A Practical Guide to High School Parent Engagement

Introduction

While much attention has been given to bolstering parent engagement in elementary settings, strong parent engagement in high school continues to positively impact children’s school success through the high school years.

Schools often associate low family engagement in high school with challenges such as:

1. attendance concerns
2. chronic absenteeism
3. discipline issues
4. disengagement
5. parent complaints
6. low event participation
7. school climate metrics

For family engagement in high school to improve academic outcomes, it is important that high school engagement policies and programs are tailored to meet families’ real needs.

Beneficial parent engagement in high school should include both students and parents in shaping what engagement looks like, ensuring it reflects what schools and teenagers truly need in 2026.

The Foundation: The Culture of Listening

So, how can school leaders determine what those needs are and measure the success of their parent engagement efforts? Following Dr. Karen L. Mapp’s framework for Family-School Partnerships, the school should be the first to reach out to parents and build family-school relationships.

Early in the year, or at the end of the spring semester in preparation for the fall, schools can start the conversation by essentially asking parents: What do you need to know? How can we support you? How do we create the foundation for sharing and trust?

By listening to parents through both informal two-way conversations and through structured surveys and focus groups, schools can identify which types of parent support, community resources, and engagement events are most relevant to families and their teenagers.

Engagement efforts may be built around the identified needs such as:

• Homework support
• Navigating the college transition
• ACT/SAT prep
• Supporting peer relationships
• Absenteeism prevention
• Bullying prevention
• Safe technology and social media use
• Substance abuse prevention
• Driver safety
• Community resources and programs
• Community partnerships with local universities, non-profits and businesses

Once schools understand parent priorities and student needs, they can build more relevant, measurable engagement strategies. Families are more likely to participate in family engagement events when they’ve been part of the planning journey and feel heard.

Real-World Examples: Lafayette High School, Alabama and Western Yell County Schools, Arkansas

Lafayette High School in Alabama includes parents in planning their parent engagement events via an online form, gathering information on the timing, format, and topics parents prefer to learn about. They offer topics like mental health, college and career readiness, and communication strategies to use with teens, without assuming they have the answers to everything affecting the high schoolers of today–they also offer an open-ended suggestion box for parents to offer their own ideas to explore.

Western Yell County Schools in Arkansas invited parents to be a part of their Parent Involvement/Engagement Team, strengthening the school-family partnership. By keeping parents involved in planning, schools can ensure that the sessions and their method of delivery stay relevant and meet parent and student needs.

Create Family Engagement Strategies to Address At-Risk Students

School leaders and family engagement assessment teams can pinpoint and address specific school needs by examining questions such as:

1. Which students are most at risk of falling behind or dropping out?
2. What are the barriers that prevent families from engaging?
3. Which parents are hardest to reach and why?
4. What specific outcomes do we want (attendance, credits, behavior, graduation)?
5. What strategies should we implement?
6. How do we measure whether engagement is working?

Once the overall understanding of issues and needs is gathered, the engagement committees can take the next steps toward planning and delivering customized engagement events, informational sessions, and inclusive school communication strategies that address at-risk students and their families. Learn more about family engagement assessment tools for schools.

Provide Parents With Guidance on Appropriate Engagement

Some parents may avoid engaging at the high school level due to uncertainty around the school’s needs. While they might have been avid volunteers in elementary school, they might fear veering into “over-engagement,” which could negatively impact their children’s growing autonomy and independence.

High schools can help by providing families with clear guidance on what appropriate communication and support look like now.

Parents should be encouraged to remain invested in their child’s education while acting as helpful facilitators who gradually create more space for students to build responsibility, confidence, and independence.

A friendly parent ‘Do-and-Don’t guide’ shared by administrators can be especially helpful. A guide may look like:

Do

• Monitor your child’s academic progress.
• Discuss goals.
• Help students problem-solve.
• Volunteer and be actively involved with PTA/PTO.
• Attend parent workshops and community events.
• Let school know when your student or family needs more support.
• Encourage your child to speak up, and self-advocate for themselves.

