When teachers visit students and parents at home, it can change their assumptions and biases and foster stronger school-home relationships.
That is one of the findings in the first report from an ongoing, multicity study commissioned by the research firm RTI International and Johns Hopkins University for Parent-Teacher Home Visits, a national network.
The home-visit model enlists teachers to visit their students’ families two times a year. The first visit is to build relationships with the family. On the second visit, teachers offer strategies that parents can employ to help their child learn.
Across the four major urban districts that were studied, the families who participated in the program reported being more comfortable around teachers and school staff members than those who did not.
And the participating educators said their assumptions and prior perceptions had changed after visiting their students’ families at home.
