing something most people don't enjoy: knocking on doors unannounced.

When the caravan arrives at a cluster of apartments, the teachers fan out and start knocking on doors of known Hobgood families. Some encounters don't get beyond awkward pleasantries and handing over fliers about first-of-the-year festivities. Others yield brief but substantive conversations with parents who might be strangers around school.

Jennifer Mathis has one child still at Hobgood and says she appreciates that the school came to her — since she has a hard time getting to school.

"I don't have a car. I can't drive because my back got broken in two places," she tells a trio of teachers standing in her doorway. "I'm a mom. I can't be there with all of them all the time."

Giving Home Visits A Try

There was a time when a teacher showing up on a student's doorstep meant something bad. But increasingly, home visits have become a tool to spark parental involvement. The National Education Association has encouraged more schools to try it out, and there's this national effort .

One district in Massachusetts just added money to pay teachers for the extra work involved. Traditional schools in Washington, D.C., tried out home visits after privately run charter schools used them to successfully engage parents.

In Murfreesboro, principal Garrett sees the brief visits as mutually beneficial. Parents get to meet their kids' teachers. And teachers get a clearer sense of the challenges many of their students struggle with on a daily basis.

"If a kid doesn't have a place to sleep or they have to share the couch with their siblings at night and there are nine kids with one bedroom or two bedrooms, it's important for them to see that — not to be sympathetic," she says. "It's to empower the teachers to change the lives of the kids."

It's serious business. But Danielle Hernandez, a special education teacher, says it's not the somber experience she'd feared. At one apartment complex, a dozen kids are out riding bikes on their last day of summer break.

"I know that these children, they go through a lot in their lives," Hernandez says. "But they get to have so much fun."

Teachers join in on that fun, borrowing kids' bikes for a cross-parking-lot drag race that generates howls from the adults.

Ashlee Barnes, a fourth-grade teacher at Hobgood, says she's a believer, even if home visits have yet to prove themselves as a difference-maker on standardized testing.

"We become more important in their lives than I think we can ever understand," she says. "I think the sooner you can start a relationship, you're going to see results on their performance in the classroom."

'It Makes Me Want To Cry'

The kids seem to genuinely enjoy the visits, even if they are a reminder that summer is over.

"I am so lucky," says fourth-grader Shelleah Stephens as she's introduced to Barnes, her new teacher. "All the teachers I have had have been so nice. It's great to see you."

Barnes hugs Shelleah, who is barefoot on the sidewalk in front of the unit where she lives with her father, Kenny Phillips. He's standing back, smiling as his daughter shows off her budding social skills.

"It just brings you this joy. It makes me want to cry," Phillips says.

Phillips runs a landscaping business and says long days have kept him from being as involved with his daughter's education as he'd like to be. Seeing this interaction has him a little choked up.

"It's just good to see her grow up and have people around her who care," he says. "Sometimes parents aren't there, man. Sometimes we gotta work. Sometimes we're gone a lot of the time. It's good to see [teachers] come out to the neighborhood like that. I know she's in good hands."

Phillips also grew up in Murfreesboro but says no teacher stopped by his house. He hopes to return the favor by making sure Shelleah finishes all her homework this year.

Feeling stuck writing your IEPs? Download the 10 IEP Writing Commandments for FREE here!

All About Home Visits in Special Education

Does your district, or position, require you to do home visits throughout the school year?  Most of the time, these are done in the early grades like Pre-K before the start of the year. 

It gives the teachers an opportunity to meet the parents, family members, and the child in their typical, everyday environment.  

Here are some tips for having a successful home visit.

Tips for a Successful Home Visit

• If your student has a file, look it over first and bring it with you in case the parents have any questions.  This will also give you the opportunity to review things such as goals, services, accommodations, etc. with the parent so that everyone is on the same page and understanding of what the child will be receiving from their IEP this school year.
• Come prepared with a list of questions about your students – these could be generic questions such as favorite color, food, tv show and/or character, food allergies, food preferences, pets, friends, family members, etc. – anything that can help you get to know the child.  When the parent tells you about their child, most of the time these questions may be answered, but if one doesn’t then at least you have this available as a reminder for any questions you may still have.  
• If it’s the beginning of the school year, talk with the parents/families about what they did over the summer.  What did their child enjoy doing?  Were there any new concerns the parents have?  Did the child make any new growth or accomplish anything new over the summer?
• Talk to the parents about what they can do to support the success of their child at home as well.  We all know that in order for a child to be successful, a student has to be able to take what they learn at school and transfer it to their home lives as well, but some parents may not know the best ways to help foster that learning. 
• If your district allows, bring some activities for the students to do, especially if that activity can give you some information about the skills the students may or may not need to work on – such as fine motor tasks, colors, shapes, etc.  If they can, let them choose what activities they want to complete.  This will help give you a good idea on what the child prefers to do and how they make choices.  You can also do these activities with the child to start building that relationship with him/her and let them become familiar with you before the first day of school.
• Should you bring a gift?  Well, that depends on a few things. For starters, does your district allow it?  While some districts might not require it, it’s better to check and make sure you are allowed to before getting in trouble.  If you can, and want to, what is something you could find that is both age appropriate and budget friendly?  Some ideas could be puzzles, books, crayons/coloring books, fidget toys, etc.

What are some things that you and/or your district do to ensure a successful home visit?  Let us know in the comments.

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Guidelines for Providing Homebound Instruction to Students with Disabilities

For the past 30 years, federal legislation has mandated that students with disabilities be provided an education in the least restrictive environment possible. This has resulted in a continuum of alternative placements that have included settings from general education classrooms to state institutions. The rationale for these placements has, in theory, been students' educational needs and the proximity of placements to general education peers (McDonnell, Hardman, & McDonnell, 2003). In spite of the increasing trend to place students in the least restrictive educational environment, the continuum of alternative education options is still legally available to students with disabilities (Yell, 1998).

One educational option that receives scant attention in the literature is homebound instruction. Homebound instruction can also be referred to as home teaching, home visits, and home or hospital instruction. Homebound instruction involves the delivery of educational services by school district personnel within a student's home. This differs from home schooling, which is usually delivered exclusively by a parent (Zirkel, 2003).

Homebound instruction was initially seen as an educational service option for students with impairments that made them physically incapable of attending school (Wilson, 1973). Such students could have been recuperating from a severe illness or may have been so physically fragile that they were unable to be transported to a school setting. Over the years, the option of homebound services has expanded to other populations. These populations may include students whose schools are on break, students who may be suspended or expelled, students who are awaiting a more appropriate setting, and students who are difficult to handle in traditional settings. Although state institutions are commonly considered the most restrictive educational setting, homebound services may be the most restrictive placement because students have no opportunity to interact with their peers (Council for Exceptional Children, 1997).

The federal government maintains annual data on the numbers of students receiving special education services and the specific types of services they receive. According to these data (see Table 1), from 1991 to 2001, less than 1% (National Center for Educational Statistics) of all students with disabilities received home or hospital-based instruction. Specific student disability populations that received home- or hospital-based services at rates greater than 1% included those with emotional disturbances, orthopedic impairments, other health impairments, deaf-blindness, multiple disabilities, and traumatic brain injury (National Center for Education Statistics, 2002a). In collecting data, the federal government (as well as many states) identifies home or hospital instruction as a single entity. Thus the data shown in Table 1 do not factor out the percentages of students who received home- or hospital-based services exclusively or in combination with other forms of instruction. In addition, the data represent the primary placements of students at the time that the surveys were conducted. Multiple student placements that could have occurred within a single school year are not indicated. Students with disabilities may be experiencing homebound instruction at much different rates than the federal government's data indicate.

Please click here for larger PDF version of Table 1.

Providing homebound services to any student can be a unique and positive experience for teachers. It affords the teacher an opportunity to observe the home environment and the family dynamics within that environment, resulting in greater understanding of the student's behavior. Because of the frequency of interaction and communication, it offers teachers the prospect of building stronger ties with the family. Homebound instruction may also result in greater bonds between teachers and students because of to the one-on-one instruction provided and the opportunity to truly individualize instruction (Baker, Squires, & Whiteley, 1999).

Homebound instruction can also present many challenges for teachers. Teachers are frequently not prepared to provide such services. Few teacher preparation programs address the issue, and much of the available literature on homebound instruction comes from the field of early childhood special education (Klass, 1996). In addition, school districts may not have specific guidelines for their teachers on providing homebound services (Daly-Rooney & Denny, 1991). Homebound instruction can present a variety of unexpected variables with which to contend. These can include disruptive siblings, a noisy environment in which to work, family conflicts, and cancellations of visits. Teachers may also be frustrated in recognizing that homebound services do not provide sufficient depth and intensity of instruction that some students may need.

Providing homebound instruction to students with emotional or behavioral disorders can be a particularly demanding experience. Such students can display a wide range of challenging behaviors, from apathy to defiance (Kerr & Nelson, 2002). Undesirable behaviors that are evident in school and community settings can be even more intense in the home. Teachers should plan on using their full repertoire of behavioral interventions, which could include identifying and avoiding the triggering of undesirable behaviors, the use of token economy systems, behavioral contracts, the calculated use of verbal praise, and working on tasks in small increments of time.

Although federal legislation indicates that a teacher or paraeducator may provide homebound instruction (National Center for Education Statistics, 2002b), there may be state or local public policies that mandate specific personnel who can provide such services. The homebound instructor, whether a certificated teacher, therapist, or paraeducator, should plan well for providing educational services to students identified as having an emotional or behavioral disorder.

Before the Visit

Before the initial visit, teachers of homebound students should conduct a thorough review of school documents related to the student and to the provision of homebound services. Teachers should become familiar with students' eligibility for special education services, behavioral or emotional histories, previous intervention strategies, and mandated services. Special attention should be given to Individual Educational Programs (IEPs) and to Behavior Intervention Plans. It is important that homebound instruction be provided in the manner specified in the IEP (e.g., frequency, duration, types of service, and types of personnel).

The teachers of homebound students might also consider interviewing previous and current service providers such as former teachers, school psychologists, and counselors. These individuals may be able to elaborate on information found in school records and may help the teacher identify details concerning the student's behavioral patterns, academic strengths, interests, limitations, and family dynamics. Such interviews may also provide information related to language and cultural differences, community characteristics, and hostility toward school personnel.

Teachers of homebound students should strive toward cultural competence. They should attempt to identify, understand, and acknowledge the beliefs, interpersonal styles, attitudes, and behaviors that are characteristics of the student's culture. Doing so will aid the teachers in building bridges between the home and school as well as between academic abstractions and students' actual experiences (Gay, 2000).

Communication is critical to the development of trust between school personnel and the family (Anderson & Matthews, 2001). If students, caregivers, or parents speak a language different from that of the teacher, the critical sharing of fears, expectations, and commitments cannot occur. Teachers of homebound students must make every effort to enhance communication. Teachers should identify the primary language used in the home and students' levels of language proficiency. If teachers are not proficient in the caregivers' and students' primary language, they should exlore alternatives, such as the use of a translator.

Locating the student's home before the initial visit is a recommended practice. Doing so will allow the teacher to scrutinize the neighborhood for possible safety issues and will help assure that the initial visit is made on time. If there are safety concerns, the homebound teacher, with an administrator, should outline strategies for dealing with them. Such strategies may include the assurance that homebound services are provided during daylight hours, the accompaniment of a partner during visits, and the provision of services at an alternative location (e.g., school district office, public library).

The teacher of homebound students and the administrator should identify circumstances in which a home visit is terminated. These situations could include family members' use of foul language directed at the teacher, threats of physical violence, intimidating behavior (e.g., excessive body proximity), inappropriate attire or lack thereof, the presence of illegal substances, or general household mayhem. In some instances, when a student is experiencing psychiatric difficulties, homebound services may unintentionally exacerbate the student's problems. In such instances, alternative educational plans should be developed along with representatives from mental health and social service agencies (British Columbia Department of Education, 1995).

Whenever homebound services are provided, a parent or legal guardian should be present. School staff should have current school picture identification with them to show to primary caregivers. Such identification could also be used to verify one's identity to law enforcement representatives should there be incidents within the home during a visit.

Teachers should contact the parent or legal guardian well in advance of the initial visit. Teachers should introduce themselves and review the parameters of the homebound service as specified in the IEP. The teacher and primary caregiver should determine a mutually acceptable time for the initial visit and future visits. It is also a good practice to communicate with the parent or guardian the day before the home visit to confirm the appointment. Teachers should indicate the need for a relatively quiet work area in which to conduct the visits. Teachers should also consider asking the parents or guardians their opinions regarding strategies for making homebound instruction successful.

Teachers should prepare a variety of activities for homebound instruction. If true instructional services are to be provided, the supervision of mere paper and pencil tasks is insufficient. Teachers can include direct instruction, oral reading activities, the use of games and technology (e.g., the use of a laptop computer), demonstrations with manipulatives and pictures, and investigative tasks. Having reviewed pertinent documents and having interviewed those with insights about the student will help the teacher select the most appropriate tasks. To transport materials, teachers may need to invest in a small suitcase on wheels.

Teachers should plan on a schedule of activities during the home visit and should attempt to provide some variety within that schedule to avoid monotony. Teachers should start the instructional period with the least threatening activity and then build up to more challenging tasks. They should also plan on ending the session with a positive and successful activity.

During the Visit

Teachers of homebound students must be prompt. Being late to a visit may elevate the anxiety of the student and family members. It may also be interpreted as being rude. At the initial home visit, the teacher should warmly greet the family members, review the structure of the visit with them (Baker et al., 1999), and summarize timelines and activities. If a reinforcement system will be used during the visit, the teacher should review it as well.

Because of fears of being judged and past relationships with school personnel, home visits can be intimidating to some parents and guardians. It is important that teachers of homebound students exhibit a friendly demeanor and demonstrate an interest in the student and the family. Although it is important to provide services as specified in the IEP, teachers of homebound students need to follow cues from caregivers and the student. If the student is ill or the caregiver is excessively agitated, it may be best to abbreviate a home visit with the caregiver's consent.

Throughout the instructional period, teachers should informally assess the student rather than conducting a formal assessment, particularly during an initial visit. Formal assessments are often intimidating and challenging. The initial use of such assessments may set a poor precedent that would be difficult to overcome. Teachers should note the student's academic level of performance during instruction sessions and collect work samples. They should also try to engage the student in discussions related to their areas of interest. These interests may be woven into future instruction resulting in a greater bond between the student and teacher and greater motivation in the student (Bakes, 1994).

The hours of instruction provided to homebound students usually do not match the instructional hours provided to students in traditional classroom settings. To make up for this discrepancy, homebound students are frequently given extensive homework assignments to complete in the teacher's absence. For students with behavioral and emotional problems, such homework can be a contentious issue. Students with behavioral and emotional disabilities may need ongoing supervision to complete academic work. Caregivers may not be able to provide the needed supervision or may not possess the management skills to successfully encourage their children to complete these assignments. For some students, homework can become an issue to manipulate or defy. Keeping these possible problems in mind, the teacher should attempt to provide relevant homework assignments that are at the student's level—assignments that can reasonably be completed within a given time period, and assignments that can be done with minimal assistance.

Teachers are encouraged to allow time at the end of each instructional period to communicate with the caregiver. Teachers can summarize the day's activities and note the student's accomplishments, review homework assignments, share suggestions for working with and managing the student, and verify future visits. This is an opportunity to socialize and attempt to bond with the caregiver. As with any educational service, the caregiver's support is crucial to the success of homebound instruction (Martin & Hagan- Burke, 2002).

After the Visit

After the home visit, teachers should identify those activities that were successful and those that need improvement, reflect upon the possible reasons for those successes and failures, and note the student's behavior during the visit, as well as the attitudes of family members. Not attending school can create a monotonous and demoralizing existence for the student, and living and coping with a behaviorally or emotionally disturbed child can be an exhausting experience for the parent or caregiver. Teachers should reflect upon changes in the emotional well-being of the family.

Aside from reflecting, teachers should document each home visit. In writing, teachers should indicate the date, the specific length and time of the home visit, and the name of the caregiver who was present. Teachers should identify the activities that were completed and the level of student success with each activity. A description of the student's behavior during the visit should be noted. Finally, details concerning homework assignments should be recorded. School districts or teachers can develop simple forms to prompt the provision of such information. Optimally, such documentation should be done in duplicates, with a copy given to the caregiver at the end of each home visit.

The old adage, "out of sight, out of mind," should not apply to students receiving homebound instruction. Teachers of homebound students should communicate with key stakeholders about their students; They should inform administrators about the home visits and any possible problems. They should consult school psychologists regarding the behavioral and emotional state of students and, if necessary, update social service agencies regarding the status of students, families, and current services. The written documentation completed after a home visit would help the teacher in communicating with such parties.

Homebound instruction should not be viewed as an insignificant interim educational service, nor should it be a service routinely offered to students with disabilities (British Columbia Department of Education, 1995). To be effective, homebound instruction needs to be well prescribed and should emphasize planning and communication (see Appendix). Optimally, homebound instruction should be offered through a multidisciplinary team effort. Key stakeholders (e.g., parents, teachers, administrators, therapists) would systematically bring together expertise from a variety of sources and professional fields to support, serve, and monitor the student. When such an organized team effort is not available, stakeholders need to resist working in isolation of one another. Whether working as a member of a team or not, teachers of homebound students need to plan, implement, document, evaluate, and attempt to communicate with others.

Anderson, J. A., & Matthews, B. (2001). We care for students with emotional and behavioral disabilities and their families. Teaching Exceptional Children, 33(5), 34–39.

Baker, C., Squires, J., & Whiteley, K. C. (1999). Home visiting: A Vermont approach to working with young children and their families. Waterbury: Vermont Agency of Human Services.

Bakes, C. (1994). Motivating students. The Technology Teacher, 54, 9–12.

British Columbia Department of Education. (1995). Special education services: A manual of policies, procedures and guidelines. Victoria, BC: Author.

Council for Exceptional Children. (IDEA '97—Full Regulation Discussion. (1997). Subpart E—Procedural safeguards least restrictive environment. Retrieved January 4, 2004, from http://www.cec.sped.org/law/...s/searchregs/300.551.php

Daly-Rooney, R., & Denny, G. (1991). Survey of homebound programs offered by public schools for chronically ill or disabled children in Arizona. Tucson: Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EC300587)

Gay, G. (2000). Cultural responsive teaching. New York: Teachers' College Press.

Kerr, M. K., & Nelson, C. M. (2002). Strategies for addressing behavior problems in the classroom. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Klass, C. S. (1996). Home visiting: Promoting healthy parent and child development. Baltimore, MD: Brookes.

Martin, E. J., & Hagan-Burke, S. (2002). Establishing a home–school connection: Strengthening the partnership between families and schools. Preventing School Failure, 46(2), 62–65.

