For family engagement to improve student learning, a wide range of stakeholders—from parents to principals to teachers—must share responsibility in developing, implementing, and assessing their school district’s family engagement strategy. In order to help each of these stakeholder groups define their roles, superintendents and central administrators must communicate the district’s family engagement vision, strategy, and expected outcomes. A useful way to convey this information is through a logic model, which visually depicts a district’s family involvement efforts and the changes it hopes to achieve.

How to Develop a Logic Model for Districtwide Family Engagement Strategies is a step-by-step guide to help you understand and develop a logic model for districtwide family engagement efforts. This tool is designed to accompany Seeing is Believing: Promising Practices for How School Districts Promote Family Engagement, a policy brief created by Harvard Family Research Project and the National PTA (see text box at right). How to Develop a Logic Model clarifies the steps between family engagement efforts and better learning outcomes for children and youth. In addition, we offer a sample logic model based on promising practices highlighted in Seeing is Believing, as well as lessons learned from research and evaluation studies that shape the outcomes of family engagement. This tool can be used for program planning, implementation, and evaluation to communicate accomplishments and identify areas that need improvement.

Although we designed this tool for district-level family engagement strategies, other organizations such as schools and nonprofits can adapt the process to create strong family engagement systems. Keep in mind that the steps and sample logic model components presented here represent a menu of options to choose from, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach to building a logic model for family engagement efforts.