13.3 Establishing Productive Relationships with Colleagues, Families, and Community
Key Takeaways
- The ETS blueprint requires establishing productive relationships to support student growth with school colleagues and administrators, parents and guardians, community members, and organizations.
- Family engagement is distinguished from family involvement: involvement means families support what the school decides, while engagement means families participate in decisions -- and engagement produces stronger outcomes.
- Barriers to family engagement are usually structural -- work schedules, transportation, language, prior negative school experience -- rather than attitudinal, and each has a practical remedy.
- Productive relationships with administrators depend on framing physical education requests in terms of the school's priorities and supplying data, not on asserting the subject's importance.
- Community partnerships should be formalized with clear expectations, background-check compliance, alignment to instructional goals, and an evaluation of whether the partnership actually helps students.
Colleagues and Administrators
With teaching colleagues
- Share what you see. Physical education observes students in an unstructured, socially exposed setting; a classroom teacher may not know that a student is being excluded or has stopped participating.
- Support their content. A teacher who reinforces vocabulary, offers activity breaks, or connects a unit to a science topic accumulates goodwill and creates the conditions for reciprocity.
- Coordinate demands. Awareness of major assessments and events prevents scheduling a fitness assessment the morning of a state test.
- Resolve disagreements privately and directly, focused on the issue rather than the person, and never in front of students.
With administrators
The common failure is asserting the subject's importance. The productive approach frames the request in terms of what the administrator is accountable for:
| Instead of | Say |
|---|---|
| "PE is being disrespected" | "Here is the attendance and engagement data from second period, and a scheduling change that would address it" |
| "We need more equipment" | "With this equipment, activity time per student rises from X to Y; here is the cost and the funding source I found" |
| "Don't cut our minutes" | "Research shows increasing PE time does not harm academic achievement and improves attention in the classes that follow; here is a schedule that preserves both" |
| "Our facilities are inadequate" | "Here is the safety issue, the incident documentation, the liability exposure, and the remedy" |
The pattern: data, a specific proposal, and alignment with the school's stated goals. Administrators approve proposals, not complaints.
Also: invite administrators to observe a strong lesson. Many have never seen a well-run standards-based physical education class and are operating on their own memory of PE from decades ago.
Families
Involvement versus engagement
| Involvement | Engagement | |
|---|---|---|
| Direction | School to family | Two-way |
| Family role | Support the school's decisions | Participate in decisions |
| Examples | Signing forms, attending a showcase, volunteering | Serving on the wellness committee, shaping unit offerings, co-designing home activity plans |
| Outcome | Compliance | Stronger, more durable results |
The blueprint's phrase, "establishment of productive relationships," is engagement language.
What families need to know about physical education
Many families' mental model of PE is dodgeball and laps. Communicating what the subject actually is -- standards, objectives, assessment, physical literacy -- changes how they support it. Useful channels: a start-of-year overview of the standards and how students are assessed; unit-opening notes explaining what is being learned and why; a clear, written explanation of the grading policy, which forestalls the most common complaint; and celebration of improvement and responsibility rather than only athletic outcomes.
Barriers and remedies
| Barrier | Remedy |
|---|---|
| Work schedules | Vary meeting times; offer phone or virtual options; record events |
| Transportation | Hold events at accessible locations; provide virtual attendance |
| Language | Translate all written material; provide interpreters; do not use the student as interpreter for a substantive conversation |
| Prior negative school experience | Lead with positive contact; be specific and non-judgmental; follow through on commitments |
| Not knowing how to help | Give concrete, low-cost, no-equipment suggestions rather than general encouragement |
| Feeling unwelcome | Personal invitation; greet by name; make the physical space navigable |
| Cost | Never require purchased equipment or clothing; provide it |
Home connection
Home activity suggestions must be realistic for the families you actually have: no equipment required, no cost, safe indoors or in a small space, short in duration, and doable without adult supervision where necessary. A suggestion that assumes a backyard, a bicycle, or a parent free at 4 p.m. excludes the students who need it most.
Community
Types of partnership
| Partner | Contribution |
|---|---|
| Parks and recreation | Facility access, after-school and summer programming, referral pathway |
| YMCA, Boys and Girls Clubs, community centers | Programming, scholarships, facility use |
| Youth sport organizations | Participation pathways; equipment; fee waivers |
| Health care systems and clinics | Screenings, education, referral, sponsorship |
| Local businesses | Equipment funding, incentives, event support |
| Colleges and universities | Student teachers, clinics, facility access, research partnership |
| Public health departments | Data, program support, wellness policy expertise |
| Safe routes and active transport programs | Walking and biking infrastructure and programming |
Making partnerships work
- Start from a documented student need, not from an offer that arrived
- Write down expectations -- what each side provides, when, and who is responsible
- Verify compliance -- background checks, insurance, and district approval before anyone works with students
- Align to instructional goals; a partner activity that does not serve an objective is an interruption
- Retain instructional authority; outside providers supplement the certified teacher, they do not replace them
- Screen for commercial content; sponsorship does not entitle a partner to market to students
- Evaluate -- did students participate, and did it change anything
- Sustain the relationship -- acknowledge partners publicly and keep them informed
Common Praxis Traps
- Trap 1: Advocating to administrators by asserting importance. Bring data and a proposal.
- Trap 2: Treating form-signing as engagement. Engagement is participation in decisions.
- Trap 3: Reading non-attendance as disinterest. Look for the structural barrier.
- Trap 4: Using a student as interpreter for a substantive conversation. Use a professional interpreter.
- Trap 5: Home activity suggestions requiring equipment or space. Make them universally doable.
- Trap 6: Letting an outside provider run instruction. The certified teacher retains instructional authority.
A physical educator wants to prevent a proposed reduction in physical education minutes. Which approach is most likely to succeed with an administrator?
Which activity represents family engagement rather than family involvement?
A physical educator sends home a suggestion that families take an evening bike ride together. Several students' families do not participate. What is the most likely problem with the suggestion?
A local fitness company offers to run a weekly session during physical education class at no cost, using its own branded curriculum. What should the physical educator establish before accepting?