McDonnell, J., Hardman, M., & McDonnell, A. (2003). An introduction to persons with moderate and severe disabilities. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2002a). Digest of Educational Statistics. Tables 52–54, 1995–2002. Retrieved November 6, 2004, from http://nces.edu.gov/programs/digest/ d01/dt053.asp

National Center for Education Statistics. (2002b). Supplemental notes. Note 10: Students with disabilities. Retrieved February 7, 2003, from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2002/notes/ n10.asp

Wilson, M. I. (1973). Children with crippling and health disabilities. In L. Dunn (Ed.), Exceptional children in the schools, 2nd ed. (pp. 467–530). New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Yell, M. (1998). The legal basis of inclusion. Educational Leadership, 56(2), 70–73.

Zirkel, P. (2003). Homeschoolers? Rights to special education. Principal, 82(4), 12–14.

Do's and Don'ts for Providing Homebound Instruction

• Research the student's educational history, strengths, needs, and interests.
• Provide homebound services according to the Individual Educational Program.
• Provide homebound services only when an adult caregiver is present.
• Communicate early and consistently with caregivers.
• Develop contingency plans for dealing with problematic visits.
• Prepare a variety of activities when working with the student.
• Have school identification.
• Document activities and progress.
• Approach homebound instruction with a cavalier attitude.
• Attempt to provide homebound instruction without planning.
• Assume that the student and caregiver will be available at a consistent time and day.
• Arrive late.
• Merely supervise the completion of paper–pencil tasks.
• Give excessive independent work assignments.
• Ignore the caregiver.
• Fail to communicate with other stakeholders about the homebound services.

From Preventing School Failure, Winter 2007. Heldref Publications. Www.heldref.org .

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Comments (13)

Please remember, we are not able to give medical or legal advice. If you have medical concerns, please consult your doctor. All posted comments are the views and opinions of the poster only.

Deidre replied on Fri, 06/05/2020 - 1:23pm Permalink

Are counselings required to go into the homes to provide counseling services, if it is part of the IEP.

Anonymous replied on Tue, 02/13/2018 - 3:09pm Permalink

My daughter's Psych has prescribed Home Bound Schooling for her. She has disabilities that caused her to become very depressed, anxious and suicidal. Since he has done this her whole outlook on life has changed. She has even said she doesn't have to worry about the drama, being bullied and stress from High School. She is more focused on her work and her adhd is more controlled. I am just happy to see her smiling and back to herself!

Anonymous replied on Tue, 03/21/2017 - 4:06pm Permalink

My daughter suffers major anxiety at school and has been a major problem she does fine at home. Would she be able to get homebound? Also all subjects?

Roberto Fernandez replied on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 6:08pm Permalink

She would need to get a doctor to fill the form requesting the home-bound services to the school.

Teresa replied on Fri, 01/05/2018 - 11:58am Permalink

I am a homebound teacher. In our system a physicians statement is required to qualify for homebound services. Students problems are sometimes magnified when they are removed from social environments so I would suggest finding ways to cope and keep her in school. If you can't make it work, please know that by high school subjects are highly specialized and your homebound teacher will likely not be an expert in every subject. Students will need to work on academics between homebound visits.

Anonymous replied on Mon, 10/10/2016 - 4:29pm Permalink

I have been a Homebound teacher for 13 years in Houston. Our district requires a responsible adult be in the home during all times of instruction. Parents cannot "step out" at any time or we are required to leave. However, our district does not provide support or counseling in the event a student dies as someone noted above. It's more like, "now you have room for another student" because we are understaffed and often rely on inexperienced subs to help out.

Anonymous replied on Tue, 08/23/2016 - 7:07pm Permalink

School systems use homebound as a way to "get out of" their responsibility to serve the kids that need school the most. Every kid should go to school, unless a physician says otherwise!

Anonymous replied on Thu, 03/12/2020 - 8:56am Permalink

not true serious hings happen that u wont understand

Anonymous replied on Sat, 03/12/2016 - 11:07am Permalink

I found this information to be very informative.  I have an emotionally disabilited son who also have a dystonia disorder which makes him homebound, and I am greatful to know that he can still get the education he needs outside of the traditional school system.

Anonymous replied on Tue, 02/23/2016 - 2:11pm Permalink

Can homebound services be provided without a parent or caregiver present? Can this be done and/or what happens if the caregiver leaves once you arrive to provide services?

Anonymous replied on Tue, 01/19/2016 - 3:54pm Permalink

Some of the students I work with are very fragile and in fact I have been faced with the death of two of my students.  Dealing with grief is also an issue for many homebound teachers, especially those that deal with such fragile children.  My supervisor has invited professional helpers to come and share insights on dealing with personal grief and the grief of family members.  New teachers should be made aware of the possibility that they might lose a child.

Anonymous replied on Fri, 12/18/2015 - 1:46am Permalink

As a sped teacher who provides educational services to students with homebound placements, I totally agree with the need to build personal relationships with the caregivers as well as the students.  Support from caregivers will make or break a homebound educational program.

Anonymous replied on Fri, 11/13/2015 - 3:10am Permalink

This was very helpful! Thank you.

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Home Visits 101

Home visits can be a valuable tool for increasing parents’ involvement in their kids’ education. Here’s how you can get started.

Teachers often find themselves wondering why their efforts at organizing opportunities for parents to become more involved in classroom activities do not pan out. They send written reminders home with their students, make phone calls, email, and text. When their repeated attempts to communicate with parents are left unanswered, many teachers become discouraged and begin making negative assumptions about parents’ involvement.

Home visits can establish positive contact and communication with families. They are not a replacement for parent-teacher conferences, but are a process through which teachers demonstrate their support for students’ families by visiting the home environment or an alternative location where the family feels at home and comfortable. Home visits should originate from a sincere desire to assist and work with families (see examples of two teachers’ best and worst home visits ). Home visits promote proactive interactions through which teachers provide authentic support while recognizing families’ strengths.

For teachers interested in conducting home visits, here is some guidance for getting stated.

Do Your Research

Teachers may be reticent to implement home visits because of the time commitment and effort involved. There are many testimonials from teachers and families about successful home visits, but without systemic school and district support, a teacher’s ability to carve out time during the school day to conduct home visits is limited.

For those who are determined, being well-informed about the benefits and rewards as well as the challenges of home visits is important. Once teachers commit to making home visits, they can take steps to research, plan for, implement, and document the process.

Know Your Families

One consideration is learning about students’ families, their communities and neighborhoods, languages and/or cultural differences, and work schedules. Being culturally responsive when conducting home visits communicates respect while demonstrating genuine interest in families’ rich heritages.

Investigating how others have conducted home visits is important if you want to create a process that is doable, realistic, and beneficial to students and their families.

Plan Strategically

Teachers who regularly conduct home visits advise establishing contact with parents before the school year begins. Some home visit models emphasize the benefits of teachers pairing up , traveling together to students’ homes, and introducing themselves to parents during the summer. The first visit should focus on building a relationship, extending support, and actively listening to parents’ concerns and insights. For transparency and safety, the home visit schedule (including location, time, and date) should be provided to school staff.

Be Flexible

Parents may not always feel comfortable meeting in the home. Alternative locations such as a local library, a quiet café, or even a fast-food restaurant may be appropriate venues for family-centered visits. Being flexible may also mean meeting on weekends, before schools begins, or at the end of the school day. Home visits planned in advance allow teachers to pair up strategically to coordinate visits when they have students who are siblings or who live in the same neighborhood.

Focus on Strengths

A teacher who enters the home with a nonjudgmental attitude views the home through the eyes of the family living there and sees the family’s strengths. A culturally responsive approach and appropriate, equity-minded language convey trust and respect. And if the teacher has concerns about the student, they can use the sandwich feedback technique to voice concerns sandwiched between strengths-based praise that is concrete and genuine.

Create an Action Plan

Actively listening to parents’ insights, concerns, and ideas for their child demonstrates authentic interest and respect. On a first home visit, teachers should not take notes since the act of collecting information may arouse parents’ distrust or suspicion. Rather, the teacher can ask parents if they have questions and take mental notes, and then, at a later time, create a voice memo or write out notes of what was discussed.

Before subsequent home visits, teachers can inform parents that they will take notes about concerns or ideas that arise from the discussion. These notes may build on other school-centered meetings and provide a plan of action upon which the teachers and parents can build.

Report Back

One way to remain accountable to students’ families is to maintain, revisit, and keep current the plan of action generated jointly by the teacher and family. Finding out from parents which method of correspondence is most effective and then checking in regularly with them about mutually established goals for the child provides both teachers and parents an open, ongoing platform through which to communicate and interact.

Home visits are a great beginning to positive communication and relationships between teachers and their students’ families. Establishing a strong foundation through home visits is only a first step—nurturing these relationships through consistent communication is critical to maintaining them.

11 Useful School Home Visit Resources For Teachers

We were given a long list of names and addresses and wished luck. Years later, I can say it was one of the best experiences of my teaching career.

A List Of Useful Home Visit Resources For Teachers

by Terry Heick

School home visits are continuing to see traction in many public school districts as a way to not simply ‘improve relationships with students’ but rather begin the school year ‘on even ground’ with families and communities.

While truly meaningful interactions between schools and communities ideally occurs through curriculum, student projects, and even place-based education, school home visits performed by teachers with open minds and hearts–and a little bit of preparation–can pay huge dividends for the entire school year.

The first time I was asked to perform a home visit, my first response–if I’m being honest–was how much it encroached on my already too-brief summer ‘vacation.’ We had training through mid to late June and were already scheduled for home visits by late July, which left me–according to my calculations–less than four weeks of actual ‘vacation.’

See also 15 Ways To Support Students Without Internet Access At Home

Adding in required PD hours and PGP work–not to mention refinement of my own ELA units and collaboration with other teachers for horizontal and vertical alignment and–well, I’m sure you get it. I was interested in the concept but was concerned about the lack of planning and execution. In short, we were given a long list of names and addresses and wished the best of luck.

Years later, I can honestly say it was one of the best experiences of my teaching career. I’ll talk more about that in another post. Today, I wanted to share a few resources for school home visits for teachers who may be preparing for such an experience. If you’ve done them before, little of what I collected will likely help you. But if you’re new to the idea, below is a decent overview of school home visit resources for teachers.

8 Useful Home Visit Resources For Teachers

1. Home Visit Preparation  from Teaching Tolerance

How are you equipping teachers to build relationships with families through visits? Learn the benefits of home visits and best practices for how to prepare for and conduct them.

2. 10 Messages Every Teacher Should Send To Parents

“When homework assignments and grades are parents’ only insights into academic activities, they miss out on the learning process and have trouble understanding how to best support their child.”

3. An organization called ‘Parent Teacher Home Visits’ on the importance of mindset shifts for ho me visits

The enclosed report shows how the PTHV model and process of relational home visits builds understanding and trust, reduces anxiety and stress, and fosters positive cross-group interactions between educators and families. Moreover, these relational capacities are critical for identifying and reducing educators’ and families’ implicit biases that too often lead to disconnects, missed opportunities, and discriminatory behaviors in and beyond the classroom. The findings are consistent with what PTHV’s founders intuited at the beginning: when educators and families build mutually respectful and trusting relationships, they become more aware of stereotypes and biases and work toward leaving them behind. As a result, they are both better equipped to support the student’s education. With the help of relational home visits, their common interest—the child’s success—wins out over unconscious assumptions.

5. A guide to home visits from the Michigan State Board of Education and San Francisco Unified School District

(During home visits) avoid:

• Imposing values
• Socializing excessively at the beginning of the visit
• Excluding other members of the family from the visit
• Talking about families in public
• Being the center of attention

6. Project Appleseed : The National Campaign For School Improvement

Project Appleseed is actually an entire model (with paid training but also free tips and resources) for school home visits. There is a lot of useful information here, including tips for a successful school open house after the school home visit.

See also 16 Hispanic Heritage Books For Kids

5. Research On The Effectiveness Of Home Visits: John Hopkins University study and research summaries on school home visits.

Study Shows Home Visits Improved School Attendance

“Sheldon’s research included 12 public elementary schools in Washington, D.C., and more than 4,000 students in the 2013-2014 school year. It found that students whose families received a home visit, one of the core strategies in the Family Engage Partnership program, had 24 percent fewer absences and were more likely to read at or above grade level compared to similar students who did not receive a home visit. Also, students attending schools implementing the program more widely were associated with a greater likelihood of reading at or above grade level.”

See also 10 Better Sources Of Free Curriculum For Teachers

Study To Evaluate the Success Of Home School Visits

“Research, policy, and practice discussions no longer center on  if  family engagement matters,” said Sheldon, “but on  what types  of family engage­ment matter and how families can be supported to play those roles, particularly in an increasingly diverse pub­lic school system.”

Home Visits Show Marked Improvements In Absenteeism

“Students whose families received home visits were more likely to attend school and to achieve or exceed grade-level reading comprehension than students whose families did not receive a home visit, even after controlling for prior differences in attendance and reading comprehension.”

7. A story on The Power of Home Visits  from NPR

Phillips runs a landscaping business and says long days have kept him from being as involved with his daughter’s education as he’d like to be. Seeing this interaction has him a little choked up. “It’s just good to see her grow up and have people around her who care,” he says. “Sometimes parents aren’t there, man. Sometimes we gotta work. Sometimes we’re gone a lot of the time. It’s good to see [teachers] come out to the neighborhood like that. I know she’s in good hands.”

More Tips And Resources For Home Visits By Teachers

School District Guidelines and Training

Most school districts have specific guidelines and protocols for conducting home visits. These guidelines often provide teachers with valuable information on what to expect, how to prepare, and the goals and objectives of the visit. Additionally, some districts offer training sessions or workshops to equip teachers with the necessary skills and strategies for effective home visits.

Parent and Family Engagement Resources

Many organizations and institutions provide resources and materials to support parent and family engagement in education. These resources can include tips on building relationships, fostering communication, and understanding cultural diversity. Examples of such resources include websites, handouts, brochures, and videos specifically designed for educators conducting home visits.

Community Partnerships

Collaborating with community organizations and resources can enhance the effectiveness of home visits. These partnerships can provide teachers with additional support and connect them with local resources that can be beneficial to families. For example, partnering with community centers, libraries, social service agencies, or non-profit organizations can help address specific needs or challenges faced by families.

Colleague Support and Collaboration

Teachers can benefit from sharing experiences and insights with their colleagues who have conducted home visits in the past. Engaging in discussions, workshops, or professional learning communities focused on home visits can provide valuable advice, strategies, and resources. Colleagues may have recommendations for useful tools, checklists, or questionnaires that can help teachers prepare for and make the most of their home visits.

It is obviously important to follow any guidelines and policies set by your school district and to respect the privacy and cultural norms of the families you visit. Effective communication, active listening, and establishing a positive rapport can go a long way in building strong relationships with students and their families during home visits.

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The Power of Home Visits

Suzanne Rogers October 9, 2023 Blog , Connect Better , Lead Better

• Home visits benefit students by improving behavior, academic performance, and test scores while fostering trust and respect.
• Parents benefit from home visits through reassurance, trust-building, and consistent communication about their child’s progress.
• Teachers experience positive changes in student attitudes, increased confidence, and personal fulfillment, leading to stronger relationships with both students and parents.

At LISA Academy, we believe that education goes beyond the classroom. That’s why we financially encourage our teachers to visit their students’ homes. The power of home visits is a tool for enhancing the educational experience for students, strengthening the bond between parents and teachers, and ultimately, contributing to the overall success of our students. In this blog post, we will explore the significant benefits of home visits for students, parents, and teachers and their positive impact on our educational community.

Student Benefits

Better behavior and conduct.

Home visits establish a personal connection between teachers and students. When students know that their teachers care enough to visit their homes, it often results in improved behavior and conduct in school.

Increase in Academic Performance

Research shows that students who receive home visits tend to perform better academically. The individualized attention and support provided during these visits can help students excel in their studies.

Higher Standardized Test Scores

Home visits can increase standardized test scores. When students feel a stronger connection with their teachers, they are likelier to put in the effort needed to succeed in assessments.

Better Ease of Learning and Trust in Their Teacher

Home visits create a comfortable environment for students to ask questions and seek help. This trust in their teacher can lead to a more positive learning experience.

Forms a Higher Level of Respect for Teachers, Themselves, and Others

Home visits foster mutual respect between teachers and students. This respect extends to how students perceive themselves and interact with their peers.

Parent Benefits

Feeling secure, knowing teachers care.

Parents gain peace of mind knowing that teachers genuinely care about the welfare of their children. This caring attitude helps build trust between parents and educators.

Ensuring a Safe Environment

Parents can be assured that their children are in a safe and caring environment at school. This reassurance is invaluable to parents.

Creating a Trusting Bond

Home visits create a strong bond between teachers and parents. This bond is built on open communication, understanding, and shared goals for the child’s education.

Confidence in the Future

Parents feel confident that their child’s future is in the hands of teachers who go beyond the call of duty to guarantee each student’s prosperity.

Informed of Progress

Home visits ensure that parents are consistently informed about their child’s academic progress. This open line of communication is vital for a child’s success.

Becoming Part of the School Environment

Home visits allow parents to become actively involved in the school environment, reinforcing the idea that education is a joint effort between home and school.

Teacher Benefits

Positive student attitude.

Students’ attitudes often change positively after home visits. They feel a deeper connection to their teachers, creating a more positive classroom atmosphere.

Confidence in Providing Assistance

Teachers feel more confident knowing they can provide students with the necessary assistance on their academic journey.

Personal Fulfillment

Teachers benefit from the genuine satisfaction of watching their students succeed throughout their lives.

What Can You Expect?

• Strengthened Parent/Teacher Relationships: Home visits build strong, trusting relationships between parents and teachers.
• Increase in Overall Student Achievement and Test Scores: The positive effects of home visits often result in higher student achievement and improved test scores.
• Decrease in Student Discipline Issues: A stronger connection with students can lead to a decrease in discipline issues as students are more likely to follow the guidance of a trusted teacher.
• Increase in Student Attendance: Students who feel a strong connection to their school and teachers are more likely to attend school regularly.
• Trust, Mutual Respect, Empowerment, and Accountability: Home visits foster a sense of trust, mutual respect, empowerment, and accountability among parents, students, and staff.

Educational Facts

A research study by Stetson, Stetson, Sinclair, & Nix in 2012 found that 84% of the 60 teachers reported that home visits positively affected their relationship with parents.

What Do Teachers Think?

Teachers overwhelmingly support the practice of home visits. They recognize the transformative impact it has on their relationships with students and parents and the positive outcomes it generates in the classroom.

In conclusion, home visits are a powerful educational tool beyond traditional teaching methods. At LISA Academy, we proudly support and encourage our teachers in this endeavor. By embracing the practice of home visits, we are enhancing the educational experience for our students and building stronger, more connected communities dedicated to the success of our future generations.

About Suzanne Rogers

Suzanne M. Rogers is an accomplished, passionate, technology-inspired educator, experienced conference presenter, and yoga enthusiast. She is the Assistant Director of Public Relations at LISA Academy Public Charter Schools. In addition to her 20 years of work in education, Suzanne also serves on the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts Educator Advisory Board, the UCA Executive Advisory Board, the UCA MAT Program Advisory Board, and the SAU ERZ Advisory.

