Our Program

Parent-child engagement at both home and school during the middle school years is positively associated with a wide range of behavioral and academic outcomes (e.g., attendance, grades, and test scores). Due to structural changes in school environments and the increasing autonomy of teenagers, parent-child engagement often declines during the formative middle school years. As parents, you may face unique challenges in your ability to both guide your middle school child's academic progress and to be engaged in your child's life.

Our program seeks to promote parent-child engagement by sending weekly text messages, available in both English and Spanish, to middle school parents. The text messages include facts and tips on:

• How to best support and guide your child's academic trajectory as they transition from middle school to high school

• How to best support your child's social and emotional learning (SEL) skills

• How knowledge, skills, and abilities of your child are growable

Our Texts

INSPIRE

These texts are sent on Mondays. They are designed to motivate parents on a weekly academic topic related to your middle school child (e.g., asking questions in class, learning from mistakes, talking about report cards, sharing school work in progress, talking to teachers, etc.).

EXCEL

These texts are sent on Wednesdays. They are designed to address the academic topic of the week and aim to develop social and emotional learning (SEL) skills for your child, promote your child's school engagement, and encourage a parenting practice (e.g., warmth, academic support, etc.).

BOND

These texts are sent on Fridays. They are also related to the academic topic of the week and typically reinforce the week's aim from the EXCEL text by fostering positive parent-child interactions (e.g., affective interactions).