Three Pillars of Family Engagement in K-12: Strategies with Canvas LMS

The number one thing parents say drives student success? Relationships.

According to our State of Teaching & Learning in K-12 Education study, 91% of parents indicated “a student’s relationship with teachers” as a top factor for their child’s success.

Families want to know that when their kids are at school, they're with teachers who care about their overall well-being. But research on engagement suggests that guardian-teacher relationships also play a large role in long-term student success. In fact, researchers found that students with engaged families are more likely to:

• Earn higher grades or test scores
• Graduate from high school and attend post-secondary education
• Develop self-confidence and motivation in the classroom

The right digital tools make those relationships easier than ever to build and maintain. We’ve rounded up the three pillars for family engagement and eleven ways Canvas LMS helps build meaningful connections.

Pillar 1: Streamline and Personalize Communication

Canvas keeps communication simple, organized, and in one place

Parents and guardians shouldn’t need three apps and a spreadsheet to keep up with school. Families want efficient ways to know how their child is doing at school, what their child needs to do, and how they can get help when needed. 

A learning management system like Canvas provides simple tools to keep families, teachers, and students connected, serving as a single source of truth for their students’ progress and updates from their teachers.

Here are a few Canvas features that keep communication flowing.

1. Canvas Inbox: No email addresses required. The Canvas inbox creates a simple portal between teachers, students, and guardians. It lets you send messages to individuals or groups, get back to everyone in a timely fashion, and keep this kind of communication in one place. And in fall 2025, AI translations will support multilingual families with easier communication.
2. Inbox Auto-Subscribe to Account Calendars: Remove friction for parents who want to stay up-to-date on assignments, due dates, and other events in the classroom.
3. Message Students Who + Observers: Proactively and efficiently message families whose students need extra help or have missing assignments. Teachers can skip excused students and even shout out the students who turned in assignments on time, building positive feedback loops.
4. Appointment groups: Canvas scheduler lets you set up a block of time for guardians to schedule appointments with you. You just decide the length of each time slot and let Canvas handle the rest.

Pillar 2: Build Trust with Full Visibility

Tools in Canvas help families stay informed and engaged throughout the school year

Trust grows when families feel informed, included, and able to support their child’s learning. Canvas offers visibility into student progress, feedback, and classroom activity, bridging the gap between school and home. Teachers can share how they support each learner, invite insight from families, and foster a stronger learning partnership with guardians. After all, both guardians and teachers are working toward the same goal: helping every student thrive.

Here are a few tips for building familial partnerships through visibility:

1. Homepage: Calling all teachers! Do you check your email in the morning? Allow meetings in the afternoon? Hold office hours once a week? Share your contact information, preferred method of communication, and anything else about how and when guardians can best reach you on your Canvas homepage so it’s easily accessible to everyone.
2. Observer Role + Dashboard Filtering by Student: Great for families with multiple children, guardians can focus on one student at a time instead of toggling between screens or logging in multiple times.
3. Student Feedback Visibility: When parents see specific feedback, they can celebrate their child beyond a percentage or grade, reinforcing the teacher’s call-outs on creativity, hard work, attention to detail, etc. Guardians can also understand academic struggles before it’s too late, as seeing feedback on ways to improve can prompt conversations at home or a check-in with the teacher.
4. Customize your dashboard & calendar: It can be overwhelming for families with multiple students to stay updated with all of their coursework in one app. Encourage guardians to customize their dashboard by assigning different titles and colors to each course. 

Pillar 3: Turn Parents into Partners in Learning

Canvas helps parents support learning at home with real-time insights and practical tools 

Looking over a child's shoulder at homework or asking what they learned at school today doesn’t always give guardians the clearest picture of what’s happening in the classroom. Instead, invite guardians to have a seat at the table by allowing them to monitor their student’s learning from afar using the Canvas Parent app and course notifications. 

Here are three ways parents can stay in the know with Canvas:

1. Download the Canvas Parent App: If Canvas LMS is a student’s digital classroom, then the Canvas Parent App is a window into that classroom. This allows guardians to create their own login to monitor their student’s performance, stay informed of upcoming due dates, and stay in touch with teachers—all while on-the-go!

   The app was updated in 2025 to give real-time access to feedback so parents can see their child’s progress and areas for improvement, allowing for support at home and meaningful conversations with teachers more easily than ever before.

2. Announcements as a regular help guide: It’s not uncommon for guardians to unknowingly (and with the best intentions) contribute to student anxiety regarding grades and academic success. Helping families understand your approach to instruction, assessment, and education technology will paint a clearer picture of how you plan to support their child–and how they can join in at home.

   Teachers can show guardians practical ways to help their child continue learning classroom material. Whether as a text announcement, graphic, or video, a message starting with “Here’s how you could help them for 10 minutes this week” gives parents a practical way to collaborate with you at home.

3. Adjust notifications: No more guesswork when it comes to project deadlines, upcoming assessments, and graded assignments. Parents can adjust their notifications to ensure they won’t miss a beat and are alerted about all of the information that is most important to them. Working with their student’s teachers, they can stay informed about their child’s progress in real-time.

Being able to find all of my children's school work and class information in one place [Canvas LMS] has made it much easier to support my kids in their learning.

• Parent from Poway Unified School District

Stronger connections create stronger students

Canvas bridges classrooms and homes so every student can succeed in a full circle of support

All over the world, Canvas helps students on their learning journeys. But it can also act as a bridge between teachers and parents, fostering a community where students are supported both at home and in the classroom.