Suzanne’s passion for education and her community is evident in her involvement in these organizations, where she works tirelessly to support students and educators. As an #ArmyMom and former #AFbrat, Suzanne brings a unique perspective to her work, understanding firsthand the sacrifices made by military families. Suzanne exemplifies dedication, expertise, and commitment to excellence.

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Parent Teacher Home Visits: An approach to addressing biased mindsets and practices to support student success

By Katherine May McKnight , Nitya M. Venkateswaran , Jennifer Ann Laird , Rita Alessandra Dilig, Jessica Robles , Talia Leah Shalev.

September 21, 2022 Open Access Peer Reviewed

DOI: 10.3768/rtipress.2022.op.0077.2209

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• Research has shown educators’ implicit biases to be a key factor in creating and perpetuating disparities in students’ experiences of schooling, learning, and longer-term outcomes, including job opportunities, wealth, and health.
• In this paper, we explain how a school home visits program, Parent Teacher Home Visits (PTHV), is a promising intervention for counteracting implicit biases and improving outcomes for families and students.
• We present data from a study examining the experiences of 107 educators and 68 family members who participated in PTHV, showing how educators shifted their deficit assumptions about families and students.
• Although the PTHV model was not created to address implicit biases, we found that the key components of these home visits align with strategies that psychological research has demonstrated effectively counteracting implicit biases and reducing discriminatory behaviors.

Research has shown educators’ implicit biases to be a key factor in creating and perpetuating disparities in students’ experiences of schooling, learning, and longer-term outcomes, including job opportunities, wealth, and health. Current school reform and transformation efforts are aimed at addressing institutionalized racism in school policies, practices, and cultural systems by implementing implicit bias training for teachers and staff. In this paper, we explain how a school home visits program, Parent Teacher Home Visits (PTHV), is a promising intervention for counteracting implicit biases and improving outcomes for families and students. The PTHV “relational” home visit model focuses on promoting mutually supportive and accountable relationships between educators and families. We present data from a study examining the experiences of 107 educators and 68 family members who participated in PTHV, showing how educators shifted their deficit assumptions about families and students. Although the PTHV model was not created to address implicit biases, we found that the key components of these home visits align with strategies that psychological research has demonstrated effectively counteracting implicit biases and reducing discriminatory behaviors.

Introduction

How biased mindsets affect family and school interactions, parent teacher home visits program, our research study, home visits shifted educator beliefs and improved communication with families, educators shifted from deficit-based beliefs to assets-based classroom practices, home visits fostered educators’ empathy and changed punitive practices, families increased trust and comfort with educators, families improved communication with educators, how parent teacher home visits aligns with research on counteracting implicit biases, limitations to our study, conclusions, acknowledgments, parent teacher home visits: an approach to addressing biased mindsets and practices to support student success.

In the United States, we like to think of education as the great equalizer. Decades of data, however, indicate that our education system is failing to meet that ideal for a significant portion of the US population. Over the years, institutionalized policies and practices have resulted in persistent disparities in education for nondominant students of color. We use the term “nondominant” to identify students and communities who are excluded by our nation’s school system through the privileging of certain cultural, social, and economic norms. For example, school systems systematically prevent marginalized students from accessing advanced courses ( Kolluri, 2018 ), and school staff place Black, Indigenous, or Latinx students in special education at high rates, resulting in their overrepresentation ( Office of Special Education Programs, 2020 ). Black students are more likely to be viewed as disruptive and more likely to be suspended for the same behavioral disruptions as their White peers ( Riddle & Sinclair, 2019 ).

This simple question can have profound implications for students, their families, and their teachers, as Ms. Y, a public-school parent, explains:

I knew that if anybody was going to come into my home, in a nonjudgmental way, and ask me that question, that they really cared. After my first home visit, we worked together to help my daughter, and she was reading at grade level by the end of the year.

Home visits focused on hopes and dreams can help overcome historical barriers between schools and the communities they are intended to serve, and for families like Ms. Y’s, they can be life-changing.

The collective policies and practices that marginalize nondominant students also lead to disparities in educational outcomes. For instance, Pearman et al. (2019) indicate that discriminatory disciplinary practices are correlated with poorer academic performance, especially for Black students. Additionally, Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students on average score disproportionately lower on standardized reading assessments ( National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2019 ) and have disproportionately lower high school graduation rates ( McFarland et al., 2019 ). These disparities are the result of an education system rooted in systems of colonialism and White supremacy, which American schools were designed to reproduce and maintain ( Spring, 2016 ; Valenzuela, 1999 ). With institutionalized racism “enmeshed” in the school system’s policies, practices, and mindsets ( Ladson-Billings, 1998 , p. 11), American schools will continue to produce inequitable outcomes for students and communities on the margins of society’s dominant norms, beliefs, and values.

The policies, practices, and cultural systems (e.g., mindsets, norms, beliefs, and values) within an institution, such as education or health care, that produce and maintain race-based disparities.

In the education sector—as well as others, such as health, justice, and finance—policies, practices, and mindsets often reflect unconscious and inaccurate assumptions based on race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Psychologists refer to these unconscious attributions as unconscious or implicit biases, which are the consequence of an immediate and automatic information processing and decision-making system that is sometimes necessary for survival ( Kahneman, 2011 ). Because these automatic attributions are shaped in part by our societal context, they can integrate stereotypes and other inaccurate assumptions about others without our awareness. In the United States, where dominant narratives of White superiority unconsciously inform our assumptions about others ( Feagin, 2013 ), negative and damaging narratives of people of color, especially Black and Brown communities, have a strong and often unconscious effect on our decisions and actions.

Payne and Hannay (2021) describe how unconscious or implicit biased narratives arise and are sustained in environments where systemic racism is embedded. Figure 1 illustrates this relationship and the cycle that leads to discriminatory policies and practices, which in turn lead to educational disparities. These negative outcomes reinforce biased mindsets, and the cycle continues. Without disrupting this process, systemic, institutionalized racism and educational disparities endure. In education, this cycle can be particularly detrimental because, increasingly, education is the ticket to not only economic success but also basic survival ( Darling-Hammond, 2001 ).

Process of sustaining institutionalized racism in schools

Research has shown implicit biases to be a key factor in creating and perpetuating disparities in students’ experiences of schooling, learning, and longer-term outcomes, including job opportunities, wealth, and health ( Darling-Hammond, 2001 ; Dee & Gershenson, 2017 ). Therefore, now more than ever, current school reform and transformation efforts are aimed at addressing institutionalized racism in school policies, practices, and cultural systems by implementing implicit bias training for teachers and staff and adding restorative justice practices to remedy some of the inequities our students are experiencing. In this paper, we summarize results of a study funded by the Flamboyan Foundation and reported in full by McKnight et al., 2017. The study documented how a school home visit program, Parent Teacher Home Visits (PTHV), can interrupt the insidious cycle of biased mindsets and lead to better outcomes for families and students. We found that the key components of these home visits align with strategies that psychological research has demonstrated to effectively counteract implicit biases and discriminatory behaviors. Additionally, we found that educators who participated in PTHV shifted their mindsets from focusing on assumed student and family deficits to their strengths and assets. These mindset shifts stimulated the use of practices rooted in empathy and understanding, which affected relationships between families and schools, school culture, and student success. On the basis of our study findings, we propose that this relational model of home visits can be an effective method for disrupting biased mindsets to help break the cycle of institutionalized racism in our schools.

Decades of research document that educators’ expectations and beliefs, in part driven by implicit biases, are critical factors leading to educational disparities for nondominant students. These beliefs are often based in a historical tradition of “deficit thinking,” which focuses on the idea that poor student outcomes are a result of internal deficits in students or their families rather than the structural failings of the school system ( Bang et al., 2019 ; Kim, 2009 ; Valencia, 2002 ). This type of thinking is reflected in the notion of “culturally deprived” children in the 1960s and “at risk” children in the 1980s ( Valencia, 2002 ).

Educators’ implicit biases influence their teaching practices, recommendations for opportunities like course placement, enrichment activities, special education, and discipline, as well as beliefs and expectations they consciously and unconsciously convey to students. Research shows that positive teacher beliefs about students are associated with positive student outcomes ( Goddard et al., 2001 ; Yeager et al., 2014 ), and negative beliefs are associated with negative outcomes ( Dee & Gershenson, 2017 ; Riddle & Sinclair, 2019 ). Educators’ unconscious expectations and beliefs can extend to their students’ families as well, including assumptions about parents’ beliefs about the value of education ( Kim, 2009 ; Quiocho & Daoud, 2006 ; Valencia, 2002 ). These assumptions and beliefs have led to strained relationships and mistrust between schools and the communities they serve. This is especially problematic because research indicates that positive relationships between schools and families contribute to sustained school improvement and effective teaching and learning ( Bryk and Schneider, 2003 ). These research findings linking educators’ implicit biases, unconscious beliefs, and detrimental student outcomes highlight the need for interventions that can help to counteract these biases and beliefs. Although implicit biases are automatic and unconscious, research suggests that we can counteract them and reduce discriminatory behaviors. PTHV shows promise for doing just that.

Program staff refer to PTHV as a “relational model” for home visits. Focused on grades K–12, PTHV grew from a local effort at eight schools in Sacramento in 1998 to a national network of more than 500 schools in 28 states and Washington, D.C. The program is voluntary for educators and families and involves educators visiting each student and their family at their home at least twice per year. The model focuses on promoting mutually supportive and accountable relationships between educators and families. PTHV differs from other home visit programs in that the focus is on relationship-building instead of student performance or behavior, which can reinforce prevailing power structures between schools and families and hinder relationship-building.

In PTHV, educators are trained in how to implement home visits with a focus on relationship-building, reflecting on their own assumptions about students and families, learning to build trust with families, and increasing their capacity to engage students in the classroom. Educators then visit the homes of their students in teams of two, conducting the initial visit in the summer or fall. Typically, they are compensated for visits conducted outside of their workday. The PTHV model emphasizes discussing hopes and dreams educators and family members have for students and sharing information about themselves. Communication continues after the first home visit, enabling teachers to apply what they learned about their students to instruction and encouraging families to engage more fully with the school and their child’s coursework. A second visit in the winter or spring focuses on academics, with reference to the hopes, dreams, and goals shared in the first visit. Although the way schools implement the home visits varies, all schools agree to five core components:

Visits are always voluntary for educators and families and arranged in advance.

Teachers are trained and compensated for visits outside their school day to demonstrate value and respect for the time they commit.

The focus of the first visit is relationship-building; educators and families discuss hopes and dreams.

There is no targeting; visits are for a cross-section of students, so there is no stigma attached.

Educators conduct visits in pairs and, after the visit, reflect with their partners.

In 2017, we conducted a study of PTHV in which we aimed to understand whether and how this relational model of home visits affected educators’ mindsets in ways that influenced educator-family relationships and the success of students. We did not set out to measure implicit biases, because they are unconscious by definition and notoriously difficult to measure. Instead, we focused on explicit mindsets that educators could articulate and how those may or may not have changed over the course of the home visits. Eleven schools from four large districts participated. Each district had implemented PTHV for at least 5 years and was a member of the PTHV national network. They were located in four states, three in the West and one in the Northeast. The districts ranged in size from serving approximately 41,000 students to serving more than 92,000. In these schools, students of color were the majority, with seven schools serving primarily Latinx students, one serving primarily Black students, and three serving a majority of Black and Latinx students. For all but one school, 73 percent to 100 percent of students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. In the outlier school, only 5 percent of students were eligible. In each district, we selected a mix of elementary, middle, and high schools with a wide range of experience with PTHV (ranging from 1 to more than 15 years).

We conducted interviews and focus groups with 107 educators and 68 family members who volunteered to participate across 11 study schools on-site. Focus groups with family members were separate from those with educators. This design was intended to help avoid power dynamics and social pressure that could influence results. Of the 107 educators, 20 (18.7 percent) were school staff other than teachers (for example, counselors and instructional coaches), all of whom had conducted home visits. For those who taught in classrooms, the average number of years teaching was 11.3. The average number of years participating in PTHV was about 3 (with four educators who had not yet participated), and the number of visits ranged widely, from 1 to more than 1,200. Educator race and ethnicity data were available for four of the 11 schools, where 40 percent to more than 90 percent of educators were people of color.

We used semistructured interview and focus group protocols to ask a series of questions about participants’ experience with PTHV. We asked educators whether and how their attitudes and beliefs about students’ families had changed after home visits and what aspects of the visits influenced these changes. We asked family members how, if at all, the visits improved their relationships with educators. We asked both groups about changes in behaviors, if any, following home visits (e.g., other interactions with the school, adjusting classroom practices, and so on). The questions were framed neutrally to allow participants to freely share their experiences, including those that were negative, positive, or neutral. We recorded interviews and focus groups and transcribed them for coding. The study team developed a coding structure, informed by research literature on implicit and explicit biases. Multiple researchers coded the transcripts to identify common themes and evaluate interrater reliability. McKnight and colleagues (2017) describe the methodology and our findings in greater detail.

How Relational Home Visits Can Shift Biased Mindsets

In interviews and focus groups, we repeatedly heard from educators and family members that home visits helped them recognize that assumptions and beliefs they held about each other were unfounded. By visiting families in their homes and focusing visits on sharing hopes and dreams, both educators and family members reported newfound understanding and empathy for each other. Research on implicit biases indicates that a key strategy for counteracting them is through building empathy by recognizing others as unique individuals and as human beings with struggles and dreams like our own (e.g., Whitford & Emerson, 2019 ). Here, we share the mindset and practice shifts that the home visits invoked, according to participating educators and family members.

A key theme that arose from interviews with educators is that the home visits helped them shift from assuming that families were indifferent about their child’s education to recognizing that they demonstrated their care in ways that differed from what schools expected ( Figure 2 ).

Educators’ shifted mindsets change communication practices

Educators learned that families were involved in their child’s education in a variety of unexpected ways and cared deeply about their child’s success. They saw that demonstrating commitment in ways that dominant families typically do was often not possible. For example, many families could not come to events at school, in the day or in the evening, because of work schedules, transportation issues, and so on. Sometimes, they did not respond to school or teacher communications because of language barriers. Before the home visits, teachers often interpreted these actions as reflecting a lack of concern about their child’s learning progress. However, the home visits showed that these families engaged in many “behind-the-scenes” ways in their child’s learning, such as monitoring reading time, scheduling or checking homework, and having their child explain what they were learning. As one teacher explained,

I expected parents to volunteer in certain roles in the school, but parents did not feel good to be involved in [school activities]. If they feel limited in skills, they won’t go into the classroom. Maybe they can participate in different ways. In the past, if a parent was not signing up to volunteer to go to the zoo, then the parent wasn’t “involved.” Family involvement is every day until they get the child to school.… Everybody cares for the child in a different way.

Educators saw the initial home visit as building a reserve of trust that they could draw on when needed. Home visits allowed them to learn the best ways to communicate with families, such as through texting, and the best person to contact. Home visits also helped them feel more comfortable communicating with family members, especially when challenging situations at school arose. Instead of dreading calls to parents about student problems, educators reframed it as building a partnership based on trust that everyone was looking out for the best interest of the child. As a result, educators could ask for family members’ advice on how to best handle situations at school. As one educator noticed,

[After home visits] when you call home, you definitely get a different type of conversation there. It's almost like you're having a talk with one of your neighbors…. It reminds me of when I was a kid and we'd always say, “It takes a village to raise a child.” And that doesn't happen much now [in schools]. But it's almost like a partnership that you've built with them. They trust you and they know that you're in this partnership. So, when you do call them to tell them something, you've already built up such a good rapport and such a good relationship that they know your intention behind whatever it is that you're telling them.

Notably, after home visits began, some educators reported having extended this improved communication to all families. Through home visits, they recognized that families do not always have positive interactions with school staff, and developing positive communication built strong, trusting partnerships to support students.

Another key theme from our study indicated similar shifts in educators’ perceptions about students’ behaviors. Educators reported that home visits helped them develop a nuanced understanding of students’ home lives, which countered their deficit-based assumptions, especially by recognizing students’ skills and capabilities in ways that were not demonstrated at school. One educator explained an evolving understanding of how a student’s home environment impacts school performance:

What they're asked to do at home as a 9- or 10-year-old, it's pretty amazing. I know as a fourth grader, I wasn't asked to do that stuff. It's kind of interesting to know that they're here all day and you're trying to get them to learn and work hard but they have to go home to other family situations where they have to watch little brother, little sister, mom and dad aren't home quite yet. As much as we may think they're not responsible, I think in their own right, they are. They may not have their whole desk together, and their desk might be falling apart at school, but there's probably other things on their minds. It's pretty admirable to see them in that atmosphere.

Multiple educators shared similar observations that although students’ behavior in class may seem disruptive or problematic, it does not necessarily mean that students do not care or lack interest in learning. As one teacher explained,

There’s a kid that has a baby sister at home, and mom has to work late, so as a third grader his responsibility is to take care of her. That takes a lot of their time from being a kid.… It helps you understand that’s probably why he’s sluggish. It’s not that they don’t want to be here. It’s not that they don’t want to learn. They have a whole other life outside of the school going on.

Despite reporting a better understanding of students and families after participating in home visits, a small proportion of educators maintained their deficit perspectives of families to explain student behaviors. They continued to negatively frame student behaviors like absenteeism, missing homework, or acting out if they failed to align with traditional expectations. Furthermore, some continued to attribute those behaviors to family shortcomings such as lack of resources, living environment, and parenting style.

Another key theme that arose from interviews with educators was how an improved understanding of the child and their home life, culture, and unique capabilities helped shift teaching practices to an assets-based instructional approach ( Figure 3 ). This approach demonstrates an understanding of students and families, recognizes their strengths and cultures ( Ladson-Billings, 1995 , 2014 ), and prioritizes those strengths over perceived shortcomings or failures (i.e., deficit thinking). An assets-based approach incorporates students’ cultural, language, and life experiences into teaching practices. Also known as culturally responsive teaching, this approach is a strategy by which school systems can mitigate the decades of harm inflicted on nondominant students and their families ( Ladson-Billings, 1995 , 2014 ).

Focusing on strengths leads to assets-based teaching

Our study results suggest that as educators developed an understanding of students’ interests and capabilities, they attempted to draw on these in the classroom. For example, one educator described an attempt to motivate a student to help in class based on how that student helped with brothers and sisters at home:

So, I had one student who was a pretty big goofball in class.… He didn't really do his work. He didn't really take anything seriously. And then when I did a home visit, he showed that he really took his little brother seriously. He took care of his little brother a lot. We were in the home visit and his little brother was throwing this ball at me...[and he said], “Hey you can't throw balls at people while they’re having a conversation.” … So this kid is a leader at home. I was able to start to guide him toward doing that same thing in the classroom.... We could talk about how he shows leadership at home and how he can show leadership in the classroom.

