Strategy 3: Skill development
The programs we studied realize that in order to increase their children’s chances of continuing their studies beyond high school, parents need to know more than just the steps needed to prepare for college. To be sure, parents who have information about required high school classes, standardized tests, and financial aid can serve as better guides. Yet, parents also need to be able to build relationships with resource brokers in their communities—people in a position to provide help along the way. These might include school personnel, college admissions staff, or even elected officials. More often than not, however, parents lack the confidence and skills to approach these individuals. In response to this need, a number of programs help parents build communication and leadership skills through structured approaches.
Knocking on Doors
California’s Parent Institute for Quality Education offers a nine-week program that equips low-income Latino and other ethnically-diverse parents to take a leadership role in their children’s education. Topics covered during the program include the ins and outs of the U.S. school system, and the basics of preparing for college. Paty Mayer, a member of PIQE’s executive team, believes the program’s focus on action planning is critical to its success. After each session, parents are required to apply the new information in a concrete way. For example, after learning about report cards, parents are asked to calculate their child’s GPA based on the grades in their last report card.
Mayer explains that though many of the participants have only a grade-school education, they persevere through the program once they grasp the fact that their children’s chances of graduating from high school are bleak. “We raise the level of concern,” she says, because parents will act once they know what’s at stake. On a testimonial available on the program’s website, a former participant recalls that PIQE taught her “to always keep knocking on doors [and that] when one door closes another will open.” Her persistence and willingness to continually approach people who control key resources served her well beyond the nine weeks she spent with PIQE. She credits her experience there to helping her obtain legal documentation for her family—and to being able to send her four children to college.
A Forward-Thinking Approach
In California’s Isla Vista community, a number of Latino parents receive leadership training through the Padres Adelante (Parents Moving Forward) program, a key component of the ENLACE y Avance initiative run by the University of California, Santa Barbara. The program uses a curriculum developed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which covers topics such as parent’s rights and responsibilities, the structure of the school system, how to conduct a meeting, and how to make an effective presentation. The program, first run at Isla Vista Elementary School, has now expanded to include a middle school and a high school. Initially conducted by an ENLACE staff member, the training is now run by parents who graduate from the program.
Padres Adelante graduates have found a number of ways to make their voices heard in the community. Several participants formed a task force and met regularly with the principal at Isla Vista Elementary to discuss the need for more nutritious food for their children. The task force successfully advocated to the district for the addition of a salad bar to the school’s cafeteria. Parents also met with representatives from a local foundation to express their support for a proposed new neighborhood playground. The grant was approved, due in large part to the parents’ role in the process.
Learning a New Language
In addition to its intensive work with students, the North Carolina Math and Science Education Network (NC-MSEN) regularly provides parents with workshops that cover educational issues such as the No Child Left Behind legislation, the North Carolina standard course of study, and changes in state testing policies. These workshops are provided through local parent clubs called Parents Involved in Excellence (PIE), to which all parents with children in the program belong. Associate program director Rita Fuller says that having access to current education language and concepts helps parents feel empowered when approaching school personnel. Having equipped parents to interact with these individuals, the program also provides regular access to their children’s teachers and counselors.
A math and a science teacher (and occasionally a guidance counselor) from the local school are assigned to work closely with each PIE club. Because parents have many opportunities to interact with these teachers, they often serve as the parents’ first point of contact when their child is having a problem at school. The PIE-affiliated teachers then become a bridge to other staff, guiding parents to the places where they can get the help they need. As a result, PIE parents become willing and able to approach the school, as was the case with the parent who successful advocated for her child to be placed in an AP course even after the student’s teacher had not recommended her. Many PIE clubs have also established a strong presence at their local school, and PIE parents have assumed leadership responsibilities in their PTOs.
An intentional focus on the development of parents’ communication and leadership skills is central to the success of the programs discussed above. In particular, these programs see the value of familiarizing parents with the specialized language of U.S. schools and teaching them how to present their concerns to school staff. Other programs saw that offering ESL and computer classes could also help parents to advocate for their children. However, the delivery of workshops and classes was not an end in itself. Programs also provided opportunities for parents to practice their new skills and offered support along the way. Once parents had purposeful and effective interactions with practitioners, they began to see schools as places where they could access valuable resources and take an active role.
