What is School Connectedness

Building relationships with students and their families is essential to being an effective teacher. Learning to build relationships should be taught in teacher preparation courses and allow for practicing these skills in classroom field experiences. Developing positive relationships leads to students feeling a greater sense of school connectedness and increased positive peer relationships. Relationship building is especially important when working with vulnerable populations such as students with disabilities and their families. Positive relationships with teachers are associated with positive academic and social outcomes for students with and without disabilities. This chapter will discuss building positive student-teacher-family relationships and will provide ideas for how pre-service and in-service teachers can develop those positive relationships.