Educators also reported connecting instructional activities in the classroom to students’ home lives. Home visits helped teachers choose books and writing assignments aligned with interests their students showed at home. One teacher explained how knowing students’ backgrounds was critical to helping build their connection to texts, which is why they felt that home visits were crucial. Another explained how building this connection between home and school increases motivation for learning:

So, if I know that their dad works in construction…when we're talking about area and perimeter, we can talk about, when you're building a house, you need to make sure you're measuring accurately. And then you need to calculate the square footage of a floor to be able to figure out how much flooring you need.... And they're like, “Whoa! My dad uses this. Maybe I should actually learn this.”

Research on student motivation and engagement suggests that incorporating students’ personal interests in the classroom can trigger passion for learning, which leads to improved academic behaviors ( Deci et al., 1991 ; Deci et al., 2001 ). Incorporating students’ personal interests in the subject matter can also result in their deeper conceptual understanding of the content ( Deci et al., 1991 ; Deci et al., 2001 ).

Through learning about students’ home lives and seeing them in a different environment, educators developed deep empathy for students and their families. Although our study design does not allow us to draw a causal link between home visits and changes in implicit biases, psychological research indicates that building intergroup empathy is a critical mechanism by which implicit biases can be counteracted. In our study, educators identified developing empathy because of their interactions with students and families in their homes. One teacher emphasized that the empathy she developed for a student she visited was “100% without a doubt” the result of home visits: “Because...until you see [kids] in their own environment, you don’t really know.” Because of that empathy, teachers changed practices and policies aimed at students and families, particularly around disciplinary actions ( Figure 4 ).

Educators’ growing empathy helped change punitive practices

For example, one educator reflected,

It gives me a lot of patience.… I know when I was doing home visits with third graders, I had a student [who wore my patience thin]. To see him at home, and he was just the sweetest gentleman…offering me water, and closed the door because the dog was barking, and to see him at home with his family, I had never-ending patience for him after that. Because I had been with his family and seen him as the person, this sweet little boy that his parents see him as.

Relatedly, educators explained how empathy had affected their disciplinary reactions, exemplified in the following statement:

Instead of being frustrated, I can step back and go, “Okay, how can we rework this?” [It’s] patience that you would have for your own child.

Similarly, another teacher observed,

I can be like, “So, what's going on? How's this going? Is there a way that I can help you to find time to do your homework? Can we get you an afterschool program? Here's some resources that your mom can use, send her to the community liaison office to get resources for legal issues.”

Educators also changed how they handled situations with students during the school day. When home visits indicated challenges at home, such as the health of a grandparent, educators could reframe the classroom situation and respond with empathy by asking how things were at home. Several also changed punitive classroom policies around late and incomplete homework after conducting home visits, choosing to focus on why students were struggling rather than penalizing them.

Focus groups with families yielded similar findings about changed assumptions about educators. A key theme was that home visits helped families realize that interactions with educators did not have to be negative or uncomfortable, which helped the families develop strong and equitable relationships with school staff. Most families reported that their perceptions of educators changed from distant authority figures to people to whom they could relate. As a result, families reported increased confidence in reaching out to educators and communicating about students’ needs ( Figure 5 ).

A good proportion of families reported that when scheduling the first home visit, they feared the school’s motives and doubted that the intended purpose was to get to know them. Many feared that home visits were instead akin to social service visits, focused on assessing the quality of home life, parenting styles, or that they lived within school boundaries. They expressed surprise after the first visit that the interaction was positive and, moreover, that educators seemed to care about them and their students. As one parent explained,

Well, when she came, I ain't going to lie, I cleaned up.... Scrubbed my walls, scrubbed my floors, lit the incense. I even made dinner for her, and she ate it! I was shocked. And she don't even eat green beans and she ate mine! That broke down the wall when I [saw] her do that.… And she was like, “Oh I see that you guys are photogenic, you got a lot of pictures on your wall.” And I was like, “Okay, she cool.” You know, and then after that, we just was like “this” [crosses fingers].

Families shift to trusting, open communication with educators

Before home visits, families viewed educators as distant authority figures of higher status. Home visits enabled them to see them as human beings, as equals. Before the visits, families often felt too intimidated to speak with educators. For example, one family member initially rejected the home visit because they had not graduated high school and feared that the teacher would come into the house speaking “big words.” Focus group data indicated this was a common fear, and it changed after the home visit. Families saw educators as “normal” and as “human beings,” and reported feeling less “afraid” of talking with and trusting them. In research on implicit biases, seeing people as “other” helps to distance them, creating “in-groups” and “out-groups,” which can lead to stereotyping and discriminatory behaviors. Strategies that help people see the “other” as human, like themselves, are particularly powerful for counteracting those biases.

After home visits, families felt more comfortable communicating with teachers and, as a result, did so more frequently. Their newfound perceptions of teachers as equals, and even as friends, increased confidence in sharing information without fear of judgment. They expressed trust in teachers. One family member explained what this change looked like and why it happened:

At first there was no communication with the teacher, it was drop off, pick up, and see you later. But now if I have any question, I feel more comfortable to talk to [the teacher].... If the teacher needs to communicate with me, it feels like the home visit broke the ice between us. So if there is any doubt or problem, it’s easier for me to communicate with the teacher.

Families reported feeling comfortable approaching educators to discuss students, including asking for help and confiding about situations at home. In general, they attributed their increased confidence to the developed trust in them. One family member explained,

It's easier to sit down and talk to her because now it's like, “Oh, I don't have to worry about the image of that teacher, that authority kind of thing.” Now she's down-to-earth and we can actually be completely honest with each other versus trying to talk to this person and cover up what's really going on. It's a whole lot different. It breaks down the barrier.

Families related being more comfortable sharing information with educators, such as explaining students’ incomplete homework or asking for feedback on students’ behavior—for example, because of a father’s recent incarceration—compared with before the home visits. One parent reported opening up to their child’s teacher:

When I finally had the meeting with the teacher at my house, I explained to her that [the student] would miss school several days. Not because I didn’t want to take her to school but because she had health issues. The teacher was surprised and said…if I had told them they could have helped…. So it’s a deeper relationship, where you trust her and you say, “I feel this way. I’m worried about my kid. Could you observe my daughter?” … If you don’t trust someone, you can greet them, you can see them, but you won’t open that door beyond that.

Families also reported positive change in students’ behavior and academic performance and attributed it to improved communication with their teachers. As one parent explained,

In kindergarten, I was not visited, and my child was falling behind, and because of that I didn’t understand about the homework and what had to be done, and I didn’t know how to help her. After the visits every year, I’ve been more open to ask questions: “How can I help my child and continue to push her?” I think that she is doing better in class, and I think it’s because of the communication with the teacher.

Overall, families realized that interactions with educators could be positive. Many shifted their perceptions of educators as distant authority figures to people they could relate to and trust. Some described their children’s teachers as a “friend” or “family member” after the home visits. As a result, they were confident in reaching out to educators, communicating students’ needs, and trusting that they would be heard and respected.

The PTHV model did not start as a program explicitly designed to shift biased mindsets and address inequities in education systems. Yet as program staff noticed that home visits appeared to bridge divides between families and schools caused by race, culture, language, and socioeconomic status, they hypothesized that this “bridging” was an essential component of the program’s impact. Our study set out to test this hypothesis through interviews with educators and family members participating in PTHV and a review of research on implicit and explicit biases. The themes that emerged from interview data suggest that the PTHV model and its core practices align well with research-supported strategies for reducing implicit biases and discriminatory behaviors, beyond building empathy between families and educators. Table 1 highlights research-supported strategies for counteracting implicit biases and ways the PTHV model aligns with those strategies.

Table 1 shows how the PTHV model engages multiple strategies to build strong, trusting partnerships between families and educators, where race, culture, language, and socioeconomic status have historically served as barriers. These strategies have a research base that suggests they are effective at counteracting implicit biases, building positive intergroup relationships, and reducing discriminatory behaviors.

Our research approach involved gathering self-reported perceptions of individuals who participated in PTHV to understand the impact on mindsets and practices related to supporting students and their families in their educational success. The scope of this work did not allow us to verify the reported changes with other sources of data, such as classroom observations or documented interactions between families and educators. However, the patterns presented in this report are from 68 family members and more than 100 educators across different school and district contexts. We also did not measure implicit biases, which are notoriously difficult to measure and can create anxiety and stress among study participants who fear that they may be categorized as “racist” because of these assessments. Therefore, we focused on self-report and self-perceptions to help ensure that families and educators would participate in the study and feel safe doing so. Additionally, participation in the study was voluntary. It may be that those who agreed to participate had the strongest opinions about PTHV and may not reflect all family members’ and educators’ experiences. We tried to mitigate barriers to participation in the family focus groups by providing food, childcare, and flexible times for the interviews.

From our research with educators and families and our review of the literature on implicit biases, we suggest that relational home visits can disrupt the process by which biased mindsets lead to discriminatory practices and inequitable educational outcomes. Home visits focused on relationship-building can help shift educators’ deficit mindsets about families and students in ways that support the implementation of asset-based teaching practices and strong partnerships with families, both of which are linked to improved outcomes for students. In a separate and methodologically rigorous study of schools implementing PTHV, Sheldon and Jung (2018) found that schools that implemented PTHV had lower rates of chronic absenteeism than schools that did not implement PTHV. Additionally, students who attended schools that conducted home visits were 1.34 times more likely to score proficient or better on standardized English Language Arts tests than those who did not attend such schools.

Our research focused on individual mindsets and practice changes, not on school- or district-wide policies, practices, or mindset shifts. Yet Sheldon and Jung’s (2018) findings suggest that implementation of PTHV can affect all students, not just those who directly participate in home visits. Students who attend schools that conducted home visits with at least 10 percent of their students seemed to benefit indirectly from this program. It may be that when multiple teachers at one school conduct home visits, their experiences can help create a culture shift from persistent deficit narratives about students and families. This shift may then lead to school-wide policies or programs that are more aligned with asset-based values and beliefs. Further studies are warranted to explore this link between school-level implementation, school culture, and policy and practice shifts that can help change inequitable experiences and outcomes in our nation’s schools.

PTHV leverages multiple research-supported strategies that reduce implicit biases. However, to make a sustainable impact on institutional racism in our nation’s education system, PTHV should be one of multiple interventions designed to change widespread discriminatory policies and practices. As noted in our study, some educators maintained deficit perspectives of families despite participating in PTHV. Other research-based approaches such as critical dialog, reflective journaling, cognitive debiasing techniques, role-playing, and perspective-taking can also help reduce implicit biases and foster positive intergroup relationships. School and district leaders should consider PTHV as one of multiple effective tools in their toolbox to disrupt and eliminate the pernicious effects of systemic racism that undergird many of our nation’s school policies and practices.

We thank the educators and family members who shared their experiences of the Parent Teacher Home Visit (PTHV) program with us. We also appreciate the strong dedication of PTHV and Flamboyan Foundation staff to the evaluation.

RTI Press Associate Editor: Jules Payne

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Teacher Home Visits: The Importance of Sharing a Meal

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In a world full of expanding class sizes and endless paperwork, getting to know one’s students often feels like a never-ending battle. As a new teacher, I made it a priority to know my students: I wanted to be able to wave goodbye on the last day of school without the gnawing sense that I had let an opportunity slip past. So on a late September afternoon, a colleague and I found ourselves walking to the apartment building that was home to Omar, one of my 2nd grade students. Little did I know that after sharing a meal with my student and his family, my outlook on developing relationships with my students would be drastically changed.

A home visit is a way to bridge the gap between school and home for students, families, and teachers. A growing amount of research points to the importance of parents supporting their childrens’ learning in the home. A home visit is one way to deepen the partnership between teacher and parent and increase the students’ chances for success.

The school year was only a few weeks old, yet I knew visiting Omar was a priority. The family had moved from Jordan just four months prior, coming to the United States to escape the increasing violence surrounding their country. The purpose of my visit was to understand the family better. This would allow me to both communicate openly with the family and help teach Omar to the best of my ability.

We were quickly escorted up the elevator after being welcomed at the front of the apartment by Firas, Omar’s middle-aged father. He immediately began apologizing for the small space and was visibly embarrassed that the family lived in an apartment. He explained that he still owns two other homes (one in Jordan and the other in Algeria) but didn’t want to purchase a home in the United States until the family knew they liked the country and would stay.

Teaching the Teacher

As the apartment door opened, the smell of food enveloped me. Safia, Omar’s mother, was busy working in the kitchen, pulling pans out of the oven and stirring a pot on the stovetop. Omar rushed up to hug my colleague and me, and then ushered us to sit down and relax on the couch. Again, Firas began apologizing for the small space. Omar brought out a bag of marbles and asked if I would play with him and his kindergartner sister. I kneeled on the floor and reveled in the joy Omar took in teaching me his made-up game of marbles. If only I had this time with each of my students.

Although the living room was not small, it did feel cramped because of the placement of a large folding table along a wall. The entire table was covered with plates of various foods, including vegetables, chicken, hummus, and bread. Two large flower bouquets overlooked the food, hovering like tall pillars. The colors and smells of the table were outstanding. Never in my life had I seen such an array prepared by a single person!

The truth slowly snuck in that Safia had begun cooking at 6:00 that morning and had not stopped since then. I was overwhelmed by the work she had put in for our visit. Her tired eyes smiled as she began to place the last of the food on the table, insisting that my coworker and I help ourselves first. I filled my plate so that the bottom was hidden from sight. I wanted a taste of everything Safia had prepared.

The first bite was amazing. I was trying foods I had never eaten before, and all of it was delicious. I occasionally asked Omar what I was eating and he proudly named everything. There was a muffin-like pastry that was filled with meat and the family kindly laughed when I began eating it with a fork. “No, Ms. Kilgore!” Omar had exclaimed, “Eat with your hands! Bite it!” He demonstrated with his own food. Sure enough, it’s eaten like a muffin. The twinkle Omar had in his eyes while teaching me, his teacher, is a look I will never forget.

As the dinner progressed, I was able to learn more from the family. Jordan and Algeria were becoming more and more dangerous, and so Firas and Safia had decided to uproot their family and move to Minnesota for the safety and education of their children. As Firas put it, they gave up everything—a large home, an expensive top-rated school for their children, a community of friends, and a language they are all able to speak and understand—to help Omar and their younger daughter “have a chance.”

Know a Student’s Story

I would be lying if I said hearing this didn’t concern me. The questions began swirling in my head: Would I be good enough for their family? Could I help Omar catch up to his peers academically? How could I help the family adjust to life in the United States? I am, after all, a young teacher from northern Minnesota. How could I provide all they were seeking, knowing that there are also 21 other students needing my attention?

At that point, dinner was swept away and dessert was laid out. A tray was placed in front of us, overflowing with various fruits—bananas, peaches, apples, bundles of grapes, and strawberries. I could not thank them enough. Every time my coworker and I said, “Thank you,” the parents responded with a smile, saying, “This is nothing compared to what you do.” The amount of gratitude flowing around the room was immeasurable.

As the evening drew to a close, I had a moment alone with Firas and Safia. They asked how Omar was doing and wanted to know what they could do to help him from home. The concern and love they had for Omar and his success in school shone like a bright light.

My heart was overflowing with emotions as I walked away from the family that evening: gratitude for their hospitality, humility for their praise, and determination for the task at hand. I knew that the self-doubting questions I had earlier in the evening were very real. But I also discovered at that moment that I would put my all into helping this family live peacefully with their decision to move for their children’s education. I learned more about my student and his family through the home visit than I could have over a year of phone calls.

That home visit was the best way for me to get to know Omar and his family. It made the task of teaching him come alive by attaching their story, their life, to him. There is nothing quite like sharing a meal with someone to bring you closer together. It is with that shared meal that I go out to teach Omar and his classmates every day.

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• The Journal
• Vol. 16, No. 3

Teacher Home Visits

June Kronholz

The visit to Almard Bishop’s home promised to be a difficult one for his teachers. Almard had been held back in kindergarten because of his behavior, and now that he was a 2nd grader at C. W. Harris Elementary in Washington, D.C., things were no better. Almard had stalked out or been put out of class so often that the teachers hadn’t been able to test his reading and math skills.

But when the teachers—the 2nd-grade team-teaching pair and his 1st-grade teacher—settled around the dining table with Almard’s mother, the four of them talked instead about how Almard idolized his older brother, how he loved helping with classroom chores, that he was keenly aware he was older than his classmates, that he liked math, that he loved having the teachers text pictures of him to his mother.

“I want so much for my son,” Sabrina Bishop told the three. When they asked what it was that she wanted, Bishop answered with a modest goal: “Him trying to succeed. Maybe not succeeding, but just trying.”

By the end of the meeting, Bishop had agreed to visit the school to see a class project, a move that Almard’s math teacher, Jonathan Robertson, predicted would be “hugely useful.” Robertson, meanwhile, had agreed to Bishop’s request to have Almard tested for learning disabilities. “I’ll see to it,” he said.

Afterward, I asked Robertson and his co-workers—who received an hour’s extra pay for the visit—how it would inform their teaching. They talked about using what they’d learned about Almard’s interests and routines to engage him in lessons and “leverage” his behavior.

But mostly, they said, the visit was about building a relationship with Almard’s mother, who worried deeply about him but was largely absent from the school where he was having so much trouble. “A lot of our families have lost trust in our system, but being in her house, that was her zone,” said Susan Freye, Almard’s 1st-grade teacher. If the visit helped develop a partnership between Almard’s mother and his teachers, “we’ve turned the tide,” she added.

A Turnaround Strategy

Volumes of research suggest that one key to a child’s academic success is having “engaged” parents. But parents know that, to teachers, engagement means a fairly circumscribed round of activities—back-to-school nights, parent-teacher conferences, potlucks, interactive homework. “I had expectations of what the parents were supposed to do,” says Melissa Bryant, a math teacher and dean of students at D.C. Scholars Stanton Elementary, a novel partnership between the Washington, D.C., public schools and Scholar Academies, a charter operator. “I never heard what they wanted me to do.”

“No one ever asked me my goals,” adds Katrina Branch, who is raising six children in D.C., including the four children of her murdered sister. I met Branch at D.C.’s family-funded Flamboyan Foundation, which trains—and pays—teachers to visit their students’ homes as part of a strategy to use better relations between schools and families as a means to improving academic achievement.

“Teachers are the experts in pedagogy, but families are one hundred percent the experts in their children,” says Kristin Ehrgood, a Teach for America veteran who launched Flamboyan with her husband in 2008 to focus on family engagement, a slice of the education-reform pie she decided wasn’t drawing enough attention. “We need one another.”

But making the connection isn’t getting any easier. Charters and magnet schools now draw youngsters from neighborhoods perhaps miles away. In cities that are undergoing big demographic changes—either growing or shrinking—neighborhood-school boundaries are in flux. Working parents have less time to volunteer at their kids’ schools, and security precautions—locked doors, sign-ins, ID badges—discourage the casual drop-in.

