Parent connector network/ahas

Tell us how you figured things out, over time.

Note to documenters: please share the following:

COMMUNICATION AHAS. In the process of doing the work, what did the working group learn about improving communications in education? (Who needs to share which information with whom, via which media, to support a young person? What are the barriers to that communication, and how can those barriers be overcome?)

IMPLEMENTATION AHAS. In the process of doing the work, what did the working group learn about implementing innovations (and specifically, communication solutions) in education?

TURNING POINTS. Moments when you redirected the project accordingly, after a communication aha or an implementation aha.

Share visual examples and use photos or videos of people whenever you can!

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In fall 2009, we began building relationships among parents interested in schoolwide communication improvements. Mica and Consuelo, both parents at the Healey School, met at a coffee hour with the principal in fall 2009 and discovered a mutual interest in starting conversations across language and program. Mica invited Consuelo to help do parent outreach for the OneVille Project, and a design partnership at the Healey began!

Our first effort to focus on parent relationships and schoolwide communication infrastructure was to hold Reading Nights, designed to link parents across programs in communications about supporting children’s literacy. To get people to Reading Nights at all, we had to practice communicating between school and home, to advertise events in multiple languages. (LINK TO CONSUELO'S DOCUMENT HERE. . )

(COLORED TEXT BOX: COMMUNICATION AHA: the success of any school event relies on school-home communication!

As we tried to get people to Reading Night and to then share tips from Reading Night, we realized the need for better communication infrastructure for reaching parents! Otherwise, inviting parents to school events is hard and incredibly time-consuming.

A listserv for the school’s K-6 magnet program linked two classrooms of parents in the hallway, but not the other two classes (Special Education and, the "Neighborhood" program). Many immigrant and lower-income parents in the magnet program weren't on the listserv anyway. So, we moved forward with paper and face to face communication.

We put up multilingual signs outside of the classroom doors, where parents would see them. Some did, but not all parents dropped off their kids at school themselves. Consuelo's giant pizza, put up on the wall a few days before each Reading Night, worked particularly well to entice kids!

PHOTO OF CONSUELO AND THE PIZZA HERE

Face to face invitations on the playground before school were often the thing that brought some people to Reading Night, in part because parents – often those standing alone on the playground rather than clustering in friendship groups – got the message that they would be welcome. But face-to-face invitations were particularly time-consuming, and our energy for standing outside to invite parents personally to events waned over the year. At teachers’ urging, we continued to also announce Reading Nights to kids in classrooms, who would then invite their parents! One of our most well-attended Reading Nights involved an entire class, who did a play together with their teacher.

(In trying to get “out” our reading tips from each Reading Night, we realized a parallel need for infrastructure: following up after events, so work can continue in between! We tried to post our reading tips as paper sheets on a hallway bulletin board, but somehow this didn't excite lots of viewing from passers-by. Somehow, we needed a channel that could reach everybody pre and post our event!)

Had we known that the school's "robocall" system could call a targeted subset of parents in their language, perhaps we could have used that to invite more people! It wasn't until the following year, with a new principal, that we realized we could help shape the content of robocalls. (But this most obvious channel-home is often used only for the "most important" of communications, so we may not have been allowed to use it.)

Reading Nights were in part about getting families excited about reading together in new ways (parents told us their children left talking all night about reading). One main innovation was to also make time to get parents together on the side to talk together as our children did activities. Through this, we realized something else about necessary communications in schools, in part from listening to parents who ended up doing child care, missing the parent-to-parent conversation, and getting frustrated:

(COLORED TEXT BOX: COMMUNICATION AHA: What many parents most needed (or wanted!) was a chance to talk quietly to other parents!

In this case, about our experiences trying to help our children read.

In order to support communication between diverse parents, we focused on improving a typical "slot" for parent-parent and parent-administrator communication: the typically English-dominated "coffee hours" with the principal, held monthly on Friday mornings in the PTA room.

In partnership with the principal in fall 2009, we created a slot for a multilingual coffee hour model, a brainstorm of Consuelo (PHOTO), always committed to finding creative ways of empowering immigrant parents. In the multilingual coffee hour, parents voluntarily translated for other parents wanting to ask questions and hear information from the principal. The experience quickly clued us into a key local resource:

(COLORED TEXT BOX: MAJOR COMMUNICATION AHA! The massive local resource of parent bilingualism).

