Measuring How Well Families Trust your Schools

Trust in the school is an important indicator of how well your school is connecting and working with families to support their child’s learning and growth.

The two parent trust scales below: Parent Trust in School (PTS-Scale) and Parent Trust in Principal (PTP-Scale) were written by Patrick Forsyth and Curt Adams of The University of Oklahoma. This information could be collected from families as part of an annual survey, or as part of a smaller data collection any time during the school year.

“Trust is an individual’s or group’s willingness to be vulnerable to another party based on the confidence that the latter party is benevolent, reliable, competent, honest, and open” (https://www.waynekhoy.com/).

Read more research on trust between families and schools:

• Adams, K. S. and Christenson, S. L. (2000). Trust and the family-school relationship: Examination of parent-teacher differences in elementary and secondary grades. Journal of School Psychology, 38(5), 477-497.
• Beard, K. S. and Brown, K. M. (2008). ‘Trusting’ schools to meet the academic needs of African-American students? Suburban mothers’ perspectives. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 21(5), 471-485.
• Brewster, C. and Railsback, J. (2003). Building trust with schools and diverse families. AdLit.org.
• Bryk, A. S., and Schneider, B. (2003). Trust in schools: A core resource for school reform. Educational Leadership, 60(6), 40-45.
• Constantino, S. M. (2015). Engage every family: Five simple principles. Corwin.
• Forsyth, P. B, Adams, C. M., and Hoy, W. K. (2011). Collective Trust: Why schools can’t improve without it. Teachers College Press.
• Goddard, R. D., Salloum, S. J., and Berebitsky, D. (2009). Trust as a mediator of the relationships between poverty, racial composition, and academic achievement: Evidence from Michigan’s public elementary schools. Educational Administration Quarterly, 45(2), 292-311.
• Latunde, Y. (2017). Welcoming Black families: What schools can learn from churches. Educational Leadership, 75(1).
• Miller, G., Thomas, C., & Freuchtenicht, S. (2014). Engaging refugee families as partners in their children’s education. Communiqué, 43,(4).
• Rockwell, J. (2017, January 4). Building relationships with parents of students with special needs. Learners Edge.
• Turnbull, A. A., Rutherford, H., Erwin, E. J., Soodack, L. C., and Shogren, K. A. (2015). Families, professionals, and exceptionality: Positive outcomes through partnerships and trust (7^th ed.). Pearson

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