The concept of having teachers visit their students’ homes isn’t particularly new. Montessori pioneered the idea to smooth first-day-of-school jitters for toddlers, and Head Start has long used home visits to teach parenting skills to young mothers. Some charters require home visits as part of their admissions process. The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), with 183 schools, visits newly enrolled students. “It’s not mandated, but it’s in our culture,” says Steve Mancini, director of public affairs, adding that KIPP has “decoupled” home visits from acceptance.

But the notion of formalizing home visits—that is, training and paying teachers, and including once- or twice-yearly visits as part of a school’s outreach and turnaround efforts—got its unlikely start only in the late 1990s. As she tells it, Yesenia Gonzalez, a Mexican immigrant mother who left school to work in the fields of California’s Central Valley, became angry that her 5th grader couldn’t read and that her Sacramento school wouldn’t talk to her about its failure.

Gonzalez eventually contacted a church-based community-action group that, in turn, began interviewing teachers who were seen as “successful” in Sacramento’s inner-city neighborhoods. The idea was “to find out what they were doing different,” Gonzalez told me, “and the one thing they were doing different was they were visiting the families.”

The community group launched a pilot home-visit program with six elementary and two middle schools and, in 2002, spun off the Parent/Teacher Home Visit Project as an independent nonprofit. The project says it now has 432 participating schools in 17 states and the District of Columbia. Flamboyan, which is the Parent/Teacher project’s D.C. partner, says the project has trained teachers in 122 of D.C.’s 300 traditional and charter schools.

The home-visit concept is simple. Schools that apply to become part of the project are surveyed to ensure that a majority of teachers are willing to make home visits and that the school leadership is committed to supporting them. Even then, visits are voluntary for teachers and parents alike.

The visit is get-to-know-you style, positive, and not academically focused (although visits to high schoolers center on the mechanics of college admissions). Ask about the family’s interests, expectations, hopes and dreams, and previous experience with the school, a manual handed out at the training sessions advises. Invite parents to attend a specific school function, and “share one (only one) expectation you have for this student,” it adds.

“It’s a very different dynamic than the parent-teacher conference,” says Karen Mapp of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, who studies family engagement and sits on the project’s advisory board. There, the teacher imparts information and the parent listens, all in the confines of the classroom.

Teachers visit homes in pairs, both for safety reasons and so they can share reflections. They don’t take notes or even carry a notebook: that might make them look like social workers or truancy officers on an inspection. And teachers are paid at the school system’s hourly rate—$34 in D.C., $20 in Montana, and $38 in Sacramento, where the district budgeted $275,000 for home visits in the 2015–16 school year.

Most districts pay for the visits with Title I funds: the federal education law requires them to use at least 1 percent of their Title I dollars for family-engagement activities. (In Sacramento, that excludes about 10 schools that don’t receive Title I money, says Lisa Levasseur, the Parent/Teacher project’s California director.) But private donors also underwrite some projects. Flamboyan initially paid for home visits by both traditional and charter school teachers, although the district has since taken over funding for its schools.

Parents and Teachers as Partners

I attended the project’s home-visit trainings in both D.C. and Sacramento, and found that teachers’ concerns were pretty much the same on both sides of the country. What if you spot evidence of neglect or abuse? Work through your principal to report it to protective services, “but homes don’t look like the home you grew up in. Check your assumptions,” a trainer cautioned D.C. teachers.

What if the parents don’t speak English? Take a translator. What if the child lives in a homeless shelter? Meet in a neutral spot like a park or coffee shop. What if the parents refuse a visit? Call back, but don’t press—other parents will persuade them to come around. What if the family wants to feed you? Excuse yourself or enjoy the meal; your choice.

The training materials advise what to say when proposing a home visit (“This really will help me to be a better teacher for your child”) and how to keep in touch with parents afterward. Use phone calls and e-mails, and send photographs via text message (“Daneesha … taught the class how to ROCK two-digit multiplication,” the training manual offers).

Stanton Elementary’s Melissa Bryant told me about her first reaction when her principal proposed home visits five years ago: “I considered myself a solid teacher. All of a sudden, I’m supposed to go sit on someone’s couch?” Stanton had been overhauled the previous year—new teachers, new leaders, a longer day, new curriculum, professional development, the charter partnership—but passing rates on D.C.’s standardized tests hadn’t budged out of the single digits.

The home visits began as one last effort by a demoralized staff, Bryant says, but became “the thing that put my school on a different trajectory.” Parents and teachers began to see one another as partners with the common goal of catapulting kids across the great chasm of the achievement gap, she says. Parents now ask for books, supplementary lessons, retesting when they suspect their children have learning disabilities. “We’re on the same page now,” Bryant adds.

By midway through the 2015–16 school year, when I talked with Bryant, Stanton’s teachers had visited 411 of the school’s 540 students. The school, which once was scheduled for closure because of its woeful performance, now has had another school merged into it. Of course, the charter partnership, the new teachers, and the other reforms had an impact, Bryant agrees, “but you don’t see your effort come to anything if you don’t have the families involved too.”

One drizzly Saturday morning, I joined Abbeygale Wright, a pre-kindergarten teacher at D.C.’s Eagle Academy charter school, and Josephine Mazyck, its family-engagement leader, for a visit with Edward and Maya Samuel and their son, Edmund, a shy toddler who eventually wandered off to play. After chatting about little league soccer and Edmund’s slowly growing confidence, Wright asked the Samuels what they thought of the school’s curriculum.

Maya Samuel was ready: She didn’t like the homework (“Homework, at three? Whoa?”), so Wright explained that it gets parents involved in the day’s lessons. She worried that Edmund was too young for field trips, so Wright explained, “If we don’t take them, the parents might not take them. Why start them off late when you can start them off early?”

Edward Samuel worried that a recent video, which included some rap lyrics, wasn’t appropriate; Wright agreed. He asked how he could volunteer his photography skills at school; Mazyck invited him to shoot an upcoming basketball tournament she was organizing.

At the end, I asked the Samuels what they got out of the hour. Maya mentioned better communication, but Edward cut to the larger point: “The kids see the parents and the teacher interacting. They see our relationship. They see we’re working together.”

An Investment in Families

There’s not much research on home visits, and what little there is can’t directly link home visits to learning outcomes. But in a study for the Flamboyan Foundation, Johns Hopkins University education professor Steven Sheldon compared 2,469 students who received home visits in the 2012–13 school year with a similar group of 2,239 students attending the same D.C. schools who weren’t visited. The visited children were absent 2.7 fewer days than the children who didn’t receive home visits, a 24 percent reduction in absences, Sheldon calculated.

Because research shows that children with better attendance are likely to be better readers, Sheldon also calculated that the odds of scoring proficient on D.C.’s reading-comprehension test were 1.55 times higher for students who received a home visit. Sheldon calls that a “small-to-moderate effect size,” and puts it in line with other well-constructed family-engagement interventions. He also cautions that the evidence isn’t “slam-dunk causal. You can’t say that getting a home visit leads to a reduction in absenteeism.”

Then why do them? I asked. Why not spend the money on, say, another reading teacher? Sheldon argued that a reading teacher might help some of a school’s children, but home visits are an investment in its families and community. “What goes on at home, all of that is part of the problem and all of it is part of the solution,” he said.

Certainly, some school leaders aren’t waiting for the slam dunk. Jennifer Thomas, principal of D.C.’s Hearst Elementary, told me about the “sizable” achievement gap between the 27 percent of Hearst’s students who live in the affluent, mainly white neighborhoods nearby and the out-of-boundary students, of whom most are African American and many are from low-income families.

The school’s plan to close the gap includes “engaging families academically,” she said, and home visits are part of that effort. Midway through the 2015–16 school year, Hearst teachers already had visited two-thirds of their families and were “strategizing” how to approach those parents she called “reluctant.”

I asked Thomas how she thought that sitting around the coffee table with a family could impact learning. “I don’t think you can quantify it and tie it to an assessment,” she conceded, but the visit “changes the dynamic.” Parents feel comfortable sharing information about traumas that might be haunting their children, she said. Children open up to a teacher who has seen their bedroom or patted their dog.

Tough conversations—as when a child is unruly or needs special-education testing—become easier. Even the affluent, laid-forward parents responded, she said: they call and ask for information rather than become accusatory when a rumor sweeps the carpool line.

Beyond that, she said, the visits help teachers differentiate their lessons based on what they learned about the kids. That differentiation—a hot concept in education these days—is one of the unexpected fruits of home visits, Harvard’s Mapp says. “We can get teachers the information they need to reach students individually,” she explained.

Teachers told me about assigning books on sports to soccer-crazy boys and drafting math problems about yardage and patterns to fashion-giddy girls.

More poignantly, Kamille Seward, a 2nd-grade teacher at Excel Academy Public Charter School in D.C.’s tough Anacostia neighborhood, told me how a visit to the chaotic home of a disruptive 2nd grader persuaded her to switch from disciplining the girl to “affirming” her with “positive attention.”

“It only takes one person to throw off an entire lesson,” Seward said. “As soon as I improved that relationship, things as a whole in my class started to improve.”

Acceptance and Resistance

By all appearances, the Parent/Teacher Home Visit Project enjoys an easy relationship with school leaders and school unions alike. The project is housed in the Sacramento school-district headquarters, and administers the home-visit budget for the district. The national teachers unions contribute to the project’s $700,000 budget and have representation on its advisory board, as do private donors. The local union manages the program in St. Paul, Minnesota. In D.C., the district’s central-office staffers shadowed teachers on a home-visit day, and Chancellor Kaya Henderson received a home visit from her child’s teacher.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t “oh my gosh, tons of resistance,” says Carrie Rose, the project’s executive director. Much of that resistance has arisen because the project is competing with so many other initiatives for money (a call by former education secretary Arne Duncan to double the amount districts must spend on family engagement never made it into law). But districts also worry about liability and safety, Rose says.

Parents may not trust the process: “There’s an immigration fear, a CPS [Child Protective Services] fear,” Jessica Ghalambor, a 7th-grade teacher at Sacramento’s Fern Bacon Middle School, told me. And teachers can feel that they’re imposing. “The call is the hardest: you’re inviting yourself over,” she added.

Beyond that, superintendents, principals, and their agendas change, says Rose. In Helena, Montana, and St. Paul, unions have written home visits into their contracts to prevent that happening.

One blindingly bright afternoon, I accompanied Ghalambor to the home of 8th grader Yoveli Rosas—Ghalambor’s student the previous year—along with Yoveli’s current teacher and a school counselor, who acted as translator with the girl’s Spanish-speaking mother.

Ghalambor said she was drawn to the girl “by her silence” the previous year—a child who was years behind in reading skills but too shy to reach. After that year’s home visit, “the transition in class was incredible,” Ghalambor said. “I know there’s no scientific basis, but the very next day you could see the change. I could tell she knew I cared.”

At this latest visit, the talk meandered from Christmas customs to pimples to bedtimes to Yoveli’s concerns about drugs in the neighborhood. The family’s pet chicks and pumpkins from the garden were passed around. Josefina Rosas, Yoveli’s mother, offered to bring tamales to the school’s Heritage Festival, and promised that her husband, a landscaper, would attend a meeting about the upcoming class trip to D.C.

Finally, Ghalambor asked about Rosas’s hopes and dreams for Yoveli. To go further in school than she and her husband had so Yoveli will “have more chances,” Rosas quickly answered. Yoveli, whose reading has improved but still lags, had a more immediate goal: to read a 300-page book. “You remember last year when you came, the bookshelf was half full?” she reminded Ghalambor gaily. “This year it’s overflowing.”

June Kronholz is a contributing editor at Education Next and a former Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent, bureau chief, and education reporter.

This article appeared in the Summer 2016 issue of Education Next . Suggested citation format:

Kronholz, J. (2016). Teacher Home Visits: School-family partnerships foster student success . Education Next , 16(3), 16-21.

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Summer 2024.

Vol. 24, No. 3

Special education teachers: A guide for families

By Amanda Morin

Expert reviewed by Kristen L. Hodnett, MS

At a glance

The role of special education teachers varies from school to school and from student to student.

Special education teachers and general education teachers work together in lots of ways.

They may run special education classrooms or co-teach in the general classroom.

If your child has an IEP , you may wonder what the special education teacher does that the general education teacher doesn’t do. Will the special education teacher work with your child one-on-one? Is this the person you can call when you have questions about your child’s IEP?

A special education teacher can fill many different roles. That role varies from school to school and from student to student. Here’s what you need to know about special education teachers.

Special education training

The training a special education teacher gets differs from state to state. It can even vary among school districts in the same state.

Most special education teachers have the same training that general education teachers have. But they also complete added coursework. These extra courses vary, based on the specialty a teacher pursues.

For example, some teachers want to teach kids with more than one disability. Their coursework will be different than that of teachers who want to teach kids with specific learning disabilities .

For more information about the different special education certification requirements in your state, check your state’s Department of Education website .

How special education teachers work with general education teachers

Special education teachers often work with general education teachers. General education teachers turn to special education teachers when they want to learn more about how learning and thinking differences impact students.

Special education teachers might also observe students in the classroom and do informal assessments of kids. That lets them see how things are going and think about what accommodations might help.

They also help figure out how to implement those accommodations. They help to create and track the data for behavior intervention and classroom management plans. And they might help general education teachers adapt lesson plans.

How special education teachers work with students

How a teacher works with students depends on the students’ needs and the way a school is set up.

In some districts, for example, teachers run special education classrooms. Two common examples of these are:

Resource rooms. Students come for instruction in certain subjects, like math or reading.

Self-contained classrooms. Students with similar learning needs spend the majority of their day in this type of room. Most kids who learn and think differently aren’t in self-contained classrooms, though. They spend most of their day in the general education classroom.

Special education teachers may also co-teach in the general education classroom. They help all students, but especially kids who need extra support. That goes for kids who are and aren’t identified with learning and thinking differences.

Here are some other ways a special education teacher might work with students:

Giving support in the general education setting.

Providing “pull-out” services in small groups or one-on-one.

Keeping track of progress toward IEP goals .

In some rural school districts, there may not be a special education teacher in the building full-time. Sometimes teachers work in more than one school.

In that case, there are often paraprofessionals who support kids’ learning. (They’re sometimes known as aides.) They follow a special education teacher’s lesson plan and work under the teacher’s supervision.

Partnering with special education teachers

Most special education teachers have training in how to teach specific subjects to different kinds of learners. That includes everything from reading to science to math. They may also learn how to plan lessons using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and assistive technology .

But teacher-preparation programs don’t all include training in things like reading programs for struggling readers. That may be something a teacher has to learn at professional development training. If you’re not sure about the training your child’s teacher has, it’s OK to ask. Having an open dialogue can help build a strong partnership.

As you learn more about the teacher, share information about your child. Talk about strengths and challenges, as well as strategies that work at home. You can even share a 3×3 card to help teachers get to know your child . Find out how well your child’s supports and services are working . And ask what you can do at home to support your child.

Key takeaways

The training a special education teacher gets varies from state to state, and even district by district.

Special education teachers often work with general education teachers.

Partnering with the special education teacher can help you both make sure your child is getting the right support.

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Questions Often Asked by Parents about Special Education Services

En español | In Spanish

Read This Publication If You Want to Know…

• How to have your child evaluated (at no cost to you) to see why he or she is having difficulty in school
• What the evaluation process involves and how you can contribute to it
• How special education can support your child’s learning, if he or she is found eligible for services
• How your child’s eligibility is determined and your right to participate in making that decision
• What happens next, if your child is found eligible
• Hint: It involves writing an individualized education program, or IEP, for your child…

Introduction

1. Why is my child struggling in school?

When children are struggling in school, it’s important to find out why. It may be that a disability is affecting your child’s educational performance. If so, your child may be eligible for special education and related services that can help. To learn more about special education, keep reading. This publication will help you learn how you and the school can work together to help your child.

As a first step, the school may need to try sufficient interventions in the regular education classroom and modify instructional practices before referring your child for special education evaluation.

Back to top

2. What is special education?

Special education is instruction that is specially designed to meet the unique needs of children who have disabilities. Special education and related services are provided in public schools at no cost to the parents and can include special instruction in the classroom, at home, in hospitals or institutions, or in other settings. This definition of special education comes from IDEA , the   Individuals with Disabilities Education Act . This law gives eligible children with disabilities the right to receive special services and assistance in school.

More than 6.8 million children ages 3 through 21 receive special education and related services each year in the United States. Each of these children receives instruction that is specially designed:

• to meet his or her unique needs (that result from having a disability); and
• to help the child learn the information and skills that other children are learning in the general education curriculum.

3. Who is eligible for special education?

Children with disabilities are eligible for special education and related services when they meet IDEA’s definition of a “child with a disability” in combination with state and local policies. IDEA’s definition of a “child with a disability” lists 13 different disability categories under which a child may be found eligible for special education and related services. These categories are listed below. IDEA describes what each of these disability categories means. You’ll find those descriptions online at: https://www.parentcenterhub.org/categories/

________________________________

IDEA’s Categories of Disability

Deaf-blindness

Hearing impairment

Intellectual disabilities

Multiple disabilities

Orthopedic impairment

Other health impairment

Serious emotional disturbance

Specific learning disability

Speech or language impairment

Traumatic brain injury

Visual impairment, including blindness

States and school districts must follow IDEA’s definitions, but they also may add details to guide decision making about children’s eligibility. That’s why it’s important to know what your state and local policies are. We’ll tell you how to find out that information in this article.

Services to Very Young Children

Infants and toddlers can have disabilities, too. Services to children under three years of age are also part of IDEA. These services are called early intervention services  and can be very important in helping young children develop and learn. For information about early intervention, visit this overview: https://www.parentcenterhub.org/ ei-overview/ 

4. How do I find out if my child is eligible?

You can ask the school to evaluate your child. Call or write the director of special education or the principal of your child’s school. Describe your concerns with your child’s educational performance and request an evaluation under IDEA, to see if a disability is involved.

The public school may also be concerned about how your child is learning and developing. If the school thinks that your child may have a disability, then it must evaluate your child at no cost to you . The school must ask your permission and receive your written consent before it may evaluate your child. Once you provide that consent, the evaluation must be conducted within 60 days (or within the timeframe the state has established).

However, the school does not have to evaluate your child just because you have asked. The school may not think your child has a disability or needs special education. In this case, the school may refuse to evaluate your child. It must let you know this decision in writing, as well as why it has refused. This is called giving you prior written notice . (For more information about prior written notice, see Q&A on Parent Participation , available online at: https://www.parentcenterhub.org/qa2

If the school refuses to evaluate your child, there are two things you can do immediately:

Ask the school system for information about its special education policies, as well as parent rights to disagree with decisions made by the school system. These materials should describe the steps parents can take to appeal a school system’s decision.

Get in touch with your state’s Parent Training and Information (PTI) center. The PTI is an excellent resource for parents to learn more about special education, their rights and responsibilities, and the law. The PTI can tell you what steps to take next to find help for your child. To identify your PTI, visit Find Your Parent Center , at: https://www.parentcenterhub.org/find-your-center

Part 1: The Evaluation Process

5. what happens during an evaluation.

