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Q&A
Language access and parent engagement strategies for school transitions
3:49:00
ยท
97 sec
Council Member Rita Joseph inquires about language access and parent engagement strategies, particularly for families transitioning between school levels. Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos discusses the DOE's efforts to improve engagement and empower parents.
- The DOE is moving from engagement to empowerment, based on feedback from the chancellor's parent advisory council
- Plans include visiting School Leadership Teams (SLTs) and creating resources for principals and parent leaders
- The DOE aims to implement a train-the-trainer model to empower parent leaders to support their peers
Rita Joseph
3:49:00
Thank you.
3:49:01
That was going to be one of my questions.
3:49:03
How is language access used across the board, making sure families are engaged, especially in households we know that English is not their first language and helping them navigate those spaces.
3:49:13
I know parents also for the high school piece, know a lot of parents also are looking for language access to understand the system better.
3:49:21
Is there plan in place to better engage parents as they transition from middle school to high school, even from middle school from elementary to middle school to high school?
Melissa Aviles-Ramos
3:49:33
Absolutely.
3:49:34
It's one of the reasons why we wanted to go from engagement to empowerment because after meeting with our chancellor's parent advisory council, these are some of the topics that they brought up and they said you have to do better.
3:49:45
So one of the things that I have personally committed to is actually visiting SLTs.
3:49:49
I asked the CPAC to work with Doctor.
3:49:51
Melendez to do sort of a heat map across the districts and where are the SLTs and PTAPAs that I need to visit so that way we can talk about what are the specific trainings that need to happen in those districts.
3:50:04
So this is something that I'm sure that you've heard.
3:50:07
We need more support in transition from middle and high school.
3:50:10
Are we going to offer some of those training centrally?
3:50:12
100%.
3:50:14
But we also know that on top of that, the relationships happen between superintendents, principals, and their families.
3:50:19
So how can we create those resources?
3:50:21
So that way principals and their staff can administer those sort of like a train the trainer model.
3:50:27
But again, what's better than having trained parent leaders who can do that work themselves and who are willing to do that work?
3:50:32
They want to work shoulder to shoulder with their peers.
3:50:35
And so that's something that we're working on.
Rita Joseph
3:50:37
Yeah, love the idea, would be great.