Frequently Asked Questions

Schools with the most family engagement are the most successful. All the studies say that getting parents and families involved with their children's education produces better schools, better test scores, better discipline and a better work environment for teachers.

Our customers are school districts, schools, boards of education, regional/state education agencies and other education institutions.

If you need a quote to attach to your purchase order simply click on our Quick Quote feature located at the very top of our website and add your items by SKU and/or keyword. When you're finished, enter your email address and click on the "Email & Update Quote" button to send a copy of the quote to your email. Or, click on the "Print" button to print your quote or save it as a PDF.

You can also browse our site, placing items in your Shopping Cart as you go along. When you've placed everything you want in your cart, enter your email address and click on the "Generate Quote" button in the lower right corner to email yourself a copy of the quote.

If, at a later date, your plans change and you decide to purchase the items on your printed quote with a credit card, you can return to the Quick Quote page and enter the quote # from the top of the quote you've printed and your items will be placed in your quote again for easy checkout!

Displaying an assortment of helpful parent involvement materials in your office shows parents you care and encourages parent involvement. We can help! We have pre-packed, cost-saving Resource Centers covering a wide range of topics, as well as smaller "Must–Have" Packs that cover critical topics for Family Engagement and Student Achievement.

Many schools and districts choose to create their own "custom" parent resource centers by purchasing a display rack and choosing the publications they need from the over 200 titles we offer in English and Spanish. You can use the drop-down menus at the top of our website to search by product type, topic or age-level.

Engaging your parents in the education of their children has never been easier! All of our products are available electronically for you to post on your school website, so parents can access them anytime they need them. We call it our "Electronic Family Engagement Library"! You choose exactly the publications you want to have posted on your website for an entire year. PLUS, you can email the publications to parents, or print as many copies as you need!

You can also purchase a yearly subscription to our School Success Web Content Service. It is an easy, inexpensive way for parents to access thousands of tips and ideas to boost student achievement at their convenience right from your school website! It's offered in Elementary and Secondary levels and in English and Spanish. Quantity discounts are available, too—the more versions you buy, the more you save!

Our comprehensive Family Engagement Resource Centers are available in English and Spanish. They come with wire tabletop or wall display racks and are stocked with our most important and popular titles. Plus, they provide great savings to you! You'll save over 20% when you purchase a pre-packaged resource center instead of purchasing regularly priced products separately.

If you already own one of our Family Engagement Resource Centers, refilling it is easy! We have pre-packaged Resource Center refill packs available at discounted prices. For prices and/or to order, call our friendly customer service representatives at 1–800–756–5525.

Give our customer service department a call at 1–800–756–5525 and we can make any of our print products available for you to preview online.

It's quick and easy to choose the publications you need and stay within your budget! We suggest you start with the drop-down menus on our Home Page. You can browse our publications by format (product), topic, or age–level.

As you find publications you are interested in, add the items into your shopping cart. Adjust your items and quantities to fit your budget. Once you have created the perfect product list at the right price, you can choose to checkout or generate a quote that you can attach to your purchase order. It's that easy!

All previous customers have a unique Customer ID # associated with their account. Subscribers to The Parent Institute's newsletters and School Success Web Content Service need to know this number to log in to view their content.

If you do not know your Customer ID#, you may contact The Parent Institute by calling us toll-free at 1-800-756-5525 between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern.

Please be prepared to provide us with as much information about your account/order as possible so that we may quickly find your ID #.

It's easy to access your newsletter online! Visit https://www.parent-institute-online.com and log in with your unique Customer ID # and zip code associated with your subscription.

If you don't know your Customer ID #, you may contact us at 1–800–756–5525 to request it.

After you log in, click on the current month's issue. On the next page you will see links to view the newsletter PDFs and bonuses. Click on each link to print it or download and save it to your own computer. Then you can make copies or email the newsletter PDF directly to your parents. It's as easy as that!

"Automatic website posting" is a service we offer our ready-to-reproduce newsletter subscribers that, after a one–time (FREE!) set up by your school/district staff, automatically places the latest newsletter issue(s) on your website each month—in full color!