At several points over the two years to come, we considered combining the multilingual coffee hour back into the "regular" coffee hour with the principal. The Healey's next principal first leaned in this direction, arguing that every coffee hour should de facto be multilingual, but then he decided to keep a distinct "multilingual" coffee hour. Since typical coffee hours were so obviously dominated by questions and comments from English-speaking parents, it still felt important to have a space focused actively on multilingual communication. The multilingual coffee hour with the principal is now an established place where people take extra time for translation and purposefully amplify languages other than English, by ensuring that speakers of other languages get priority in asking and answering questions. Read more about it on this page.

(ADD MINI COMMENT BLURB OR INTERVIEW HERE WITH LUPE OR IRMA, ON WHAT IT HAS MEANT TO HAVE AN EXPLICITLY MULTILINGUAL COFFEE HR?)

New community developments at the Healey shaped the next building blocks of our work, and our next ahas about needed improvements to communication infrastructure. Halfway into the 2009-10 school year, the school committee put on its agenda a key task: deciding whether to integrate the Healey's magnet and "Neighborhood" K-6 programs. In response, we used our multilingual coffee hour for a number of community dialogues to facilitate conversation about this choice, and, we held a large community dialogue on a Saturday (LINK TO SOME DOCUMENTATION FROM MAY 5 MEETING).

In our work to support parent dialogues, we realized just how irregular it was for parents to speak to each other across "groups," about fundamental desires for their children's education. It became important later in the Healey's unification debate to be able to report, i.e., to school council members, that everyone we talked to - across lines of class, race/ethnicity, and language - wanted a more rigorous learning experience for their children. Many parents had never talked to parents from the other “groups.”

In the parent dialogue work, we realized just how central problems of communication were to parents being fully included in the school. School committee members used the magnet program's listserv to advertise school committee meetings about the Unification debate, and those who came to meetings were disproportionately those on the listserv; those on the magnet program's listserv emailed the superintendent or principal regularly with their opinions about whether the programs should integrate. Three months into the debate, when we walked around the Mystic Development to invite parents to a school committee meeting, we realized that many -- those not on the listserv -- were unaware that the issue of integration was even up for debate at the school at all. And this, in a housing project literally down a flight of stairs from the school!

In the end, the School Committee voted to "unify" the Healey's K-6 programs and hired a consultant to steer that process through the following school year.

TURNING POINT: with the Healey in the midst of brainstorming all sorts of changes to its everyday structures, we began to focus on improving infrastructure for reaching and including immigrant parents in particular.

As school ended in 2010, supporting communication of important school information across lines of language, class, and also tech access/training became our key focus at the school. As we continued work on a schoolwide communication toolkit, we focused on questions of language barriers and brainstormed a key response in Fall 2010: the Parent Connector Network.

KEY TURNING POINT: The evolution of the Parent Connector Network

(COLORED TEXT BOX: in creating the Parent Connector Network, we learned the full set of components needed to improve translation and interpretation infrastructure in particular.

In the cafeteria one morning in xxxx, Consuelo and Mica were sitting with several parents from the PTA, talking about how to improve schoolwide communication. Consuelo took out a piece of paper and started to draw triangles, linked to other triangles in a pyramid structure. Parents could be links to other parents, she explained. In the car together going home, Mica named the role: "Connectors."

We began to share out the basic idea of “parents linking to other parents” with the school council and other school leaders, to see what people thought of it. People immediately liked the idea. There were already "room parents" in the magnet program, but these parents primarily had signed on just to tell people once in a while about things like parent breakfasts or school supply needs, not about the more important issues going on at the school.

Importantly, we learned from others that paid Parent Liaisons in each school had existed previously in Somerville, under a grant; when the grant finished, the Liaisons did too. We agreed to see what volunteers could do with their bilingual skills – without carrying the burden of paid employees.

Parents’ power?: Ongoing innovation!

