Parent and Family Engagement for English Learners

Conference or meeting with elementary school teachers students and parents

— Offered by the College of Education and Health Professions —


Earn professional development hours through the Parent and Family Engagement for English Learners series offered by the College of Education and Health Professions. A National Professional Development grant through the Office of English Acquisition at the U.S. Department of Education will cover the cost of the three 6-hour courses designed to help you build a partnership between schools, families, and communities to support culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students. Through these courses, you will gain a better understanding about the families and students that you serve, allowing you to create a stronger family-school connection. By the time you finish these courses, you will have created some personal resources and compiled strategies that will be applicable to your classroom or school. The information and assignments you work on will assist you in creating partnerships with CLD families.

Online / Instructor Led (all courses)

Complete up to three courses of your choice between December 1, 2022 and March 31, 2023.

Registration will be closed December 15 through January 3rd for winter break.

Last day to register:
March 15, 2023


These courses contain self-paced activities for professional development hours. The instructor will assess all work submitted for the course in a timely manner, and individual feedback will be provided. Rubrics are provided to help you self-assess your work. You will receive a certificate of completion from Global Campus after your work has been assessed if you complete the course at a proficient level.



Creating a Supportive School Environment


This course focuses on creating a welcoming and supportive environment for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) families. You will identify and apply characteristics of a welcoming, inclusive environment for CLD students and their families. You will also describe family-community engagement systems and model positive methods of serving CLD students and families.

  • Determine and discuss the differences between parent involvement and parent engagement
  • Design a welcoming and accepting environment for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students
  • Integrate characteristics of family-community engagement systems and models that serve CLD students and families



Engaging Families to Help Students Succeed


This course focuses on engaging families to help students succeed through valuing CLD families’ native languages, cultures, and countries through integration of these components in their classroom. Partnerships with parents and families will allow you and your school to promote student learning at home. You will accomplish this by generating ideas that will encourage family and student learning interactions at home, developing and maintaining an open rapport with CLD families, and internalizing why parent engagement is important for CLD students and their families. Parent, family and community engagement in education is crucial for student academic performance and school improvement.

  • Generate ideas that will encourage student and family learning interactions at home
  • Develop open communication and establish a rapport with families in order to gain a better understanding of the student’s cultural background and to determine parents’ expectations regarding language, culture, and education
  • Justify why parent engagement is important for CLD students and their families



Engaging Families through Communication & Advocacy


This course focuses on engaging families through communication and advocacy. It provides opportunities to develop ideas to foster effective communication between home and school. You will accomplish this by applying best practices in scenarios with CLD students and their families. To further advocate for CLD families, you will create a resource page that includes community information for CLD families to utilize as needed.

  • Apply knowledge, skills, and best practices in scenarios about CLD students and their families
  • Create a resource page that includes community information so that a CLD parent could utilize community resources when needed
  • Design ways to foster effective communication between home to school and school to home with CLD families