Home visits as a pathway to stronger teacher-powered schools

Building Bridges, Not Just Classrooms

November marks National Family Engagement Month, a time when we pause to reflect on what truly fuels learning: trusting relationships.

As a former teacher and district leader, I’ve seen firsthand that student success is not just about what happens in the classroom. It is also about the bridges we build beyond it. When teachers connect with families as equal and authentic partners, students feel seen and supported, families gain confidence in their role as co-educators, and teachers rediscover the purpose and joy that brought them into the profession in the first place.

That’s why I’m so passionate about Parent Teacher Home Visits. It allows us to reimagine how schools and families work together, mirroring a similar spirit that drives Teacher-Powered Schools: trusting educators to lead meaningful, transformative change.

From Shared Wisdom to Student Success

Parent Teacher Home Visits was born from the wisdom of parents and educators who understood that authentic and impactful partnership requires voice and choice for both. Families wanted their knowledge and experiences to be valued as essential to their child’s success. Teachers wanted a structure that respected their time, honored their expertise, and allowed them to lead engagement work in a way that reflects their agency and care. What resulted was a model where teachers began visiting families in their homes – not to check on or fix them, but to connect with them.

If you’ve ever done a home visit using this approach, you know how powerful it can be. There is something humbling about sitting at a family’s kitchen table, hearing their hopes and dreams for their child, and realizing how much strength and insight live within the walls of that home

Research on the impact of Parent Teacher Home Visits consistently backs up what we know to be true: when families and teachers build trust, students thrive.

• Schools using the Parent Teacher Home Visits model have seen dramatic reductions in chronic absence and improved academic outcomes across multiple studies.
• Teachers report stronger relationships with families and greater empathy for their students.
• Families say they feel more connected and respected by their schools.

The true impact of Parent Teacher Home Visits goes beyond statistics—it lives in the classrooms where relationships deepen and in the communities where trust begins to reshape what’s possible for students. Across the country, this transformation is being led by educators who see connection as the foundation for change. Saint Paul Public Schools offers a compelling example of how teacher leadership can transform family engagement from the ground up.

A Story from the Field: Saint Paul, Minnesota

More than a decade ago, teachers at John A. Johnson Elementary noticed that, despite being a full-service community school, family interactions were limited to conferences and occasional events. Frustrated with surface-level engagement, a small group of educators discovered the Parent Teacher Home Visit model from Sacramento, CA. Excited by its potential, they partnered with the Saint Paul Federation of Educators, who funded initial training when the district would not.

That first year, eight teachers visited 15 families—and the experience was transformative. Classroom dynamics shifted, assumptions were challenged, and relationships deepened. Teachers described it as “a return to purpose,” and families began calling educators partners, not just professionals.

The union helped secure contract language in 2010 to make visits voluntary, compensated, and accessible district-wide. Today, the union and district partner to support hundreds of teachers to visit over 3,000 families annually, using group debrief sessions to reflect, share learning, and advocate for families.

Saint Paul Public Schools also has Teacher-Powered Schools, though not at the same sites practicing Parent Teacher Home Visits. Together, these initiatives show the potential of combining teacher leadership and relational trust to drive meaningful transformation across the district.

Educator-Led Practice as the Heart of Change

As educators, we know that true transformation rarely starts with a mandate. It begins with a conversation—a handshake at the door, a shared story around a coffee table. These small, human moments are what shift school culture in lasting ways. At the heart of this work is a common set of values that closely connect Parent Teacher Home Visits and Teacher-Powered Schools: shared leadership, collective decision-making, and authentic collaboration. Both movements recognize that when teachers are trusted to lead, and families are treated as equal partners, schools become stronger.

We often define teacher leadership through curriculum design or governance roles, but what if we also saw leadership in the act of listening? Through Parent Teacher Home Visits, educators gain access to one of the most powerful learning tools available—the lived experiences, values, and perspectives of the families they serve. These insights don’t just inform instruction; they reshape how teachers understand their students, their schools, and their purpose.

Over time, this practice grows into something larger than a series of visits—it becomes a movement. When educators center relationships, they generate the kind of relational trust that fuels every other form of change. That trust becomes the current that carries schools toward deeper collaboration, stronger learning communities, and more just systems. Teacher-Powered Schools and Parent Teacher Home Visits share the same current: the belief that lasting transformation begins when those closest to students—teachers and families—lead the way together.

Looking Ahead: A Teacher-Powered Ecosystem

Parent Teacher Home Visits is a foundational practice that centers trust, curiosity, and shared responsibility for student success. Its principles align naturally with the teacher-powered vision of educators leading meaningful change from within. When teachers lead family engagement, they expand the very definition of leadership—building schools that are authentic, democratic, and strengthened from the bottom up and the inside out.

This National Family Engagement Month, I invite you to consider what this could look like in your own context:

• Reflect with your team on how deep relationships with families can strengthen your school’s teacher-powered model
• Commit to engaging families in new ways that build understanding and trust
• Learn more about Parent Teacher Home Visits at https://pthvp.org

Because when teachers and families meet each other as equal partners, transformation becomes tangible. Trust grows. Students feel the difference. And schools become the kind of communities where everyone—educators, students, and families alike—has a voice in shaping what comes next.