Investing in the Future of Family-School Partnerships

December 1, 2022, 3:00 pm ET

Slide deck

One of the root causes of the growing mistrust between the public and our public education system is the inconsistent, and sometimes missing, day-to-day interactions between families and communities and their schools. In this session, attendees will reflect on the current and future state of these interactions and consider systemic solutions to improve family-school partnerships, including National PTA’s recently updated National Standards for Family-School Partnerships. Attendees will hear from family, community and education leaders about the barriers they face to partnership and how they overcome them, as well as learn from other funders how they can create entry points in their portfolios to support this important work.

This event is intended for members and other education grantmakers.

There is no cost to attend this Grantmakers for Education program. Registration closes 15 minutes prior to the program time. Thank you for your patience; we review each registration in advance.

About the Speakers

Ambika Kapur
Program Director
Carnegie Corporation of New York

Ambika Kapur is a program director within the Corporation’s Education program where she manages the Public Understanding portfolio. Kapur oversees grantmaking aimed at engaging parents, communities, teachers, and policymakers in understanding and demanding changes in education that ensure that all students develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions they need for future success.

Previously, Kapur served as officer of Special Projects in the National Program, overseeing the budget, coordinating program strategies and grantmaking, and providing critical support to the vice president on strategic priorities. Kapur also managed grantmaking and communications activities for Next Generation Science Standards development and mobilization.

Katie Lim
Program Analyst
Overdeck Family Foundation

Katie Lim is a Program Analyst at Overdeck Family Foundation, where she sources and supports organizations for the Early Impact portfolio.

Previously, Katie worked at the Center for Policy, Research, and Evaluation (PRE) at NYU Metro Center, leading the survey management and data analysis/visualization for two program evaluations relating to parent leadership and family engagement. Her experiences as a research assistant at playLabNYU and The Developmental Stress and Prevention Lab at Stony Brook University also informs her work in supporting the Foundation’s grantees.

Katie earned her M.A. in Human Development and Social Intervention from New York University and graduated from Stony Brook University with a B.S. in Psychology.

Gina Martinez-Keddy
Executive Director
Parent Teacher Home Visits (PTHV)

Gina Martinez-Keddy is the executive director of Parent Teacher Home Visits (PTHV), a national family engagement model in twenty-eight states that strengthens relationships between teachers and parents – the primary co-educators in a child’s life. As a community organizer in 1997-1999, Gina worked with parents and other organizers to help launch PTHV in Sacramento, CA, then rejoined PTHV as executive director in June 2017. In the intervening years, she continued her organizing career across California, serving as the executive director of Congregations Organizing for Renewal and Orange County Congregation Community Organizations. At PICO National Network she served as director of professional development and statewide consultant. She earned her BS from Cal Poly Pomona, her MBA from UCLA, and her MA in Social and Cultural Studies in Education from UC Berkeley. She comes from a proud line of courageous mothers who, within a racially segregated education system, advocated publicly for their children’s rights to a high-quality public education. She has two grown step-children and she lives in Sacramento, CA with her husband and their dog Lulu.

Tracie Potts
Executive Director
Eisenhower Institute, Gettysburg College

Tracie Potts is the Eisenhower Institute’s Executive Director. She joined Gettysburg College with a wealth of media experience focused on public policy, along with years of educational advocacy for and with students.

Mrs. Potts spent three decades as an award-winning broadcast journalist, most recently as senior Washington Correspondent for NBC News Channel, the affiliate service of NBC News. Based on Capitol Hill, she covered four Presidential administrations, Congress and the federal government for 200+ local morning news programs, MSNBC, CNBC and foreign news organizations. Outside politics Potts reported abroad from the 2012 Olympics, the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Princess Kate, the selection of Pope Benedict and the death of Nelson Mandela. Before working in Washington, she was based in the network’s Los Angeles bureau and served as an anchor and reporter at local stations.

Potts serves as vice chair of the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism Advisory Board, after being selected as a 2017 National Fellow. Her “Forgotten Voices” project on the Affordable Care Act was honored with a Dateline Award from the DC chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Other fellowships include the Loyola Marymount Journalist Law School, Mayo Clinic Journalist Residency, National Press Foundation, the Poynter Institute and the Journalism Center of Children and Families and the Michelle Clark Fellowship from the Radio Television News Directors Foundation.

Potts was an instructor for NBC University and the News Literacy Project. Her lesson on NLP’s “Checkology” digital learning platform has been used by more than 100,000 students and educators worldwide. She also taught journalism at Knoxville College and Biola University. Potts was appointed to the National PTA Board of Directors and serves as a family engagement trainer, facilitator and speaker on its governance team. She is currently an advisor for the non-profit Learning Heroes and the federally-funded Statewide Family Engagement Center for Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Potts completed Northwestern University’s Accelerated Masters Program, earning Bachelor and Master of Science degrees from the Medill School of Journalism.

Vidya Sundaram
CEO
Family Engagement Lab

Vidya Sundaram is co-founder and CEO of Family Engagement Lab, a national nonprofit whose mission is to help schools ignite the potential of millions of families to support their child’s learning. Over her nearly 20-year career in family engagement, Vidya has managed development, research, and strategy for digital resources used by more than half of US families with school-aged children. Before founding Family Engagement Lab, Vidya led research and insights at GreatSchools. Vidya also has an extensive background in software engineering and technology project management to engage diverse partners, and implement and study digital programs. She holds a degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University, a Masters in Public Policy from UCLA and her MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management. Through her work at Family Engagement Lab, Vidya has been recognized as a Promising Ventures Fellow, and by the Saul Zaentz Early Education Challenge, NewSchools Ignite, and J-PAL North America. Vidya is also a bharatanatyam dancer, mom to two kids, and proud to be part of a lively multilingual and multigenerational household.

Helen Westmoreland
Director of Family Engagement
National PTA

Helen Westmoreland leads National PTA’s Center for Family Engagement, which equips grassroots leaders to be champions for more transformative family engagement policies and practices across the education system. In her role, Helen oversees the Center’s partnerships, programs, equity initiatives, and multi-media resources, including co-hosting Notes from the Backpack: A PTA Podcast.

Prior to National PTA, Helen was founding staff and Deputy Director at Flamboyan Foundation where she co-led the strategy to build, grow, and evaluate a comprehensive approach to parent-teacher collaboration. Previously, she provided research and technical assistance with the Harvard Family Research Project after starting her career working with community-based afterschool programs in Durham, NC. Over nearly 20 years, Helen has consulted and authored publications on family engagement, education organizing, out-of-school time, and scaling impact.

Helen is a proud graduate of South Carolina public schools. She also received degrees from Harvard Graduate School of Education and Duke University. She lives in the DC area with her toddler and their favorite book to read together is Si le das un panqueque a una cerdita.