Introduction A positive school climate is essential for school well-being and the educational process. Relationships between teachers and family play an essential role. The quality of teacher-parent interaction depends on mutual appreciation of each other's work and on the recognition of the parent's educational role. Alignment of educational goals supports parental involvement and strengthens parents' perception of the school's value. Conversely, when this alliance is poorly developed, inter-actions may become conflictual, especially when role perceptions are misaligned.
Teachers often report a decline in the authority and support they receive from families, characterised both by total delegation of educational functions and by intrusive interference in school matters.
Purpose
Understand the quality of teacher-parent relationship, its impact on teachers' well-being, and sense of community (SoC) in the 4 primary schools of a school district of Cesena, as part of the project "La scuola e la città" (Fondazione con i bambini)
Method
A participatory action research approach was used. Four focus group were organised with the teachers (73 participants). Thematic analysis was done on the transcripts of the focus group.
Results The focus group results showed consent among teachers on the idea that clear boundaries for participation are needed, and teachers must define explicit limits on parental involvement. What resulted even more important, was coherence and a common strategy between teachers and across schools in approaching those issues, despite differences across the four schools of the district.
Based on this evidence, to support the co-creation of a common strategy to facilitate teacher-parent relationships, a world cafè with all the teachers of the school district was organised to design a "a vademecum to survive parents"
Conclusions
PAR was effective in strengthening teachers' sense on community and their ownership on the strategies to handle their relationships with parents.