You know my penchant for anyone willing to talk about schools and families working together for children, so my day today was a great one. The Family Area Network (FAN) is a group of people who come together every two months to talk about my favorite topic.

The fun part of this group is that it's a whole statewide effort to make family engagement work. The state is California and it's a pretty good size state with so many issues to deal with so it does take a lot of building relationships to make it happen. The representatives are an eclectic mix. The state department of education is involved and provides the leadership. The two state Parent Information Resource Centers (PIRC) are here as is PTA, County offices, school districts, parents, and folks like me who help support all those folks to make the connections happen. So all of us get to talk about our favorite pieces.

As you can imagine, the discussion gets passionate and exciting. Today's was no exception. How do we work in a state with its 7 million students and families? The member of the FAN often come with different ways of handling all of these students. Some will come asking questions about how to help non-English students or special ed students or students in poverty. One of our participants was talking about the high amount of crime in his district and that three of their students had been killed this year already in crime related concerns. How do you deal with that?

It's all about helping kids and families. Regardless of differences in focus, there isn't one of us in the room that doesn't want family and school connection. Yea!