Latino Parent Engagement Lunch

Sanchez Elementary School

March 18, 2014

In attendance:

  • Fabiola Gomez, preschool community liaison, BVSD / Sanchez
  • Elena Collazo, preschool liaison, BVSD / Columbine
  • Pete Dawson, ECCBC A.C., retired pediatrician, People’s Clinic
  • Josie Heath, President, TCF
  • Cheryl Diaz, Latino Advisory Committee for City of Lafayette, manager, Boulder Ridge
  • Angelique Velasco, Ready! for Kindergarten, Summer Read Up
  • Sierra May Burchell, Intake Supervisor, Sister Carmen
  • Ana Guttridge (Kena), Ollin Farms
  • Valerie Gonzales, PASO Director, CSPC
  • Linda Bachrach, TCF Trustee
  • Julie Pillar, Sister Carmen
  • Tere Garcia, Retired assistant principal, Uni Hill Elementary
  • Richard Garcia, TCF Trustee, Founding E.D., CSPC
  • Enrique Franco, I Have a Dream / Casey Middle School
  • Doris Candelarie, Principal, Sanchez Elementary
  • Marissa Seuc, program Director, Ryan Elem, I Have a Dream
  • Pamela Kemp, Community Liaison, Pioneer Elementary
  • Chris Barge, Dir., TCF School Readiness Initiative

How do we better engage Latino parents around early learning? Participants paired into diads, took notes and reported out on their partners’ best ideas:

  • Have families trust you, so they feel welcome
  • Community liaisons are the faces of the school
  • Dialogue with parents must be meaningful and relevant; it’s about building shared meaning
  • Parents need to feel valued
  • Have merchants post fliers
  • Promote messages at dances
  • Involve high school-aged dreamers
  • Word-of-mouth is very important
  • Must be visible in the neighborhoods, clinics and shops
  • Parents have lots of trust with their pediatricians at clinics
  • Remember that parents share a common desire for their children to go to college
  • Emphasize early learning as the start on a path to college
  • Thinking about college should start as soon as parents enter the clinic for their kids shots
  • Whatever we do needs to be accessible, functional and appropriate for parents
  • Recruit an organizer who knows the community well, understands the culture
  • Tap into groups already in existence
  • Ask churches and clinics to help spread the word
  • Hospitals connect with new mothers – outreach from birth is key
  • Using many words with babies is important
  • Put another preschool in Lafayette
  • Use accessibility of community gardens to help
  • Start in the home to connect with families; home environment is the first teacher
  • Parents aren’t aware of their children’s important milestones
  • Fight cultural misinformation that kids are either smart by nature or not; Teach that parents decide how well their kids will do
  • Start with a vision of your child in 20 years
  • Be aware of cultural differences of Latinos whose background is city vs. rural
  • Emphasize that a good child is a talkative child (not a quiet child)

Who is organizing Latino parents around early learning already? Group discussion with notes taken on butcher paper. See notes in accompanying document.

How might a community organizer boost progress toward this goal in this city?

  • Expand Reading to End Racism
  • Host community reading events like “read around the world”
  • Offer classes for parents in their home language
  • Develop experiential learning activities, like on a farm or in a community garden
  • Parents fear child will lose library books; offer more little free libraries like Zonta at Sis. Carmen
  • Home visiting is powerful; culturally, Latino parents are used to salesmen knocking on door
  • Leverage Dr. Seuss’ birthday – involve police
  • Use parent-teacher conferences to reinforce with parents what early learning looks like at home
  • Ensure more children’s books are available in Spanish
  • Encourage parents to talk with children
  • Place PSAs on Spanish radio shows and on Spanish TV
  • Expand Reach Out And Read
  • Parents need to know developmental milestones their children must reach to be ready for school and ready to read
  • Help parents understand what to do if their child is hit with a “Significant Reading Deficiency” ala new READ Act
  • Teach parents how to advocate for their kids in the existing system
  • Create a simple handout that clarifies the overwhelming array of program offerings
  • Offer PASO for parents

Who are the 100 most important partners who could ensure this goal is met in this city? – We did the 100 partners exercise with sticky notes and butcher paper. See attached spreadsheet for results.

What should we do next?

  • Map all the people and key leaders who do this work in Lafayette; find where people are overlapping and what’s missing; a systems map of the community
  • Connecting with Latino childcare providers is key
  • Call the parents on the new 100 most important partners list, bring them in for a similar exercise; get their voice in this; get their needs and thoughts on how to get the right msg. out
  • Offer promotoras stipends to promote talking with young parents about talking with their kids
  • Remember that the community organizer model is often much broader than one topic area like ECE. Respect parent agendas, or be honest about your agenda
  • Remember that parents know who the parents are who can make something happen