The purpose of this mixed-methods study is to identify major factors that directly affect parental involvement in 21st century schools. This study examined several elements of parental involvement. It calculated the idea of the changing family context and parental involvement, technology and parental involvement, the impact of Cultural Capital and parental involvement, the impact of the Academic Parent Teacher Teams program and parental involvement, and parents demographics and parental involvement. Data gathered to inform the research were derived from parent surveys and teachers and administrators interviews. The research examined the relationship between the parental involvement and parents perception of the school's accessibility, parents' perception of school's communication, parents perception of the schools climate, parents perception of their role in student's learning, teachers perceptions of the role of technology, parents perceptions of the usefulness of the Academic Parent Teacher Teams (APTT) Program, teachers perceptions of the usefulness of the APTT Program, Cultural Capital, and parents demographics: level of education, occupation, socioeconomic level, parental structure, ethnicity, and marital status parental. The benefits of the research are to inform educators how to structure programs that will directly assist parents on how to help their children more effectively at home, to reeducate parents on how to unpack standards, and measure the successfulness of a program that helped to bridge the gap between family and school. The surveys and interviews were administered at the elementary school located in Atlanta. The researcher focused this work on studies examining the associations between family, home and school because these associations began emerging as efforts to assess the efficacy of governmental programs and other interventions. In the late 1990s, scholarly attention turned to community control of schools, especially in the education of low-income children, special education students, and English language learners (McKenna & Millen, 2013, p. 14). These researchers sought to recommend strategies that would promote parent, family, and community involvement. These areas and these children were considered as the ones that could benefit the most from parental involvement. The results from these studies seek to add more clarity on how educators today can enlighten schools on how to bridge the family and school gap in the 21st century. KEY TERMS: parental involvement, family structure, educational leadership, family engagement, family involvement, Education, Social and Behavioral Sciences
