Building Healthy Parent Communities

This course is intended for current and aspiring school leaders looking to influence the parent community at their campus. It will build an awareness of the larger context of parent communities and the elements that create healthy dynamics in three specific dyads: Leader-Parent, Teacher-Parent, and Parent-Parent. This course is not a complete survey of everything pertaining to parent-academy relations, nor is it intended to train participants in implementing specific strategies for managing difficult relationships. Rather, it seeks to develop a deeper understanding of the role of the parent community as it relates to the work we do and provide frameworks and strategies for developing and nurturing healthy parent communities. This is about the long game. At the same time, participants will find practical – and short term – tools for success as well.

Important dates: The course runs from 1/13/26 - 2/17/26 with the live synchronous sessions on 1/20/26 and 2/3/26 from 2:00-3:00 PM (AZ time).

Required texts:

• Whitaker, Todd, and Douglas J Fiore. Dealing with Difficult Parents. New York, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016.
• Plutarch's "To an Uneducated Leader," an essay from How to Be a Leader. (A free version of this text is available in the course.)

Facilitator: Dr. Toyin Atolagbe

GH Employees: use voucher code ghemployee (case sensitive) and your school email address at checkout. 

GH Partner Schools: use voucher code ghpartner (case sensitive) and the email address associated with your Brightspace account at checkout.