Families in Action for Quality Education

FIA has scaled its work to 45 schools, district and charter, empoering families city-wide. FIA's 500 parent and youth leaders lead campaigns in their schools and city to champion quality education, ensuring that underserved families disrupt inequities at the school and systems level and achieve policy and practice wins. FIA Oakland exists to: 1) Empower families to increase access, quality and equity in public schools; 2) Disrupt the status quo in public education by positioning underserved families as powerful leaders at the decision making and influential tables; 3) Recenter education leaders, policies and practices on the urgent and critical needs of underserved students, and 4) Lead ecosystem development through coalitions and collaborate to scale family power efforts.Quality Campaign: FIA hosted Parent and Youth Institutes throughout 2022 and 2023 around topics such as literacy, SBAC data and the 2022 election. More than 350 family leaders have been trained through FIA's leadership institutes and have benefited from 1:1 leadership coaching from FIA's organizers to build their confidence, voice and organizing skills. We trained 500 Oakland Black and Brown parent/youth leaders to champion access to quality, equitable education. Raise the Bar Campaign published an annual citywide school quality report that illuminates disparities and showcases data practices from Oakland schools. FIA leaders brought together 20 district and charter school leaders to pledge to "Raise the Bar" on sharing data transparently and making sure families have the tools and information they need to partner with schools to get their children to grade level.

Raise the Bar: A-G - FIA continued to champion the A-G quality campaign to ensure the systemic implementation of best practices. In September, FIA hosted a nationally live-streamed A-G Round Table that featured OUSD's new High School Superintendent, district and charter educators and youth. Youth leaders from district and charter high schools worked together seamlessly in a rare but promising Oakland education event focused on collectively improving college eligibility for Oakland's Black and Brown students.

Family Literacy Institute: Lit for Literacy: FIA and Education for Change Public Schools leaders are spearheading a new version of the FIA Family Leadership Institute to focus on literacy as a gateway to building leadership and advocacy skills. We trained 150 EFC families as literacy champions 100% of whom reported they used new literacy strategies at home, 90% used their stories to build collaboration with other parents and 90% better understood a science-based approach to reading. 50 families participated in Level Up and Family Accountability Walks hosted by the school principal for family leaders to give feedback on classroom literacy instruction and identify implications for school improvement strategies.

Civic Engagement - FIA builds family leaders who exercise their power and voice and share their powerful stories to influence policy makers and improve public education. In September 2022, 20 Oakland charter and district school communities came together to host a school board and mayoral candidate forum attended by 350 people at Castlemont High School. Parents and youth moderated the forum and also asked tough questions of the potential leaders of our city. The forum earned FIA parents, youth, and educators strong praise as well as coverage by local television and newspaper outlets. In the preparation of the candidate forum, two dozen FIA parents and youth facilitated 13 research action meetings with 2022 mayoral and school board candidates.