PS 94 Kings College School in Norwood is rising to the challenge set by New York City Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña by engaging students’ families in creative new ways.

Over the last couple of months, school Principal Diane Daprocida incorporated a Newcomers Academy to acclimate its new immigrant families, and a Parent Think Tank to bolster school-family relationships.

“Effective family involvement is a vital component of success,” said Daprocida. “It is my job to work out what will get the parents through the doors, which means being willing to listen to ideas and advice and to take risks.”

PS 94 emphasizes family involvement to support student success, working for seven years with Learning Leaders, an experienced family engagement Manhattan-based nonprofit, implementing successful family volunteer and parent information workshop programs.

The school is comprised mostly of working families, 30 percent of whom are non-English-speaking and includes a large proportion of newly arrived immigrant families from Spanish-speaking countries, and countries in Asia and Africa.

The new initiatives are expected to ease assimilation for new families, improve communications between home and school, and increase opportunities for parents to participate.

The Newcomers Academy consists of a core group of teachers, parents and students, who meet with new immigrant families weekly to offer a consistent support network. The children are paired with a buddy from the same grade to help them navigate the system and spend time reading together. Parents and teachers help to translate and provide support and information based on the new families’ needs.

The Parent Think Tank teachers and Learning Leaders parents meet monthly to identify the barriers to family engagement and discuss how to build relationships, trust and encourage new families to be more involved with the school.

To fit these activities into the school day, PS 94 uses the 40 minutes each Tuesday that were allotted for family engagement within the new teachers union contract of 2014.

Currently, nearly 20 Learning Leaders parent volunteers help in the classrooms and in the school library and act as translators for new families, in Spanish, Arabic and Bengali. Learning Leaders also runs parent information workshops on topics including Common Core, homework help and transition to middle school. Fifteen sessions are planned this coming year, based on parent feedback about what they would find most helpful to learn.

“[Ms. Daprocida] has a great rapport with the parents and is constantly coming up with creative ideas to improve the school community and support the children’s learning,” said Jane Heaphy, executive director of Learning Leaders.