Evaluating your child means more than the school just giving your child a test. The school must evaluate your child in all the areas where your child may be affected by the possible disability. This may include looking at your child’s health, vision, hearing, social and emotional well-being, general intelligence, performance in school, and how well your child communicates with others and uses his or her body. The evaluation must be individualized (just your child) and full and comprehensive enough to determine if your child has a disability and to identify all of your child’s needs for special education and related services if it is determined that your child has a disability.

The evaluation process involves several steps. These are listed below.

A | Reviewing existing information A team of people, including you, begins by looking at the information the school already has about your child. You may have information about your child you wish to share as well. The team will look at information such as:

• your child’s scores on tests given in the classroom or to all students in your child’s grade;
• the opinions and observations of your child’s teachers and other school staff who know your child; and
• your feelings, concerns, and ideas about how your child is doing in school.

B | Deciding if more information is still needed The information collected above will help the group decide:

• if your son or daughter has a particular type of disability;
• how your child is currently doing in school;
• whether your child needs special education and related services; and
• what your child’s educational needs are.

If the information the team collects doesn’t answer these questions, then the school must collect more information about your child.

C | Collecting more information about your child Your informed written permission is required before the school may collect additional information about your son or daughter. The school must also describe how it will collect the information. This includes describing the tests that will be used and the other ways the school will gather information about your child. After you give your consent, the school will go ahead as described. The information it gathers will give the evaluation team the information it needs to make the types of decisions listed above.

6. How does the school collect this information?

The school collects information about your child from many different people and in many different ways. Tests are an important part of an evaluation, but they are only a part. The evaluation should also include:

• the observations and opinions of professionals who have worked with your child;
• your child’s medical history, when it relates to his or her performance in school; and
• your ideas about your child’s school experiences, abilities, needs, and behavior outside of school, and his or her feelings about school.

The following people will be part of the team evaluating your child:

You, as parents;

At least one regular education teacher, if your child is or may be participating in the regular educational environment;

At least one of your child’s special education teachers or service providers;

A school administrator who knows about policies for special education, about children with disabilities, about the general education curriculum (the curriculum used by students who do not have disabilities), and about available resources;

Someone who can interpret the evaluation results and talk about what instruction may be necessary for your child;

Individuals (invited by you or the school) who have knowledge or special expertise about your child;

Your child, if appropriate;

Representatives from any other agencies that may be responsible for paying for or providing transition services (if your child is age 16 or, if appropriate, younger and will be planning for life after high school); and

Other qualified professionals.

These other qualified professionals may be responsible for collecting specific kinds of information about your child. They may include:

• a school psychologist and/or an occupational therapist;
• a speech and language pathologist (sometimes called a speech therapist);
• a physical therapist and/or adaptive physical education therapist or teacher;
• a medical specialist; and

Professionals will observe your child. They may give your child written tests or talk personally with your child. They are trying to get a picture of the “whole child.” For example, they want to understand such aspects as:

• how well your child speaks and understands language;
• how your child thinks and behaves;
• how well your child adapts to changes in his or her environment;
• how well your child has done academically;
• how well your child functions in a number of areas, such as moving, thinking, learning, seeing, and hearing; and
• your child’s job-related and other post-school interests and abilities.

IDEA gives clear directions about how schools must conduct evaluations. For example, tests and interviews must be given in the language (for example, Spanish, sign language) or communication mode (for example, Braille, using a picture board or an alternative augmentative communication device) that is most likely to yield accurate information about what your child knows or can do developmentally, functionally, and academically. The tests must also be given in a way that does not discriminate against your child because he or she has a disability or is from a different racial or cultural background.

IDEA states that schools may not decide a child’s eligibility for special education based on the results of only one procedure such as a test or an observation. More than one procedure is needed to see where your child may be having difficulty and to identify his or her strengths and needs.

In some cases, schools will be able to conduct a child’s entire evaluation within the school. In other cases, schools may not have the staff to do all of the evaluations needed. These schools will have to hire outside people or agencies to do some or all of the evaluation. If your child is evaluated outside of the school, the school must make the arrangements. The school will say in writing exactly what type of testing is to be done. All of these evaluation procedures are done at no cost to parents.

In some cases, once the evaluation has begun, the outside specialist may ask to do more testing. Make sure you tell the specialist to contact the school. If the testing is going beyond what the school originally asked for, the school needs to agree to pay for the extra testing.

Part II: Deciding Eligibility

7. what does the school do with these evaluation results.

The information gathered from the evaluation will be used to make important decisions about your child’s education. All of the information about your child will be used:

• to decide if your child is eligible for special education and related services; and
• to help you and the school decide what your child needs educationally.

8. How is my child’s eligibility for special education decided?

As was said earlier, the decision about your child’s eligibility for services is based on whether your son or daughter has a disability that fits into one of the IDEA’s 13 disability categories (see question #3) and meets any additional state or local criteria for eligibility. This decision will be made when the evaluation has been completed, and the results are available.

Parents are part of the team that decides a child’s eligibility for special education. This team will look at all of the information gathered during the evaluation and decide if your child meets the definition of a “child with a disability.” If so, your child will be eligible for special education and related services.

Under IDEA, a child may not be found eligible for services if the determining reason for thinking the child is eligible is that:

• the child has limited English proficiency, or
• the child has not had appropriate instruction in math or reading.

If your child is found eligible, you and the school will work together to design an individualized education program for your child. This process is described in detail in Part III.

The school will give you a copy of the evaluation report on your child and the paperwork about your child’s eligibility for special education and related services. This documentation is provided at no cost to you.

9. What happens if my child is not eligible for special education?

If the eligibility team decides that your child is not eligible for special education, the school system must tell you this in writing and explain why your child has been found “not eligible.” Under IDEA, you must also be given information about what you can do if you disagree with this decision.

Read the information the school system gives you. Make sure it includes information about how to appeal the school system’s decision. If that information is not in the materials the school gives you, ask the school for it. IDEA includes many different mechanisms for resolving disagreements, including Mediation . The school is required to tell you what those mechanisms are and how to use them.

Also get in touch with your state’s Parent Training and Information (PTI) center. The PTI can tell you what steps to take next. Visit Find Your Parent Center , at: https://www.parentcenterhub.org/find-your-center

10. What happens if my child is found eligible for special education, but I do not agree?

If your child is found eligible for special education and related services and you disagree with that decision, or if you do not want your child to receive special education and related services, you have the right to decline these services for your child. The school may provide your child with special education and related services only if you agree. Also, you may cancel special education and related services for your child at any time.

It is important to note, however, that if you decline or cancel special education for your child and later change your mind, the evaluation process must be repeated.

Part III: Writing and Implementing an IEP

11. so my child has been found eligible for special education, and i agree. what’s next.

The next step is to write and implement what is known as an Individualized Education Program —usually called an IEP. After a child is found eligible, a meeting must be held within 30 days to develop to the IEP.

12. What’s an IEP?

The acronym IEP stands for Individualized Education Program. This is a written document that describes the educational program designed to meet a child’s individual needs. Every child who receives special education must have an IEP.

The IEP has two general purposes: (1) to set learning goals for your child; and (2) to state the supports and services that the school district will provide for your child.

13. What type of information is included in an IEP?

According to IDEA, your child’s IEP must include specific statements. These are listed  below between the lines. Take a moment to read over this list.

__________________________

What Information is in Your Child’s IEP?

Your child’s IEP will contain the following statements:

Present levels of academic achievement and functional performance. This statement describes how your child is currently achieving in school. This includes how your child’s disability affects his or her participation and progress in the general education curriculum.

Annual goals. The IEP must state annual goals for your child, what you and the school team think he or she can reasonably accomplish in a year. The goals must relate to meeting the needs that result from your child’s disability. They must also help your son or daughter participate in and progress in the general education curriculum.

Special education and related services to be provided. The IEP must list the special education and related services to be provided to your child. This includes supplementary aids and services (e.g., preferential seating, a communication device, one-on-one tutor) that can increase your child’s access to learning and his or her participation in school activities. It also includes changes to the program or supports for school personnel that will be provided for your child.

Participation with children without disabilities. The IEP must include an explanation that answers this question: How much of the school day will your child be educated separately from children without disabilities or not participate in extracurricular or other nonacademic activities such as lunch or clubs?

Dates and location. The IEP must state (a) when special education and related and supplementary aids and services will begin; (b) how often they will be provided; (c) where they will be provided; and (d) how long they will last.

Participation in state and district-wide assessments. Your state and district probably give tests of student achievement to children in certain grades or age groups. In order to participate in these tests, your child may need individual accommodations or changes in how the tests are administered. The IEP team must decide what accommodations your child needs and list them in the IEP. If your child will not be taking these tests, the IEP must include a statement as to why the tests are not appropriate for your child, how your child will be tested instead, and why the alternate assessment selected is appropriate for your child.

Transition services. By the time your child is 16 (or younger, if the IEP team finds it appropriate for your child), the IEP must include measurable postsecondary goals related to your child’s training, education, employment, and (when appropriate) independent living skills. The IEP must also include the transition services needed to help your child reach those goals, including what your child should study.

Measuring progress. The IEP must state how school personnel will measure your child’s progress toward the annual goals. It must also state when it will give you periodic reports on your child’s progress.

It is very important that children who receive special education participate in the general education curriculum as much as possible. That is, they should learn the same curriculum as children without disabilities—for example, reading, math, science, social studies, and physical education. In some cases, this curriculum may need to be adapted for your child to learn, but it should not be omitted. Participation in extracurricular activities and other nonacademic activities is also important. Your child’s IEP needs to be written with this in mind.

For example, what special education and related services will help your child participate in the general education curriculum—in other words, to study what other students are studying? What special education, related services, or supports will help your child take part in extracurricular activities such as school clubs or sports? When your child’s IEP is developed, an important part of the discussion will be how to support your child in regular education classes and activities in the school.

14. Who develops my child’s IEP?

Many people come together to develop your child’s IEP. This group is called the IEP team and includes most of the same types of individuals who were involved in your child’s evaluation. Team members will include:

You, the parents

At least one regular education teacher , if your child is (or may be) participating in the regular education environment

At least one of your child’s special education teachers or special education providers

A representative of the sch   ool system who (a) is qualified to provide or supervise the provision of special education, (b) knows about the general education curriculum; and (c) knows about the resources the school system has available

An individual who can interpret the evaluatio n results and talk about what instruction may be necessary for your child

Your child , when appropriate

Other individuals (invited by you or the school) who have knowledge or special expertise about your child. For example, you may wish to invite a relative who is close to your child or a child care provider. The school may wish to invite a related services provider such as a speech therapist or a physical therapist.

With your consent, the school must also invite representatives from any other agencies that are likely to be responsible for paying for or providing transition services (if your child is 16 years old or, if appropriate, younger).

15. So I can help develop my child’s IEP?

Yes, absolutely. The law is very clear that parents have the right to participate in developing their child’s IEP. In fact, your input is invaluable. You know your child so very well, and the school needs to know your insights and concerns. That’s why IDEA makes parents equal members on the IEP team. (See Q&A on Parent Participation , available online at: https://www.parentcenterhub.org/qa2

The school staff will try to schedule the IEP meeting at a time that is convenient for all team members to attend. If the school suggests a time that is impossible for you, explain your schedule and needs. It’s important that you attend this meeting and share your ideas about your child’s needs and strengths. Often, another time or date can be arranged.

16. Can the meeting be held without the parents participating?

Yes. IDEA’s regulations state that the school may hold the IEP meeting without you if it is unable to convince you that you, as parents, should attend. If neither parent can attend the IEP meeting, the school must use other methods to ensure your participation, including video conferences and individual or conference telephone calls.

If, however, you still can’t attend or participate in the IEP meeting, the school may hold the IEP meeting without you—as long as it keeps a record of its efforts to arrange a mutually agreed-on time and place and the results of those efforts. This can be accomplished by keeping detailed records of:

• telephone calls made or attempted and the results of those calls;
• copies of correspondence sent to you and any responses received; and
• detailed records of visits made to your home or work and the results of those visits.

If the school does hold the meeting without you, it must keep you informed about the meeting and any decisions made there. The school must also ask for (and receive) your written permission before special education and related services may be provided to your child for the first time.

17. What should I do before the IEP meeting?

The purpose of the IEP meeting is to develop your child’s Individualized Education Program. You can prepare for this meeting by:

• making a list of your child’s strengths and needs;
• talking to teachers and/or therapists and getting their thoughts about your child;
• visiting your child’s class and perhaps other classes that may be helpful to him or her; and
• talking to your child about his or her feelings toward school.

It is a good idea to write down what you think your child can accomplish during the school year. Look at your state’s standards for your child’s grade level. It also helps to make notes about what you would like to say during the meeting.

18. What happens during an IEP meeting?

During the IEP meeting, the different members of the IEP team share their thoughts and suggestions. If this is the first IEP meeting after your child’s evaluation, the team may go over the evaluation results, so your child’s strengths and needs will be clear. These results will help the team decide what special help your child needs in school.

Remember that you are a very important part of the IEP team. You know your child. Don’t be shy about speaking up, even though there may be many people at the meeting. Share what you know about your child and what you would like others to know.

After the various team members (including you, the parent) have shared their thoughts and concerns, the group will have a better idea of your child’s strengths and needs. This will allow the team to discuss and decide:

• the educational and other goals that are appropriate for your child; and
• the type of special education services your child needs.

The IEP team will also talk about the related services your child may need to benefit from his or her special education. The IDEA lists many related services that schools must provide if eligible children need them. Examples of related services include:

• occupational therapy, which can help a child develop or regain movement that he or she may have lost due to injury or illness; and
• speech and language services, which can help children who have trouble speaking.

______________________________

IDEA’s List of Related Services

Counseling services (including rehabilitation counseling)

Early identification and assessment of disabilities in children

Interpreting services

Medical services for diagnostic or evaluation purposes

Occupational therapy

Orientation & mobility services

Parent counseling and training

Physical therapy

Psychological services

Recreation (including therapeutic recreation)

Speech-language pathology services

School health services and school nurse services

Social work services in schools

Transportation

____________________

This list does not include every related service a child might need or that a school system may offer. To learn more about these related services and how IDEA defines them, read this discussion of Related Services, available online at: https://www.parentcenterhub.org/iep-relatedservices/

Supplementary aids and services can also play a pivotal role in supporting the education of children with disabilities in the general education classroom and their participation in a range of other school activities. That is also the intent of supplementary aids and services. Not surprisingly, these supports may be an important topic to discuss in the IEP meeting. Examples include but are not limited to:

• Supports to address your child’s environmental needs (e.g., preferential seating; altered physical room arrangement);
• Levels of staff support needed (e.g., type of personnel support needed, such as behavior specialist, health care assistant, or instructional support assistant);
• Specialized equipment needs that your child may have (e.g., wheelchair, computer, augmentative communication device);
• Pacing of instruction needed (e.g., breaks, more time, home set of materials);
• Presentation of subject matter needed (e.g., taped lectures, sign language, primary language); and
• Assignment modification needed (e.g., shorter assignments, taped lessons, instructions broken down into steps).

Deciding which supplementary aids and services (if any) will support your child’s access to the general education curriculum and participation in school activities will very much depend upon your child’s disability and his or her needs. None may be needed. Or many. All are intended to enable your child to be educated with children without disabilities to the maximum extent appropriate.

Special factors. Depending on the needs of your child, the IEP team must also discuss these special factors:

• If your child’s behavior interferes with his or her learning or the learning of others: The IEP team will talk about strategies and supports to address your child’s behavior.
• If your child has limited proficiency in English : The IEP team will talk about your child’s language needs as these needs relate to his or her IEP.
• If your child is blind or visually impaired : The IEP team must provide for instruction in Braille or the use of Braille, unless it determines after an appropriate evaluation that your child does not need this instruction.
• If your child has communication needs : The IEP team must consider those needs.
• If your child is deaf or hard of hearing : The IEP team will consider your child’s language and communication needs. This includes your child’s opportunities to communicate directly with classmates and school staff in his or her usual method of communication (for example, sign language).

Assistive technology. The IEP team will also talk about whether your child needs any assistive technology devices or services. Assistive technology devices can help many children do certain activities. Examples include:

• adapted furniture, tools, utensils, and other typically nonelectronic devices—which can help children with physical challenges; and
• digital books, or devices that enlarge words on a computer screen or read them aloud—which can help children who do not see or read well.

Assistive technology services include evaluating your child to see if he or she could benefit from using an assistive device. These services also include providing the device and training your child to use it. If appropriate, your family and/or the professionals who work with your child may also receiving training in using the device.

To learn more about AT Visit the Center on Technology and Disability at  http://ctdinstitute.org/

Transition services. You may have noticed that one of the components of the IEP was transition services. We’d like to look more closely at this component now, because it’s a very important time in your child’s life—and an important part of the IEP when the time comes. Beginning when your child is age 16 (or younger, if appropriate), the IEP team will help your son or daughter plan ahead to life after high school and include statements in the IEP with respect to:

• postsecondary annual goals for your child;
• the transition services (including courses of study) needed to help your child reach those goals; and
• the rights (if any) that will transfer from you to your child when he or she reaches the age of majority, and that your child and you have been notified of these.

IDEA defines transition services as a coordinated set of activities for a student with a disability that is designed within a results-oriented process focused on improving the student’s academic and functional achievement and promoting the student’s movement from school to post-school activities. These activities can include postsecondary education, vocational education, integrated employment (including supported employment), continuing and adult education, adult services, independent living, or community participation. With respect to your child, this coordinated set of activities:

• is based on your child’s individual needs, taking into account his or her strengths, preferences, and interests; and
• includes instruction; related services; community experiences; the development of employment and other post-school adult living objectives; and, if appropriate, the acquisition of daily living skills and functional vocational evaluation.

Transition services can be provided as special education if they are specially designed instruction or as a related service, if they are required for your child to benefit from special education.

To learn more about transition planning Visit the National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center www.nsttac.org/

As you can see, there are a lot of important matters to talk about in an IEP meeting. You may feel very emotional during the meeting, as everyone talks about your child’s needs. Try to keep in mind that the other team members are all there to help your child. If you hear something about your child that surprises you, or that is different from the way you see your child, bring it to the attention of the other members of the team. In order to design a good program for your child, it is important for you to work closely with the other team members and share your feelings about your child’s educational needs. Feel free to ask questions and offer opinions and suggestions.

Based on the above discussions, the IEP team will then write your child’s IEP. This includes the services and supports the school will provide for your child. It will also include the location where particular services will be provided. Your child’s placement (where the IEP will be carried out) will be determined every year, must be based on your child’s IEP, and must be as close as possible to your child’s home. The placement decision is made by a group of persons, including you, the parent, and others knowledgeable about your child, the meaning of the evaluation data, and the placement options. In some states, the IEP team makes the placement decision. In other states, the placement decision is made by another group of people. In all cases, you as parents have the right to be members of the group that makes decisions on the educational placement of your child.