Setting up automatic website posting is easy and takes only minutes. First, log in to your newsletter downloads with your unique customer ID # and zip code. Click on the current month's issue. On the next page under the heading, "Ensure Your Newsletter Appears Automatically on Your Website," follow the setup instructions.

Feel free to call us at 1–800–756–5525 with any questions.

All current subscribers to The Parent Institute's newsletters may access their newsletter issues online.

No, there is no additional charge for electronic access to your newsletters. Downloading is offered as a convenience to subscribers.

—Avoid retyping articles into your own publications (quickly copy and paste text from the Word document version of the issue).

—Post newsletter PDFs on your website or send as email attachments.

—All downloaded newsletters are personalized.

If you choose to download the entire issue laid out exactly as it appears in print, you will need to have the Adobe Acrobat Reader (version 6.0 or above) installed on your computer in order to view the PDF files we use to post them. The Acrobat Reader can be downloaded for free from Adobe.

All Ready-to-Reproduce subscriptions from The Parent Institute include personalized newsletters at no extra cost to you.

To change the personalization of your newsletter subscription, call 1–800–756–5525 or email customer@parent-institute.com.

The School Success Web Content Service puts family engagement ideas and articles on your school's website for your students' parents to read. It updates itself automatically with new ideas every day of the year.

The Parent Institute prides itself on being Education's #1 Source for Family Engagement Information. Each year since 1989, we've surveyed educators like you to find out what information is the "most important for parents to know to help their children do better in school." You've told us what you wish you had the chance to tell each student's parents, and we've put those ideas on our School Success Web Content Service.

The School Success Web Content Service is available in both English and Spanish so you can give your Spanish-speaking families the helpful information too! Reaching your diverse parents is so important to positively influence their child's achievement. Just like the English version, the Spanish version can be accessed at any time for parents' reading convenience.

The newsletters and flyers you send home are important, but many parents don't read everything. Today, schools must use every means available to reach as many families as possible. Not all families will have access to the Internet, but for many of the busiest parents you've been trying to reach, your website is likely to be the best way to reach them at work, where they may have computer access and a little time.

No. The School Success Web Content Service is designed to be a valuable addition to your existing site.

No. Once you've placed the code we provide you on your school's website once, the School Success Web Content Service buttons you've inserted will reference information stored on our computer servers, so you won't be taking up valuable memory space. The information changes daily automatically. We do the work, but it's your school's website that comes off looking very professional.

–No annoying advertising.

–Our information is written from the school's point of view on topics selected by educators to help families help their children do better in school.

–You can be sure of a trusted source and can preview the information parents will read up to 30 days in advance. Since 1989, The Parent Institute has been providing accurate and reliable parent involvement information for schools to pass along to parents. Surveys show that more than 10 million parents a month read Parent Institute materials.

–Every page of the online material is personalized with the name of your school and your name and title (or other message you choose). You get the credit for providing helpful information to parents and families—not some remote organization trying to produce ad revenue.

–Most parents with Internet access will actually check their child's school website. But they may not be motivated to search out family engagement information elsewhere.

–Families stay on your site and come back to it regularly.

The School Success Web Content Service was designed to protect school and parent privacy. Our system tracks basic information about usage so that we can assess the effectiveness of the content we provide, and so we can maintain the security of our computer systems. Families reading the articles remain anonymous and you can rest assured we will never sell information about our readers. We have a more technical explanation available if you would like more detail.

As a free bonus, we'll send you our special report, "How to make the most effective use of the School Success Web Content Service." The bonus includes reproducible articles and advertising-type reminders in English and/or Spanish depending on the version(s) you purchase. Drop the articles and advertisements right into your print newsletters and announcements to encourage parents to visit your website and see the new family engagement materials you have waiting for them there.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us with any questions, concerns, or comments you may have.

Email customer@parent-institute.com

Call us toll free at (800) 756-5525 between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET

Fax purchase orders to (800) 216-3667 toll free

Mail to The Parent Institute, P.O. Box 7474, Fairfax Station, VA 22039-7474

Please be prepared to offer as many details of your account (name of subscriber, name of newsletter, zip code, customer ID #) as possible so that we can quickly look up your account record.