How AI and Other Tech Tools Might be Used to Strengthen Family-School
Partnerships

One of the many challenges highlighted by the pandemic has been the lack of
communication between so many parents and educators, fueling frustration on
both sides. Well, back in 2018, I chatted with Heejae Lim, the founder and CEO
of TalkingPoints, about her then newish venture’s effort to help connect
parents and schools using digital tools. Today, 10 of the 20 largest school
districts partner with TalkingPoints—using AI and human translators to
translate back-and-forth into 145 languages. If you’re interested in hearing
more from Lim, you can check out her 2022 TED talk on “The Most Powerful Yet
Overlooked Resource in Schools,” which has more than a million views. Here’s
what she had to say.

Heejae: TalkingPoints is an education technology nonprofit that drives student
success by removing critical barriers to equitable family-school partnerships,
such as language, time, mindsets, and capacity. Our platform uses two-way
translated communication, powered by both AI- and human-based translation, to
facilitate meaningful family-school partnerships. For families, getting
started is as simple as texting—no sign-ups or downloads are needed. Teachers
can send a message to families as a text or through our free app; families can
reply in their home language and vice versa. Teachers can also attach files or
images to the messages they send families and even send videos with translated
captions. We include other built-in supports in our platform to help ensure
families and educators can connect in ways that are effective and
understandable. For example, our embedded education glossary ensures that
words with multiple meanings are put in an educational context so they can be
properly translated, described, and understood regardless of language. So a
“sub” is translated to mean a substitute teacher, not a sandwich, and a “hot
spot” is a Wi-Fi access point, not a war zone.

Rick: Today, how many languages does TalkingPoints translate? And what’s your
reach?

Heejae: We currently offer support in 145 languages; recently, we added 20 new
languages, including Bhojpuri, spoken in India; Quechua, spoken in South
America; and Krio, spoken in Africa. And for us, equitable access includes not
only connecting families with teachers but also with their students’ full
education support team. Last year, we expanded who could access our platform
so that school and district staff—like a special education teacher, a nurse, a
psychologist, or a bus driver—could communicate directly with families. Today,
TalkingPoints is present in 2 out of 3 schools across the country. Each year,
we connect millions of families and educators through our platform.

Rick: What kinds of obstacles do you encounter in working with schools or
families?

Heejae: One obstacle we have discovered through our research is that there is
a gap between what teachers and parents want out of communication. We found
that families want more academic progress and behavior updates from educators,
while educators want more information on student social-emotional wellness and
family circumstances from families. But the biggest obstacle we face is that
families are often siloed away from district conversations about how to
transform teaching and learning or how students will recover from the
pandemic. An investment in family-school partnerships is often seen as an
extra “nice-to-have” and not core to student learning. The reality is that
investing in a tool like TalkingPoints is relatively low-cost and high-impact
compared to many other school improvement programs. For one thing, the key
ingredient needed to build relationships between schools and families is
already present—educators and families. To leverage families more effectively
doesn’t require hiring more staff but rather an investment in technology and
support for educators to use it as part of their everyday teaching and
learning tools. So what is needed is new mindsets, not necessarily new
personnel.

Rick: Can you talk a bit about how what you’re offering is different from or
similar to what other providers are offering?

Heejae: Our purpose goes beyond communication—we’re fundamentally focused on
improving student outcomes by helping each and every family engage effectively
with their schools and in their child’s education. And, as a nonprofit, we are
able to invest in research and pilot new programs that can lead us to better,
more effective strategies for building family-school partnerships to drive
student success. My goal is for TalkingPoints to establish the gold standard
for universal family engagement, that drives best practices, grounded in
research, and to share these practices widely so that all students can get the
support they need.

Rick: So, you’ve recently released a new study that tried to examine the
academic impact of TalkingPoints. Can you talk a bit about how it was
conducted and its findings?

Heejae: Our research team partnered with a third-party researcher to conduct a
study on how using TalkingPoints impacted academic outcomes and attendance in
a large urban, diverse school district. Because the district adopted
TalkingPoints slowly over the course of several years, we were able to design
a study that compared schools that used TalkingPoints with schools that did
not, and importantly, controlled for individual and school characteristics.
And the findings are so exciting: The schools that used TalkingPoints saw
higher test scores, improved course proficiency, and lower absenteeism rates
for all students. And we saw the greatest gains in each of these measures for
underserved groups, including Black and Latino students, and students with
disabilities. Overall, the gains students made on state standardized tests in
math equate to an additional seven months of learning. And the higher
attendance rates provided 2,000 more hours of in-the-classroom learning. These
are encouraging findings, particularly as we think about helping students
catch up from pandemic learning losses.

Rick: How often do parents and teachers wind up interacting? And what do they
mostly talk about—logistics, student performance, behavior, or what have you?

Heejae: Among teachers and families, we see a mix of both classwide
announcements and direct messages to families. And overall, these messages
tend to focus more on logistics than academics or behaviors. In a recent
analysis of more than 30 million conversations, we found that more than 40
percent focused on logistics, whereas conversations concerning academics,
homework, class participation, or behavior comprised less than 20 percent. And
in our latest survey of teachers and families, we found that both educators
and families want deeper, student-centered information. The key then is for
TalkingPoints to help both teachers and families move beyond logistics to
deeper conversations that support student success.

Rick: Does TalkingPoints have uses other than as a translational tool? How
else do you see educators or parents using it?

Heejae: Absolutely. While we started with translation, because it is clearly a
need for those with language barriers, we’re focused on removing all the
systemic barriers that get in the way of families feeling empowered to be a
part of their child’s learning. In fact, the majority of our families are
English-speaking and do not need translated communication, but that doesn’t
mean they understand all of the communication. That’s because education is
often filled with a lot of jargon, which can be daunting for those who are not
familiar with the system. Our app includes an “Ed 101” tool that demystifies
these terms for families: They can simply click on an unfamiliar term, like
“IEP” or “field trip” to see what it means. And our “readability flag” alerts
teachers when the message they’re using is above a 5th grade reading level and
offers suggestions to simplify the language.

Rick: If you have one tip to offer teachers or school leaders based on what
you’ve seen over the past four years, what would it be?

Heejae: I’d advise every educator to reach out early in the year, or before
school even starts, to begin building relationships with families. Start by
asking families what their hopes and dreams are for their child and how they
can partner together in achieving the academic and other goals both parties
want to see. Families are the biggest wealth of information about their
children, and their love for their children is so universal that schools that
can leverage this—and see families as part of their learning team—really see
student learning accelerate.