We started brainstorming the components of the Connector project with the principal, and also at meetings with other Working Groups at the Healey School (e.g., a "Parent, Student, and Teacher Partnership" working group and a School Climate working group that formed in 2010-11) and with those parents who came to our Multilingual Coffee Hours. Parents from our first Reading Nights also remained key brainstorming partners. Our first question was how the principal would respond to serious complaints from parents. This was Consuelo’s concern in particular; ironically, weeks later she herself would leave the school after a poorly resolved incident in which immigrant parents using a school space were yelled at by a white parent. As we worked on this loop, our second concern was logistical: how would volunteers “connect” to a reasonably sized group of parents? And should all parents have a “Connector,” or particularly some of them?

After Consuelo’s departure, we brainstormed the idea of linking each Connector to 10 parents and of focusing the Connectors first on communication with immigrant parents. Starting in winter 2011, we recruited Connectors -- bilingual parents (and one young staff member) who had, over the prior year, shown particular interest in reaching out to immigrant parents or translating public information so others could access it. We also recruited parents who had shown some interest in bilingual or parent-parent events, such as our coffee hour, Reading Night, and public dialogues!

As a team of parents, we met with each other and started using our multilingual coffee hours to get ongoing advising from parents schoolwide. The Parent Connector concept was approved early, in the school's formal unification plan in xxx. But we still had to flesh it out by doing it!

Our goal became to "just start," so we could test ways parents could reach out to other parents. We needed also to figure out what info we would and would not translate for free, how many school-home communications were necessary a month, how to use existing school channels and create new simple tools for parent outreach, and more.

Experimenting with Communication Solutions!

AHA: our experiment in personal calls. the robocalls. xxxxx

Our core concern remained: how to avoid a situation where parents mentioned needs to Connectors and never received a response (a classic situation in many schools!). Meeting face to face with the Principal to share parent incidents and needs has always been a key infrastructural piece of the Connector model. But, such meetings can’t happen that often among busy people. In xxx (date), we created this Googleform for keeping tabs on parent calls. We edited it together, for example, adding information on how to tell parents to request translators.

One IMPLEMENTATION STUMBLING BLOCK raised a key communication aha: how complicated it is, to get parents’ numbers to other parents! Because our Connector project started mid-year, we had no beginning of the year form for all parents, saying “do you want a Connector? Check here to release your number to them!” So, it took us weeks to work to get parents to release their numbers to other parents! In our Parent Connector pilot, it took months to figure out how to get parent connectors other parents’ phone numbers, since only staff were allowed to have these numbers automatically. We tried permission slips, which people could sign at get-togethers announced by parent-taped robocall; in the end we asked district Parent Information staff to call all of the parents and get their permission to release their numbers to parent connectors. (School staff had to figure out how to download a spreadsheet of language-specific numbers for PIC staff from X2, the district’s “student information system”; then the PIC staff had to make the calls home to get parents’ permission to release numbers to the Connectors; then, finally, Connectors got lists and could start calling.)

But what do such delays in contact or ultimate barriers to parent-parent contact mean? Children unable to be invited to birthday parties or playdates; parents who cannot be invited personally to gettogethers, and consequently, a slowing of community-building.

Privacy is of course a key issue to be navigated in broadening school home communications to anyone but staff. It became clear too that trust is another core issue in family-school partnerships in diverse communities. Issues of distrust go deep: who is willing to even share basic personal information with other parents, especially in an era of ramped-up deportation of undocumented immigrants and legal interventions in households? One parent from the school related often that other parents were afraid of sharing personal phone numbers with other parents because of restraining orders and personal safety fears that still other parents would learn how to reach them.

All this is an important example of the need for infrastructure to navigate dynamics of trust and privacy: e.g., an official form enabling parents to easily offer permission to have a Connector, along with other supports from the school.