Depending on the needs of your child and the services to be provided, your child’s IEP could be carried out:

• in regular education classes;
• in special classes (where all the students are receiving special education services);
• in special schools;
• in hospitals and institutions; and
• in other settings.

Which of these placements is most appropriate for your child? IDEA strongly prefers that children with disabilities be educated in the general education classroom, working and learning alongside their peers without disabilities. In fact, placement in the regular education classroom is the first option the IEP team should consider. With the support of supplementary aids and services, can your child be educated satisfactorily in that setting? If so, then the regular education classroom is your child’s appropriate placement. If not, then the group deciding placement will look at other placements for your child.

19. Does the school need my consent to implement the IEP?

Yes , the school must obtain your informed written consent before the initial provision of special education and related services to your child and must make reasonable efforts to obtain that consent.

If you don’t respond to the request for consent for the initial provision of special education and related services, or you refuse to give consent, the school system may not override your lack of consent and implement the IEP. The school system is not considered in violation of its requirement to make a free appropriate public education available to your child. Your lack of consent, however, means that your child will not receive special education and related services in school.

20. May I revoke my consent for special education and related services after initially giving it?

Yes. At any time after providing initial consent, you may revoke consent, in writing, for the continued provision of special education and related services. Once you revoke consent, the school system may no longer provide special education and related services to your child, and they may not use mediation or due process procedures to try to override your revocation of consent.

Once you revoke consent, your child will be no longer receive the services and supports that were included in his or her IEP. Additionally, there are also a number of other consequences that may arise, such as how your child may be disciplined.

Therefore, it is important for you to ask questions about how your child’s education will be affected before revoking consent.

21. Can my child’s IEP be changed?

Yes. At least once a year a meeting must be scheduled with you to review your child’s progress and develop your child’s new annual IEP. But you don’t have to wait for this annual review. You (or any other team member) may ask to have your child’s IEP reviewed or revised at any time.

The meeting to revise the IEP will be similar to the IEP meeting described above. The team will talk about:

• your child’s progress toward the goals in the current IEP;
• what new goals should be added; and
• whether any changes need to be made to the special education and related services your child receives.

This annual IEP meeting—or any periodic IEP review you might request—allows you and the school to review your child’s educational program and change it as necessary.

22. Can the IEP be changed without holding an IEP meeting?

Yes. If you and the school want to change your child’s IEP after the annual IEP meeting, you and the school may agree not to convene an IEP meeting. Instead, you and the school will develop a written document that will amend your child’s IEP. If your child’s IEP is changed, all IEP team members will be informed of the changes, and if you request it, the school must give you a copy of the revised IEP.

23. Does the IEP meeting have to be in person?

No. When holding an IEP meeting, you and the school may agree to use other means of participation. For example, some members may participate by video conference or conferences calls.

24. May a team member be excused from attending an IEP meeting?

Yes , under certain circumstances and only with the consent of both the school system and the parent. If the member’s area of the curriculum or related service is not going to be discussed or modified at the meeting, then he or she may be excused if you, as parents, and the school system agree in writing. A member whose area of expertise is going to discussed or changed at the meeting may be excused—under two conditions:

• You (in writing) and the school agree to excuse the member; and
• The member gives written input about developing the IEP to you and the team before the meeting.

Part IV: Re-Evaluation

25. will my child be re-evaluated.

Yes . Under IDEA, your child must be reevaluated at least every three years, unless you and the school agree that a reevaluation is not necessary. The purpose of this reevaluation is to find out:

• if your child continues to be a “child with a disability,” as defined within the law; and
• your child’s educational needs.

The reevaluation is similar to the initial evaluation. It begins by looking at the information already available about your child. More information is collected only if the IEP team determines that more information is needed or if you request it. If the group decides that additional assessments are needed, you must give your informed written permission before the school system may collect that information. The school system may only go ahead without your informed written permission if they have tried to get your permission and you did not respond.

Although the law requires that children with disabilities be re-evaluated at least every three years, your child may be re-evaluated more often if you or your child’s teacher(s) request it. However, reevaluations may not occur more than once a year, unless you and the school system agree that a reevaluation is needed.

Part V: Resolving Disputes

26. what if i disagree with the school about what is right for my child.

You have the right to disagree with the school’s decisions concerning your child. This includes decisions about:

• your child’s identification as a “child with a disability;”
• his or her evaluation;
• his or her educational placement; and
• the special education and related services that the school provides to your child.

In all cases where the family and school disagree, it is important for both sides to first discuss their concerns and try to reach consensus. Decisions can be temporary. For example, you might agree to try out a particular plan of instruction or classroom placement for a certain period of time. At the end of that period, the school can check your child’s progress. You and other members of your child’s IEP team can then meet again, talk about how your child is doing, and decide what to do next. The trial period may help you and the school come to a comfortable agreement on how to help your child.

If you still cannot agree with the school, it’s useful to know more about IDEA’s protections for parents and children. The law and its regulations include ways for parents and schools to resolve disagreements. These include mediation, due process, and filing a complaint with the state educational agency. You also have the right to refuse consent for initial provision of special education and related services, or to cancel all special education and related services for your child without using mediation, due process, or filing a complaint.

There’s a lot to know about each of these vehicles for resolving disputes. If you’d like to learn more:

Read more in  Resolving Disputes https://www.parentcenterhub.org/disputes

Visit the CADRE , the National Center for Dispute Resolution www.directionservice.org/cadre

You may also call the PTI center in your state. We’ve mentioned the PTI several times in this publication. PTIs are an excellent resource for parents to learn about special education. Find yours at: https://www.parentcenterhub.org/find-your-center

Always remember that you and the school will be making decisions together about your child’s education for as long as your child goes to that school and continues to be eligible for special education and related services. A good working relationship with school staff is important now and in the future. Therefore, when disagreements arise, try to work them out within the IEP team before filing a complaint or requesting mediation or due process. Both you and the school want success for your child, and working together can make this happen.

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Links updated, April 2019

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Would You Allow Your Child's Teacher to Do a Home Visit?

By Crimson Wife , September 18, 2012 in Parents' Forum Afterschooling Board

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Would You Allow Your Child's Teacher to Do a Home Visit   2 members have voted

1. would you allow your child's teacher to do a home visit.

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Crimson wife.

My youngest DD is in an autism class at a special ed preschool. Yesterday, her teacher (whom I really like) sent home a permission slip asking to set up a home visit.

My older two children's virtual charter teacher does visit our home once per month and I'm not thrilled about it but I can understand the reasoning behind those visits (the charter needs to ensure that my kids are actually using the materials that it has purchased for them and making satisfactory progress). At the end of the day, I'm getting hundreds of dollars of funding per semester so I can put up with the intrusion of having the teacher come to our home.

But given that my youngest child is a full-time student in a B&M classroom, I really don't feel that that her teacher has any business doing a home visit. However, I'm concerned that not giving the permission might raise some red flag, like I have something to hide. I obviously don't, I just think it's unnecessarily intrusive.

Would you allow your child's teacher to do a home visit?

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Share on other sites, lang syne boardie.

I've never been in this situation myself, but whenever the topic comes up I always have the same thought:

If I wouldn't trust her in my home, I would not trust her to teach and care for my child all day. So yes, if I sent my child to school, I would welcome my child's teacher into my home.

I said Yes... but

I would be a lot more willing to let them into my house if they gave me an option. If I felt that I was required to do so, I wouldn't be too happy.

I think how I feel about it would also depend on the teacher. If I am in good terms with her, I would be inclined to have her visit. I generally don't do well when I am ordered to do things (personality flaw) but when my kids are involved I try to only consider the impact the decision is going to have on them.

When my daughter was in kindergarten. She had a small class (it was a private school) and at the beginning of the year she visited all the homes of her students. It was nice.

I voted no. They would need to convince me WHY they needed to visit my home before I would consider it. There would need to be a real benefit for my kid before I would have the teacher visit my home.

eloquacious

I've been the teacher doing home visits. I found that the families that I was able to speak with wound up being some of my most productive co-operation opportunities. In inner-city Baltimore, that's saying a lot.

When I was in school, some classroom teachers visited each family at home. It was nice.

I do not see any reason why I should not meet with the teacher in my home. To me, this shows that he has an interest and makes the effort to create uninterrupted time; also, seeing a child's home environment might help the teacher understand better if the kid faces any unique challenges.

Why are people against having a teacher visit the home? I don't understand the reasoning. (I'd much rather they come here than me having to go to the school)

And I agree with pp: if I don't trust the teacher to enter my home, how can I trust the teacher to be with my kid all day?

Yes. I would say the only "flag" here is that Princess Persimmon's teacher is totally awesome! Home visits are an enormous (usually unpaid) thing for a teacher to do. They can also be incredibly beneficial for everyone involved.

I bet she might be looking for things like: What is this child dealing with at home? Is there opportunity for a quiet space? Is there an opportunity for gross motor activity (are there bouncy balls, etc.)? She's probably also trying to get a feel for herself of what Princess Persimmon is dealing with in terms of SEL.

I've only gone one a handful of home visits myself, but one of them was in East Palo Alto. When the front door opened I was totally shocked because there was no furniture in the entire space. The grandmother was sitting on the bare floor weaving a Polynesian matt. This was very enlightening to me.

Not to geek out on you, but didn't Anne do home visits in Anne of Windy Poplars by LM Montgomery?

This is how I'm feeling. I like DD's teacher. I trust her to be around my DD for 5 hours per day. I just feel like it's a boundaries thing. I wouldn't expect to be invited into HER home, though I would consider it a nice gesture if she asked.

QuirkyKapers

Is the teacher visiting other families as well?

I've done home visits as a teacher. I think they're beneficial for two reasons. The first is that often special needs students, especially, react differently at home than in school. So a child who is almost non-verbal in a group setting will end up being a little chatterbox when they have the teacher at home 1-1 with their parents and siblings and where they feel safe. And often that carries over into the classroom.

The second (which doesn't apply to you, but did to many of my inner city parents)is that many parents have had really, really bad experiences in a school setting and are downright anxious from the second they get there to the second they step off campus. When a parent is so anxious and unhappy in that setting themselves, it's really hard for them to focus on their child and on giving the teacher information that helps their child. By coming TO the parent, in a situation where they are in control, it helps the parent relax and feel comfortable. I also had some parents who had other children or elderly parents who they couldn't easily leave to come to school, and coming to them let them be involved in their child's education. They WANTED to be involved-they just couldn't physically come to the building. FWIW, I've done parent conferences at a table at McDonald's during a parent's 30 minute break, too.

In all cases, home visits have been an option, not a requirement, and we didn't look down on parents who didn't want a home visit in the slightest. But they really were helpful when we were allowed to do them-during the time I taught it went from being encouraged and actively funded to "don't you even THINK about it-leave that to the social workers and truancy officers"-which leaves out the just having a casual chat with parents who can't make it to parent conference night or letting a 6 yr old show her artwork and bedroom off proudly to her teacher.

Ugh, what a horrible decision, and it's horrible that you feel that you HAVE to. I hate intimidation that comes with all of that. :grouphug:

I did home visits as a teacher because it was a requirement in our school district. At first I felt very uncomfortable with the idea since it felt like a direct invasion of people's privacy. The parents were able to opt out (no one ever did), however a teacher could not, so at least I knew that if someone was really against the idea they would just decline the invitation. Looking back I see they were a great way to create a foundation for many successful relationships. I never went with the intent of checking up on anything, my only purpose was to get to know the students and their families. It was one of the few times I was able to visit with each family, without interruption. Throughout the year I would see various family members at school functions and conferences, but there was always a lot going on and those few instances would not have given us much of a chance to develop our relationships. Throughout the year I often referenced some of the topics we discussed during that first conversation (i.e How's grandma doing? How is _______ doing in football?) I always had a point of conversation with each parent and they were genuienly pleased that I made an effort to take an interest in their lives (and their childrens') outside of school.

I also found that the parents I met ahead of time were a lot more likely to work together with me on discipline issues. Since they had met me outside of school and began to see that I really did care about their child's success, they were much more willing to work as a team rather then get defensive.

Plus I just loved getting to see the look of excitement on the student's faces. They were always so surprised to see me outside of the school building. I'm pretty sure they thought I had a bed hiding under my desk :)

With that said I would never have been offended if someone did decline the visit. I would have completely understood their need for privacy and it would not have raised any red flags for me. We were required to provide a reason if we didnt do the visit, but "family declined invitation" was more than enough of a reason and it was never investigated further.

Nope no never no not gonna happen. I am a private person and I don't want people over unless I choose them. Period.

In The Great White North

It is standard in Waldorf schools. It allows the teacher to get to know the child and the family better, and allows the child to get to know the teacher before school even starts. (It's ideally done in the late summer before 1st grade.)

I might have problems with it if it were an annual, inspection-like, mandatory thing in a public school. In these days of mandatory reporting, I would be even less likely to be comfortable with it.

I just remembered that for my last two years of teaching I used to invite all of the parents into my home for a "parent party" in Fall. The tables were turned on me! Everyone had big fancy homes and we had a modest condo.

I would be uncomfortable but I voted yes.

I would recognize that my feelings were just personal to me, and that there was nothing inherently bad about the situation. And I think that when teachers are more integrated into the community and know more families that's a good thing. I would also consider that if I ran into a problem down the line, I would have a more personal relationship with her. People's nature is to try harder with others they know personally.

The first is that often special needs students, especially, react differently at home than in school. So a child who is almost non-verbal in a group setting will end up being a little chatterbox when they have the teacher at home 1-1 with their parents and siblings and where they feel safe.

This is why I'd do it, even though it would feel weird and uncomfortable.

Yes, all 8 kids in the class (assuming they sign the permission slip).

If you know the other families and they are agreeing and are o.k. with the visit, than I would consider doing it.

momma aimee

when my sons were DE in the district pre-school; at the start of each year the teachers made home visits. (the DE for services, ST and OT). they talked about the class; met the kids if they didn't know them, gave us phone lists and asked if we had questions. i thought it was a nice thing; it nice to get a chance -- not in a big group -- to meet the teachers and ask questions that maybe you wouldn't in a big group setting and it gave the kids a nice treat too -- they got to show their teacher their fav toys and so on.

No. I'm a very private person and I strongly dislike having others in my home.

Maybe after about $20K of remodeling, LOL.

OK, seriously, I would be a little taken aback. But having gone through a home study plus 3 years of post-placement visits in connection with my adoption, I would not sweat it too much.

I would ask in advance exactly what she sought to learn from the home visit, so I could make sure she got the pertinent info she was looking for. Perhaps she's looking for ways to help make connections using experiences that are familiar to each child. Or perhaps she wants to see where the child is in terms of developmental toys and interacting with his most familiar environment. If you don't know exactly what her motive is, you won't be able to make it worthwhile for her if you do decide to let her in.

We had home visits for my dd in public-funded preschool and I appreciated the opportunity to meet the teacher and aide outside the classroom in a more private situation. My dd has food allergies and I was glad to get to talk with the teachers about that when they could focus on me and my concerns - Asking questions at the "meet your teacher and see your classroom" day would not have had the same effect - and the other parents' don't need to hear all my questions. My dd is also academically quite far ahead, and again, I was glad to have the chance to discuss that privately - other parents don't need to know the details about my dd's abilities and at school conferences didn't happen until 1/3 of the way through the year.

My dd was also quite shy around strangers in preschool. Having the teachers visit at home gave her a chance to meet them on familiar territory for my dd - where she felt comfortable and this meant the teacher wasn't a new face on the first day of school - She had already had time to talk with her teachers and this made the transition to school much easier on her. If your child has already started school, this benefit might not apply to you.

One other thought - my dd's teachers always made clear that they were required to meet with each family individually outside of school (by the grant that funds the program) but that if a family did not want to have a home visit, they could meet somewhere else - a park, the library, etc. to talk with the parent and child. So if you are really uncomfortable about having the teacher in your home, you might ask if you could meet at another location.

First period at my son's high school is Advisory Period in which groups of about 25 kids meet first period for all four years. (Each grade has 1000+ students) It's a way of helping to connect a diverse group of students with each other as well as giving them an advocate -- their advisor -- who also helps kids with any problems they might be experiencing. They also do service projects and attend social activities as a group outside of classes.

Anyway, the advisor of all sophomores meets with the family in the family's home around the beginning of the school year. I think the primary purpose is to meet the person that the student will have as advisor for the following three years and to be able to discuss any concerns privately. We can contact him at any time even at his home. I guess you could say he acts as a liason.

We were remodelling our kitchen at the time of our visit, so our home was a mess. The advisor didn't care.

I also think the school might do this to see if the student really lives in this district. In our former district about 80 kids were attending the school illegally, claiming to live in that district but driving down from a cruddy district. It caused quite a ruckus.

Princess Peach

I voted yes. In the OP's case, I wouldn't even hesitate to say yes. I would still say yes if it were my kid's teachers, but they don't do that around here, so it'd be unusual.

The school psychologist did an in-home visit as part of the IEP assessment process, I think in a large part for this reason (also the cynic in me suspects the district wants to figure out which parents would have the resources to pursue legal action should there be a disagreement over services).

I don't know. I kind of like my privacy. I've never been in that situation though so it's hard to say what I'd do. I guess I have a general distrust of people for some reason. Not saying that's right or nice, but it's honest.

:iagree:The idea of it kind of creeps me out. Maybe I have too many potted plants or something. I don't want to be judged anymore in this life than necessary. I always come out lacking.

Guest UrbanYogini

I voted yes but for me it is conditionally. Personally I would expect the teacher to be visiting the homes of all the children in the class and I would want to know the goal for the visit.

We had a positive experience with a home visit. My daughter's new Kindergarten teacher made a point to schedule a home visit with all her incoming kinder students (27 total) over the summer. She came over had some ice tea with dd, brought a copy of The Kissing Hand and asked dd to share one of her favorite books or stories with her. It was very informal and sweet. And I feel it helped with the transition when the first day of school arrived.

I like to know my children's teachers as well as possible. I think they way you behave in a guests home says a lot about a person. It also gives the teacher a better idea as to where your child is coming from.

Is the teacher a new teacher? When I first started teaching the program I was in to clear my teaching credential required us to do home visits. I did them that year and never did them again because I didn't have the time. When my kids started at a private preschool, their preschool teacher made a home visit before they started.

The district I work in now, the special education teacher who teaches a classroom of students who have limited verbal skills likes to make a home visit with the speech teacher while other in-home services providers (usually funded by the Regional Center) are in the home too. That way they can see what type of therapy is being used, so they can collaborate and everyone is on the same page. When parents are reluctant the special ed. teacher offers to meet the parents at the park. If you are hesitant, perhaps you can offer to meet somewhere in the community like a park or library?

