Case Study: Wake County Public School System improves and measures family engagement with Panorama Education

Family Engagement Tips from North Carolina’s Largest District

Wake County Public School System (WCPSS), the largest district in North Carolina serving over 159,000 students across 183 schools, faced a strategic challenge: strengthen family engagement citywide as part of its Vision 2020 goals. District leaders, including Title I Family Engagement Coordinator Kelly Harvell, needed deeper, more representative feedback than annual Google Forms could provide—especially at Title I sites like Stough Elementary—so they partnered with Panorama Education and adopted Dr. Karen Mapp’s Dual Capacity‑Building Framework and Panorama’s research‑backed Family‑School Relationships Survey.

With Panorama Education, WCPSS administered multilingual surveys by mail and online and analyzed results at district, school, and demographic levels to guide action. Stough used Panorama data to form a Family Engagement Committee, host a literacy night (267 attendees—more than double typical turnout), and plan a Global Festival; survey findings (137 responses) showed strengths—85% favorable on school climate, 87% reporting few barriers, 77% confident supporting learning—and highlighted gaps (Family Engagement in the 60th percentile nationally; Hispanic responses 18 points below overall), giving Panorama’s insights a measurable role in shaping targeted outreach and programming.

Wake County Public School System

Kelly Harvell

Family Engagement Coordinator