Another COMMUNICATION AHA: volunteers need communication infrastructure themselves, in order to make their own work easier. One implementation issue to consider was whether we turned off a few Connectors by immediately using technology in our own infrastructure. For example, we had to split up the list of approved parent names among the Connectors, but we wanted to think a bit about who should be with whom (based on grade and prior personal relationship.) We decided this at the end of a lengthy face to face meeting and so, chose to use a Google Spreadsheet. Ssome Connectors took immediately to using the Google spreadsheet to choose "their" parents and get their numbers. Relatedly, the same parents took easily to using a Googleform to keep records on parents' needs. Other Connectors needed multiple calls to get them to come to training sessions on the Google spreadsheets, and some may have turned off to the project thinking that tech savviness was a barrier to it. (One Connector has her daughter help her get her email; another uses her husband's computer to check hers. Another checks email regularly but doesn't write back via it!). One tried the forms and in the end, wanted to use paper and asked the Information Coordinator to retype her notes. Connectors who had Yahoo accounts rather than gmail accounts couldn't open the Google spreadsheets and for a couple of weeks, didn't know why or ask! But over time, we've realized what training is needed (how to use a Googleform!), and, which tech uses aren't really that necessary (possibly, the Googleform, unless the volume of parent needs increases). We'll see over time whether the Google form for recording parent needs is useful, or not.

Unsurprisingly, email links email-obsessed Connectors far more successfully than those who don't like to access it routinely (this breaks down along class lines, as well). Some Connectors who speak primarily in Spanish were fine to read long emails in English, but didn’t want to write back in English. Some Connectors themselves require regular phone calls to stay glued to the project. Some prefer texts, as well. And, we all needed occasional face to face meetings to brainstorm ideas more effectively and to stay interested in the project!

(COLORED TEXT BOX: communication need: translation scheduling.) Many Connectors began hearing stories from parents who lack interpretation and translation when they need it. Figuring out this piece of the infrastructure became another goal -- either parents didn’t know how to find translators to have scheduled meetings with teachers, educators didn’t know how to find translators to talk in emergencies to parents, or, at other times, both told us, translators were requested but not actually present in the final meeting!

(COLORED TEXT BOX: communication need: resource information.) As we began our calls home, we also realized that Connectors were getting asked key resource questions that were time-sensitive (e.g.: can I enroll my child in summer school voluntarily or, does she have to be referred?). So, a key "information loop" became how to get such FAQs answered regularly on public channels. At a coffee hour, we asked people about getting information out to a lot of parents at once. Michael Quan (PHOTO) suggested a hotline as a solution at one multilingual coffee hour.

TURNING POINT: Seth (PHOTO) then prototyped a hotline (using open source software and the Twilio API), even as he smiled that it was a low-tech solution he wouldn't have thought of himself.

We started recording updates from the principal and answers to parents' Frequently Asked questions collected by the Connectors, with Tona, Maria, and Gina (PHOTO OF MARIA AND LINK TO THE FIRST SET OF FAQS?)

After Seth prototyped the hotline, the question became how to regularly get translated information, on to it!

COMMUNICATION AHA: Volunteer Translators of the Month!

We came up with the idea of asking volunteer Translators of the Month (also bilingual parents, and maybe, students) to verbally translate information all parents needed to know that month (in Haitian Creole, Portuguese, and Spanish). Bilingual parents and staff noted at our coffee hour that translating material into their languages verbally – so, speaking it on to a hotline -- is easier than doing it word for word from paper to paper. So far, we have parents coming to speak into a computer (see photo!). We hope to hone the hotline so that translators can record to it from home.

We had other realizations as we fielded parent questions: Connectors also needed a standing info page with links (again, a Googledoc?), so that they knew what to tell parents looking for public services (e.g., legal or family services.)

Lead Connector and Information Coordinator are also planning to organize a summer training for Connectors, by the principal, on how the school functions.

In our final Spring 2011 efforts, we are joining brainstorming forces with parents from Somerville's Welcome Project (a nonprofit focused on empowering immigrants in Somerville, housed in the Mystic Housing Development down the hill from the Healey school). A parent group had formed there that also wanted to focus on translation and interpretation in Somerville (one was already a Connector), so we have joined our conversations. In June 2011, in a retreat with principal, Connectors, we finished this full list of components of the "infrastructure" for low-cost translation and interpretation in a school. The Parent Connector Network is one of the key "components" -- it's connection, human-style!

Hear some words here from our Lead Connector and our Information Coordinator: (VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH TONA OR GINA?)

Hear some words here from some of our Connectors (EVERYBODY ELSE? VIDEOTAPE AT THE NEXT CONNECTOR MEETING?)