I didn't read all the replies, so forgive me if this has been posted already. I have a non-verbal child with autism who is in public school. I would love if her teachers offered to come visit. (They are great, but home visits aren't really done around here). I would see this as a powerful opportunity to share what we do at home and our overall home life. My daughter is very fixated on her schedule and her way of doing things. If they are doing the smallest things different at school, she wouldn't be successful. Here, they would see the things we work on and I would hope they would make suggestions on how we could improve things we do. (I feel good about what we do with her, but I am so used to doing things for her that occasionally someone steps in to remind me that my daughter can do certain things herself).

I'd actually love my daughter's teacher to do a home visit. My daughter is very reserved at school, but extremely animated and talkative at home. I wish her teacher could see that side of her. I'd also love her teacher to see what she does at home. Seeing the kinds of projects, reading, and activities she's doing at home would probably give the teacher a better perspective to why she's zoned out in her way-too-easy class.

I voted other. When I put ds in private school, i got an email about needing to set up a home visit. My house was insanely messy at the time, and we were doing a re-model of sorts. I called the teacher, and asked if we could meet up at the school, or at the library. He had no problems meeting elsewhere. Now, at the time, I had the remodel as an excuse, but really, I just didn't want a stranger in my house. OP, why don't you see if you can have this home visit elsewhere..park, school, library. It really is just a get to know the family thing, but I understand the not wanting them in your home and privacy issue.

Other: I am really not sure. I don't like people who may have reason to be critical and I don't know well inviting themselves into my home. But if I had my kids in school, I would want to have a good relationship with their teacher(s). I would feel more comfortable coming to parent conferences than having a teacher to my home.

Is the teacher a new teacher? When I first started teaching the program I was in to clear my teaching credential required us to do home visits.

Interesting. She isn't a new teacher but she is currently pursuing her M.Ed. in Special Education (she already has a M.S. in Educational Psychology). I will have to ask her if the home visits are a requirement of her grad program. I have until tomorrow to agree or decline the home visit.

Not a chance. It's rude to invite yourself over. I doubt I'd ever have the money to do a private school, so this would be a public (government) school scenario for me. And it's not going to happen.

If, in the course of discussing a special needs child it became apparent that the child was responding differently at school and at home then I might invite the teacher, but I would do so with the understanding that there would be a reciprocal invitation, whether for myself or a recorder of some sort (maybe if I came, it would change the dynamic we were trying to observe), but just for the heck of it? Never gonna happen. They can be suspicious if they want to, I'll deal with that as it comes. In the mean time, we can chat after school or at lunch or whatever.

My home is mine, and they don't get to barge in.

You can look up any public school teacher's credential info at

http://www.ctc.ca.gov

I can't provide you with the exact link because it doesn't work if you are using an ipad or safari. If you have windows, chrome, or firefox you can click on the yellow box at the top that says "search for an educator".

Does the sp. ed. teacher know that you homeschool your older kids? While some people who work in the public school (like me!) are supportive of homeschooling, most aren't.

I think the more the teacher knows about his/her student the better able they are to understand them and educate them. I understand your apprehension but I would welcome them with open arms.

wy_kid_wrangler04

I voted no. No way! Why, exactly, do they want to conduct a home visit?

I would welcome it. Yes.

Yes, if it was prearranged. If they showed up unannounced, I would be hesitant.

cindergretta

I wouldn't have a problem with it, personally. I'm not sure why it is assumed that the teacher is coming to inspect or judge anyone or anything. :confused: I sincerely doubts she cares if the house is huge and expensive or tiny and cheap or hyper-clean or lived in. (She might feel uncomfortable in squalor... )

I can understand discomfort with having people in one's home. There are few people who are welcome in my home and my mother isn't one of them. :lol: But all the suspicion and hostility is a little astonishing to me.

OP, I hope you will let us know what you decide and if you decide to let her come, please let us know how it goes!! :tongue_smilie:

As a few others said, I'm just a very private person... we don't even have friends and family over that often, not because we don't like to see them, but I guess I just don't like being "on" in my own home. (Playing hostess, making sure everything is just right, etc.) If I'm home, I like having my pajamas on and my feet up if I can. Maybe that makes me unsociable, LOL. So I wouldn't be crazy about the visit either. But like you said Crimson, I would also be worried that declining it makes it seem like I'm either unapproachable or have something to hide. So my answer is, I hope no one asks!! :D

I do not see any reason why I should not meet with the teacher in my home. To me, this shows that he has an interest and makes the effort to create uninterrupted time; also, seeing a child's home environment might help the teacher understand better if the kid faces any unique challenges.   Why are people against having a teacher visit the home? I don't understand the reasoning. (I'd much rather they come here than me having to go to the school) And I agree with pp: if I don't trust the teacher to enter my home, how can I trust the teacher to be with my kid all day?

:iagree: I would love that a teacher showed that much interest. And yes, I'm a bit lazy, I wouldn't want to go to the school to meet her.

I guess I'd give her a call and see why she wanted to come to your home and if this is just how she does things. Feel her out before you give her an answer either way.

I have to admit that I have never heard of a teacher having a home visit, but I would be open to the idea.

At my son's preschool they do this at the beginning of the year and I think it's a great idea! I'm not proud of my house but my son has benefitted from the visits by feeling more comfortable with his new teacher. As a teacher myself, although of older children, I'd love to see my students at home.

Esse Quam Videri

It's just a public school thing... they do this usually in all preschool and kindergarten classes (at least in my neck of the woods). If you don't feel comfortable, you can politely decline.

After talking it over with DH, I did sign the permission slip and am waiting on DD's teacher to arrange the visit.

I decided to go ahead with it because we need to make a decision this year about whether to sign DD up for the kindergarten waiting list at the district magnet school. It seems crazy to have to do it now when DD won't be kindergarten-aged until fall 2014, but that's the way the magnet school operates.

I have no idea whether the magnet school accepts mainstreamed kids with ASD. I know they don't have an autism special day class, so if DD still needs to be in one, she will need to attend a different school. It's hard to anticipate what DD's functional level will be when she's 5 3/4, but she is considered to have HFA and if her language improves enough, I think the district will at some point mainstream her. If they do, I'd like to give the magnet school a try assuming that (A) they take mainstreamed kids with ASD and (B) she gets a slot in the lottery.

Hopefully DD's teacher will be able to give some advice on the kindergarten issue. I can't really talk to her about it at normal dropoff or pickup so I'll use this home visit for that.

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Early Learning

Home visits are effective. here’s why they still make some teachers uneasy., by rachel burstein     feb 19, 2020.

Andy Vinnikov / Shutterstock

This story is part of an EdSurge Research series about the early childhood education workforce.

“Sit near the door. Make sure your car has plenty of gas. Park so you can get out. Don’t wear something that can be a choking hazard like a lanyard.” Macy Jones, the Head Start director for the Alexander County Schools in North Carolina rattles off a list of pointers she gives her staff before they begin their home visits each year. Jones has been concerned about keeping the 37 teachers, assistants and home advocates in her program safe on home visits since she assumed her position seven years ago.

In the past few years, her concerns about staff safety during home visits have increased as she has heard more reports of violent crime in the rural county. “Here we are in 2019, and we don’t know what we’re walking into, or when somebody may show up that came to do harm to somebody in the home. So I’m having conversations now that I never had to have in the ‘80s with folks.” Jones says.

Jones, who attended Head Start herself when she was a child and who has worked at Head Start for over three decades views home visits as critical to the success of both staff and students in the program. But without a full-scale training program and set of comprehensive safety procedures, she isn’t convinced her team should be required to visit the homes of their students. “Head Start really needs to start rethinking the whole home visit requirement,” she says, referencing the federal program that provides high-quality early childhood education to more than one million children from low-income families each year.

For now, Jones lets her staff decide whether to conduct home visits, emphasizing the power of these visits for students. “I tell them they can go somewhere else to meet the parents if they don’t feel safe visiting the family’s home. I say, ‘You don’t have to go...but just remember who doesn’t have an option—those babies we let off the bus every single day. They don’t have an option. So if you can do it, go to that home because those kids’ eyes light up whenever their teachers come see them at their home.’”

Why Conduct Home Visits?

The home visits conducted by Jones’ staff, which occur twice a year, are central to the Head Start model of serving two generations—both children and their families. The visits are mandated by Head Start and complement the work that teachers are doing in the classroom by providing an opportunity for teachers to speak informally with parents or other family members they may not routinely see.

Home visits are also mandated for Head Start’s home-based programs, which typically serve children from birth through age five, including those who are either too young to enroll in preschool, are on a waitlist for a preschool spot or from families who prefer to have their children learn at home. For home-based programs, the weekly home visit of 90 minutes is designed to cultivate parents as teachers. A special role at Head Start, the “parent educator,” visits the homes to introduce parents to the science of early learning and provide specific strategies and activities for advancing children’s brain development. Such intensive home visiting programs also offer a chance for parent educators to identify needed areas of intervention and to identify resources for families.

Head Start isn’t the only preschool program that uses home visits as a way of building community and allowing teachers and programs to help meet students and families where they are—quite literally. Home visits are an increasingly accepted part of early childhood education best practice. In addition to early childhood programs, a handful of K-12 districts are also building home visits into their model. Still, Head Start is the largest early childhood education entity conducting home visits. According to data from the National Head Start Association, Head Start staff members conducted approximately 4.6 million home visits in the 2018-19 school year, including families in both center-based and home-based programs.

There’s good reason for Head Start and other programs to dedicate resources to home visits. Research shows that home visits have a range of benefits, whether they’re designed to supplement preschool attendance or to stimulate learning in the home. Although it looked specifically at elementary school children, a 2015 study from Johns Hopkins University showed that absences declined by about a quarter among students in the Washington, D.C., public schools after a teacher conducted a home visit. The study also found positive correlations between home visits and student achievement. Other studies show that regular home visits from nurses or trained parent educators are correlated with positive effects on children’s neural development, even when those babies and children don’t have child care outside the home.

Home Visits Strengthen Relationships

These outcomes are familiar to Allison Edwards, a lead teacher at a Head Start-affiliated preschool in Tulsa, Okla. Edwards’ preschool is run by CAP Tulsa, a non-profit organization. Edwards says that home visits are important for establishing relationships with her students, especially when they occur early in the school year when children are new to her classroom or to school more generally. “[The kids] want to show us their room. And they want to show us their animals a lot of times, or their favorite toy,” she says.

Equally important, home visits help Edwards better understand the children she teaches so she can develop stronger relationships with them in the classroom. She might meet a grandparent who never comes to school but who is important in a child’s life. A child might show her a favorite toy that Edwards can reference during the school day. She might see bugs and realize that a rash that she was concerned about likely wasn’t a rash at all and that she should make remember to follow-up with family support services.

Edwards agrees with Jones on the value of home visits for children. She laughs as she recounts a recent breakfast conversation among the three year-olds she teaches. Edwards had visited one child at his home the day before and the other preschoolers demanded to know why their teacher hadn’t come to their homes as well. “You have to work through all that with them and say, ‘Well, you know, maybe next time I’ll come to your house. We’ll see,’” says Edwards.

But for all their benefits, home visits can present challenges for early childhood educators. At the very least, Edwards says that it can be “an awkward thing to go visit somebody in their home, especially when we’ve only known them for such a short time.” Many of Edwards’ students come from families who have had negative prior experiences with governmental agencies such as Child Protective Services and who are wary about letting outsiders into their homes. Other parents don’t speak English and Edwards sometimes has to wait on a translator to be available before she is able to schedule those visits.

Safety Concerns

Though there are clear benefits to visiting the homes of students, many early childhood educators have safety concerns. Head Start has some resources available for educators and agencies, but most of these tips , guidance and requirements explore how to build effective relationships and offer sample activities and conversation starters. Those tips that are explicitly designed to address safety concerns are generally simple lists, not training programs or community-building strategies.

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Knock Knock, Teacher's Here: The Power Of Home Visits

Ninety percent of students at Hobgood Elementary in Murfreesboro, Tenn., come from low-income households. Most of the school's teachers don't. And that's a challenge, says principal Tammy Garrett.

"If you only know middle-class families, you may not understand at times why they don't have their homework or why they're tired," Garrett says.

When she became principal four years ago, Garrett decided to get her teachers out of their classrooms — and comfort zones — for an afternoon. Once a year, just before school starts, they board a pair of yellow buses and head for the neighborhoods and apartment complexes where Hobgood students live.

En route, the bus driver describes over the intercom how he picks up 50 children at one complex each morning. The teachers pump themselves up with a chant. After all, they're doing something most people don't enjoy: knocking on doors unannounced.

When the caravan arrives at a cluster of apartments, the teachers fan out and start knocking on doors of known Hobgood families. Some encounters don't get beyond awkward pleasantries and handing over fliers about first-of-the-year festivities. Others yield brief but substantive conversations with parents who might be strangers around school.

Jennifer Mathis has one child still at Hobgood and says she appreciates that the school came to her — since she has a hard time getting to school.

"I don't have a car. I can't drive because my back got broken in two places," she tells a trio of teachers standing in her doorway. "I'm a mom. I can't be there with all of them all the time."

Giving Home Visits A Try

There was a time when a teacher showing up on a student's doorstep meant something bad. But increasingly, home visits have become a tool to spark parental involvement. The National Education Association has encouraged more schools to try it out, and there's this national effort .

One district in Massachusetts just added money to pay teachers for the extra work involved. Traditional schools in Washington, D.C., tried out home visits after privately run charter schools used them to successfully engage parents.

In Murfreesboro, principal Garrett sees the brief visits as mutually beneficial. Parents get to meet their kids' teachers. And teachers get a clearer sense of the challenges many of their students struggle with on a daily basis.

"If a kid doesn't have a place to sleep or they have to share the couch with their siblings at night and there are nine kids with one bedroom or two bedrooms, it's important for them to see that — not to be sympathetic," she says. "It's to empower the teachers to change the lives of the kids."

It's serious business. But Danielle Hernandez, a special education teacher, says it's not the somber experience she'd feared. At one apartment complex, a dozen kids are out riding bikes on their last day of summer break.

"I know that these children, they go through a lot in their lives," Hernandez says. "But they get to have so much fun."

Teachers join in on that fun, borrowing kids' bikes for a cross-parking-lot drag race that generates howls from the adults.

Ashlee Barnes, a fourth-grade teacher at Hobgood, says she's a believer, even if home visits have yet to prove themselves as a difference-maker on standardized testing.

"We become more important in their lives than I think we can ever understand," she says. "I think the sooner you can start a relationship, you're going to see results on their performance in the classroom."

'It Makes Me Want To Cry'

The kids seem to genuinely enjoy the visits, even if they are a reminder that summer is over.

"I am so lucky," says fourth-grader Shelleah Stephens as she's introduced to Barnes, her new teacher. "All the teachers I have had have been so nice. It's great to see you."

Barnes hugs Shelleah, who is barefoot on the sidewalk in front of the unit where she lives with her father, Kenny Phillips. He's standing back, smiling as his daughter shows off her budding social skills.

"It just brings you this joy. It makes me want to cry," Phillips says.

Phillips runs a landscaping business and says long days have kept him from being as involved with his daughter's education as he'd like to be. Seeing this interaction has him a little choked up.

"It's just good to see her grow up and have people around her who care," he says. "Sometimes parents aren't there, man. Sometimes we gotta work. Sometimes we're gone a lot of the time. It's good to see [teachers] come out to the neighborhood like that. I know she's in good hands."

Phillips also grew up in Murfreesboro but says no teacher stopped by his house. He hopes to return the favor by making sure Shelleah finishes all her homework this year.

THE 10 BEST Yekaterinburg Sights & Historical Landmarks

Yekaterinburg landmarks.

• Points of Interest & Landmarks
• Monuments & Statues
• Architectural Buildings
• Churches & Cathedrals
• 5.0 of 5 bubbles
• 4.0 of 5 bubbles & up
• 3.0 of 5 bubbles & up
• 2.0 of 5 bubbles & up
• Budget-friendly
• Good for Kids
• Good for a Rainy Day
• Good for Big Groups
• Good for Couples
• Good for Adrenaline Seekers
• Honeymoon spot
• Adventurous
• Hidden Gems
• Things to do ranked using Tripadvisor data including reviews, ratings, number of page views, and user location.

1. Visotsky Business Center Lookout

2. Church on the Blood

3. Ganina Yama Monastery

4. Sevastyanov's House

5. Chertovo Gorodische

6. Vaynera Street, Yekaterinburg

7. Rastorguyev-Kharitonov's House

8. Yekaterinburg War Memorial

9. The Church of Ascension

10. The Monument to Vladimir Vysotsky and Marina Vlady

11. Yekaterinburg State Circus

12. Sanduny Ural

13. The Obelisk on the Border Between Europe and Asia

14. Vodonapornaya Bashnya Na Plotinke Museum

15. QWERTY Monument

16. Embankment of Working Youth

17. New Tikhvin Nunnery

18. Monument to Soldiers of Ural Voluntary Tank Bulk

19. 1905 Square

20. Cathedral of St. Alexander of the Neva

21. Talc Quarry Old Lens

22. Monument to the Inventor of Bicycle Efim Artamonov

23. Love statue

24. Historical Park Rossiya - Moya Istoriya

25. Statue of Gena Bukin

26. Monument The Beatles

27. Monument to Michael Jackson

28. Marshal Zhukov Statue

29. Romanov Family Memorial

30. Light and Music Fountain in the Historical Park

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THE 30 BEST Things to Do in Yekaterinburg, Russia

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• 10 Reasons To Visit Yekaterinburg

10 Reasons to Visit Yekaterinburg

Known as Sverdlovsk during the Soviet era, Yekaterinburg is located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. Russia’s third city might be a little more subdued than Moscow but is has plenty of culture and urban romanticism to offer. Here are 10 reasons you should buy your ticket to Yekaterinburg right now.

Unique architectural environment, glorious music scene, industrial heritage.

Russia’s best city for business and investment, Yekaterinburg is often referred to as the unofficial capital of the Urals – the region, where Russia’s largest metallurgical enterprises are concentrated. Metal produced by Yekaterinburg plants was used to build some of the world’s most illustrious landmarks: New York’s Statue of Liberty , the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Houses of Parliament in London. You can learn about the city’s industrial past (and present as well) on one of many city tours and hear about Yekaterinburg’s first metallurgical plant, built in 1704, and see the legendary Uralmash with your own eyes.

Exceptional museums

Memorial, Museum, Theater

Vibrant art scene

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Dramatic past

Great outdoors, world’s shortest metro.

First opened in 1991, Yekaterinburg Metro was considered the shortest in the world and even got a mention in the Guinness Book of Records . Now it has several stations and the ride from the first to the last will take you only 19 minutes, but be sure to stop and take a closer look at each of them – they are all unique and exceptionally beautiful.

Gemstones and jewellery

Once rich in gemstones and minerals, the Ural Mountains, and Yekaterinburg as the region’s main city, have become a center for jewelry trade, known for brilliant craftsmen, carving masterpieces out of gemstones. You can still hear some beautiful legends, the Mistress of Copper Mountain being the most popular and visit many very real shops, selling locally made jewellery.

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