Don’t

• Contact teachers when your child is capable of doing so.
• Speak for your child when they can speak for themselves.
• Manage every assignment detail.
• Manage responsibilities your student should gradually learn to handle on their own.

Real-world Example: Wye River Upper School, Centreville, Maryland

Wye River Upper School published an article on the school’s website talking about the benefits of parent involvement, while encouraging parents to support students’ growing independence. They write, “We believe it is imperative for the parents in our community to allow their children to test the waters of self-advocacy and independence. For example, when a WRUS student has a question, comment, or concern about a course, program, or teacher, that student is encouraged to speak to or email that teacher directly.”

Involve Students in Parent Engagement Events

As part of building high schoolers’ autonomy, schools can trust them as partners in parent engagement efforts. Some parents feel more comfortable attending school events when they know their teenagers want them there.

By involving high schoolers in planning engagement events and inviting their parents to participate, schools can give them some control over the level of involvement their parents have. This helps prevent over-engagement that can be damaging to the parent-child relationship. A strong PTA/PTO presence that includes student representatives can help build buy-in for school events.

Real-World Example: West Brook High School, Texas

West Brook High School’s PTA hosted a parent engagement event centered around creating a Culture of Kindness in their school.

The event involved a student panel that shared their own experiences with kindness, as well as ideas for how to contribute to a school culture of kindness. Highlighting student voices at a PTA event means that high schoolers’ meaningful perspectives on what it means to be a teenager today are communicated to parents and school staff alike.

Parent Information Night Help Families with the Transition into High School

Parents may feel uncertain about the transition to high school, so offering parent information nights to the families of rising 9th graders is a great place to start your high school parent engagement efforts. This builds school culture from the beginning by establishing a sense of openness and collaboration as students embark on this next journey in their educational careers.

A parent information night is an excellent opportunity to establish the best ways to communicate with parents, as well as to connect parents to resources their children may need during high school, like counseling services, tutoring support, etc. It also demystifies the high school experience itself, as parents can learn more about what their freshman’s day-to-day schedule will look like and see the environment where they will spend so much of their time.

Real-World Example: Duval Charter School at Baymeadows, Florida

The counseling team at Duval Charter School at Baymeadows in Jacksonville, Florida hosted a 9th Grade Information Night. After incentivizing attendance with prizes, they took this opportunity to introduce new students to staff, sports and club offerings, academic courses, and high school expectations.

Programs and Workshops Help Families with the Transition Out of High School

As families approach the end of their students’ high school years, many begin grappling with the next transition: their teenagers applying to college. From helping families and students prepare for entrance exams like the ACT to navigating the Common Application, academic counselors and educators are poised to make a real difference in high schoolers’ trajectories.

Schools might connect families to programs like Upward Bound, which helps first-generation applicants from low-income backgrounds prepare for college.

Others may develop college and career readiness workshops to give families more information on:

• College options
• Paying for college
• Completing FAFSA
• ACT/SAT exams
• Dual enrollment options
• Local vo-tech programs

Real-World Example: North Port High School, Florida

North Port High School in Florida developed a College Planning Night for students and parents alike. During this come-and-go event, attendees could explore sessions about a dual-enrollment program, scholarships, and the college admissions process based on their individual interests and needs.

Parent Engagement at the High School Level Remains Essential

Parent engagement doesn’t lose its effectiveness as students move from their earlier years of schooling into high school–it just looks different. Continuing to amplify the voices of parents (and their ever-more-independent teenagers) in engagement events will keep them relevant as the landscape of high school continues to shift with the times.

When students, parents, and teachers come together to plan parent engagement opportunities, each can share their expertise to the benefit of all. High school students can share what topics are most important to them, parents have the opportunity to ask questions and learn more about what high school looks like today, and teachers are able to offer support to bridge the gaps between students’ school and home lives.