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This month’s focus: Parent and Community Engagement

“Engaged communities who participate actively and who express their concern about the quality of education and act as partners in improving their own schools, are essential to transforming schools.”
– Dr. María “Cuca” Robledo Montecel, IDRA President and CEO

Published 10 times a year, each edition explores issues facing U.S. education today and strategies to better serve every student. This newsletter is published in print and on the IDRA website, in addition to this eLetter format.

Rio Grande Valley Community Commits to Ensuring High Academic Region for All Students

by Hector Bojorquez

Community members from the Rio Grande Valley gathered recently to discuss shared educational visions and goals for Valley students. As described in an article last month, the convening was aptly named Mesa Comunitaria Educativa – Educational Community Board (Bojorquez & Montemayor, 2014). The meeting was the culmination of months of smaller meetings with community members focusing on the Valley’s assets and the impact of the newly-enacted House Bill 5, which lowers educational expectations and establishes a de facto tracking system destined to worsen already low college-going and success rates among Texas youth.

Across the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas efforts are reshaping what is possible for children, including dropout prevention; graduation planning; supports for students who will be the first in their family to attend college; amplification of community, family and youth leadership; a press for more equitable local, regional and state policy; development of quality bilingual early childhood education curricula and materials; strengthening of K-12 mathematics, science and language learning; and professional development, teacher preparation and placement to meet teacher shortages and gaps. The Valley is fertile ground for a variety of positive solutions to challenges encountered by public education. In this region, we find entire school districts raising expectations for all students and, in actuality, graduating and sending more students to college. We find community-based organizations collaborating with school districts to improve educational outcomes for all Valley students. Much of the Valley is transforming public education at a time when trends across the country point to increased privatization, shirking responsibility for equitable education funding, and, tragically, abandoning college as a goal for all students. – Keep reading

See IDRA’s new eBook: Seven Elements of the PTA Comunitario Approach

Families and Curriculum – Supporting Preparation of Students for College and Post-secondary Education

by Aurelio M. Montemayor, M.Ed.

Parent educators and liaisons have been part of public school outreach for many decades. The Title I federal support to public schools funds parent involvement. The challenge has always been to have authentic and meaningful connections with families especially those who are economically disadvantaged, of color, recent immigrants…or all of the above. A strong alliance between schools and community organizations is a means of maintaining excellent public schools, and incidentally, meeting the spirit of the law in federal parent involvement requirements.

The education system is complex and not easy for laypersons to navigate.  It would seem to be more so for poor, Spanish-speaking recent immigrants from unincorporated communities on the fringes of towns. Yet groups of these families have been able to understand basic graduation requirements, the value of dual credit courses and the pitfalls of minimal, non-college preparatory tracks. They understand that pre-Algebra in the eighth grade is an advantage for all students and that even without understanding the content of the math curriculum, it is critical for entering college.

The PTA Comunitario, derived from IDRA’s Family Leadership in Education model, has been a context for families to learn about and take action on educational topics that are critical for understanding their children’s education. – Keep reading

Principles for Transforming a School District

by Hector Bojorquez

Note: The following is an excerpt from College Bound and Determined, released by IDRA in February 2014. The full publication is available free online.

It would be a mistake to think of what is happening at PSJA as a program or a collection of initiatives or just a district that has a college-going culture. It is more accurate to think of PSJA’s transformation as that of a district that made a conscious decision to scale-up early college high school models to the entire district. It is a transformation that raises, in actual fact, the expectations for all students. In this publication we explore how PSJA has accomplished such a radical transformation so that others may advocate for similar transformations in their community schools.

These principles come from reviewing hours of interviews and observations. They were gleaned from many thoughts and statements made by key staff, but are the solely result of viewing PSJA’s processes through IDRA’s change model: the Quality Schools Action Framework. These principles are how we best present the process in which a district can make similar changes and is not meant to represent PSJA’s evolving policies. Families, educators, principals, superintendents, school boards and policymakers are invited to take away the following key principles from this document. – Keep reading

Immigrant Students’ Rights to Attend Public Schools Alert for Registering Students for School

As schools are registering students for the next school year, this alert is a reminder that public schools, by law, must serve all children. The education of undocumented students is guaranteed by the Plyler vs. Doe decision, and certain procedures must be followed when registering immigrant children in school to avoid violation of their civil rights.

As a result of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Plyler vs. Doe, public schools may not:

  • deny admission to a student during initial enrollment or at any other time on the basis of undocumented status;
  • treat a student differently to determine residency;
  • engage in any practices to “chill” the right of access to school;
  • require students or parents to disclose or document their immigration status;
  • make inquiries of students or parents intended to expose their undocumented status; or
  • require Social Security numbers from all students, as this may expose undocumented status.

Yet a number of schools are posting notices like these pictured (right) and on school websites that indicate Social Security cards and birth certificates are required before a family can register their child for school. Such practices are in direct violation of Plyler vs. Doe.  – Keep reading

IDRA Research for Family and Community Involvement

IDRA is concerned with the education of all children, with special emphasis on economically disadvantaged, of color, recent immigrant and English learners. The research literature often is disappointing because so much is based on deficit concepts of children and their families. For many decades IDRA’s research, including, Hispanic Families as Valued Partners – An Educator’s Guide (1993) provides background information about minority families and recommends ways of involving them in their children’s schools. This publication describes a process for assessing a school’s current parent involvement program and then redesigning it to increase the involvement of Hispanic families. The recommendations draw on this research and on the work IDRA has done in the areas of home-school partnerships, family literacy, adult education outreach, electronic networks for adult learners, and parent empowerment. Over the years, our research and practice have led us to IDRA’s model of Family Leadership in Education, which was synthesized in the U.S. Department of Education’s publication, Engaging Parents in Education – Lessons from Five Parental Information and Resource Centers (2007). And this model and its best practices are now a part of IDRA’s PTA Comunitario approach, currently funded as part of USDA’s Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) project. More information on IDRA’s PTA Comunitario work and our model of Family Leadership in Education is available online, as are more examples and resources from IDRA’s research work. More examples and resources from IDRA’s school funding research work are online.

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Encourage your friends to sign up for the IDRA Newsletter by email, IDRA eNews, Graduation for All and Classnotes Podcast notices.

Classnotes Podcasts on Parent and Community Engagement

How to Start a PTA Comunitario – Episode 131

Promotora Model for Family Leadership in Education – Episode 118

Rosie Castro on Parent Engagement – Episode 115

Expressions of Effective Parent and Community Engagement – Episode 100

The Power of IDRA’s Parent Leadership Model – Episode 3