Dear Mundo Verde Families,
A couple weeks ago, in my message Invest in School Success for SY23-24 I shared with our school community how every year our school offers multiple ways for parents and caregivers to engage and participate, and pointed to some specific opportunities for engagement for next school year 23-24. Today, as a continuation to that message, I want to share updates of the efforts school leaders have undertaken this school year to create spaces for engagement and channels that can help improve the collaboration between school leaders and parent/caregiver organized groups. A diverse group of parent/caregiver leaders works to support the success of our students, staff and school in the following organized groups:
COMUNIDAD - Calle Ocho Organized Parent Association
PADRES - J.F. Cook Organized Parent Association
Parents/Caregivers of Black Students
Parents/Caregivers of Students with Special Needs
Parents/Caregivers of Hispanic/Latino students (recently emerging!)
Classroom Liaison Coordinators at each campus
As part of our commitment to enhance our work with organized caregiver groups, in SY22-23 we launched a pilot for a Network Engagement Steering Committee. The space was created by the school as a way to provide a regular space for meeting between executive leadership, campus principals and standing members of organized parent groups leading a variety of efforts in the school. The goal for the Steering Committee this year was to work on an agenda that addressed not only short term and campus specific issues, but school-wide and long-term strategy, school improvement and alignment of the different groups’ initiatives to the school’s mission, strategic plan and organizational priorities. The group met in September, October, December, April and May. During our last meeting with caregivers, we reflected on this pilot. In addition to appreciating its benefits, we reflected on ways we can improve this structure as we plan for next year. You can see a summary of our takeaways in the table below. As school leaders we will continue to reflect on this over the summer as we plan and design engagement structures for next school year.
| Stars (glows) | Stairs (grows) |
|---|---|
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The Network Engagement Steering Committee and the recently developed (and published earlier this year) set of guidelines for volunteer parent and caregiver associations are concrete actions we have taken as part of our commitment to effective and equitable engagement and offer a framework to guide coordination and to streamline collaboration both at the campus and the network level between school leaders and parent/caregivers.
Although the school year is coming to an end, our work around family engagement never stops. We will be active during the summer designing and planning engagement for the next year. We currently have two initiatives currently underway to inform next year’s planning: The first one is a survey that will help us better understand families and caregivers’ perspectives around raising funds, fundraising activities and their views regarding areas of investment so that common efforts can support our campus communities. The second one, summer playdates and other initiatives to help us welcome new families during the summer and into the Fall. Make sure to read all details and find more information in the sections below.
To all of you, for everything you do to support your child, our students and our school - thank you. We are excited to continue this valuable partnership.
In community,
Kristin