When students miss a lot of school, often their entire family is disconnected.

That’s why, when the Richmond, Va. school district saw chronic absenteeism surge during the pandemic, it reached out to families to find both the roots of the problem and the solutions.

“I’ve seen the same things in districts all around the country ... again and again, these were really a breakdown in trust,” said Shadae Harris, a former chief engagement officer for Richmond, Va. public schools who now works with districts as a consultant on family engagement. “Many times the challenge was generational; lots of our families have not felt that their voices are valued, appreciated, or felt like they were welcomed in schools.”

Richmond’s family engagement now includes school teams made up of teachers and administrators, social workers, and community members who regularly analyze attendance data and reach out to families.

“We took everything that had to do with absenteeism and said, look, we don’t have an attendance problem. We have an engagement problem, a relationship problem, we have a trust problem. So that’s what we use to really dig in and understand the root causes behind our absences,” said Harris, who oversaw Richmond’s family engagement overhaul for more than six years.

The district has significantly increased family home visits and check-in calls. Staff have also worked to help solve some of the root causes of students’ absenteeism, like housing instability.

For example, the district partnered with local nonprofit Housing Families First, using a $500,000 grant from the local Lora M. and E. Claiborne Robins, Sr. foundation to help more than 120 families access rental deposits and lease negotiation help to move out of motels.

Richmond superintendent Jason Kamras and other district leaders have credited better family partnerships for boosting both student achievement and attendance. The district’s chronic absenteeism rate dropped from a high of 37 percent in 2022 to 22 percent by the end of the 2023-24 school year.

Nationwide, chronic absenteeism remains a major problem. The share of students who miss 10 percent or more of school nearly doubled nationwide during the pandemic and remains high, with 23 percent of students chronically absent as of 2023-24, according to FutureEd, which tracks absenteeism rates.

This interview with Harris, who left the district last June, was edited for length and clarity.

What’s different about Richmond’s approach to family engagement and traditional parent involvement?

It’s a mindset shift. Involvement is when you lead with your mouth; you are telling people what you want them to do. So I may set a goal and I identify the priority, and I’m telling parents how they can contribute. Engagement is when you’re really focused on leading with your ears. You’re listening to the wants, the needs, and the dreams of your families. And then you’re co-creating systems together.

[Instead of] us saying, “Hey, this is our new attendance initiative. This is what we need you guys to do, or else,” we’re prioritizing their needs. That’s how you build trust, because you’re sharing power; you’re sharing resources with families.

What does that look like in practice?

Something we heard from our families is “we don’t see you"—like we didn’t have a presence in the community. So community walks and empathy interviews really allowed us to be visible and connect with people who weren’t necessarily coming to the school—not because they didn’t care about their child’s education, but because they didn’t feel invited.

For a community walk, you identify different communities, and the goal is to just be present, and to listen. As you’re walking, you run into people, you’re asking them about their experiences. Those walks gave us visibility, but then that also starts to shift mindsets when people start to see you in the community.

What role do the home visits play?

We started with this pilot with a coalition of teachers and people who were interested and ... a training model based after this organization called Parent Teacher Home Visits . We partnered with them to really understand what makes a strong home visit program.

It really changes the idea that those [home] visits are to share information. The sole purpose of that initial visit is to build the relationship [with a family]. Once they (the teacher and family) had a relationship, you could get into more sharing information or responding to things that they needed. It really allowed people to just talk and reflect on their actions, the family, and how they could kind of improve the process.

How should school leaders better integrate family engagement?

I think that the first step is really thinking about this from a systemic level. When I’m working with superintendents, we first start with, what are your beliefs around families? Because your [engagement] structure is going to directly correlate with your beliefs about families. So, if you believe they’re add-on, something where we have to check a box, your systems will reflect that, right? But if you believe that we want [parents] as co-creators, then you’re going to have a chief engagement officer and you’re going think about your school level goals very differently.

What is the most common mistake you see schools make when it comes to family engagement?

I still see a lot of misdefinition of what engagement is. Schools end up doing a lot of those activities that involve parents without engaging them. Let’s say you’re having a potluck or a talent show, right? You’re saying, this is what we’re doing, this is how you can contribute; you’re still telling [parents] what you want to do. You have to go a little deeper than that and think [about], what is the intention of that activity? Is it just to inform, or to build a deeper relationship?

Or if I’m going into that home visit thinking I’m here to tell families what they need to do to better support their child, and this is how they can contribute, but I don’t take time to listen and honor the wisdom that they already bring—that is going to completely dismantle trust. So that’s why it’s so important to understand that difference.