Families in Schools

Elevating family and community voice Families in Schools continued to co-lead a statewide initiative focused on supporting school districts across California to implement authentic community and family engagement strategies, which begin by elevating family and community voice. During the 2022-2023 school year, we planned and hosted 11 peer leading and learning network convenings, reaching over 350 participants statewide. The leadership sessions offered students and parents a unique opportunity to learn about best practices from peers across the state, empowering them to bring knowledge and strategies back to their district teams. We also led efforts to develop the cei community engagement best practices self-assessment tool, a free self-reflective competency tool that will help districts improve and/or deepen their community and family engagement efforts.

Advocacy this year's advocacy efforts were focused on two critical issues in los angeles: early literacy and digital equity. Fis developed plans to launch a city-wide literacy campaign to empower lausd parents/caretakers to support their children in achieving grade-level reading proficiency. Additionally, we partnered with lausd and the los angeles county office of education (lacoe) to host two community learning sessions on effective literacy instruction, reaching over 750 parents. Fis also endorsed ab41 (chris holden) to reform the 2006 ca franchising act of 2023, ensuring that equitable digital access and inclusive digital infrastructure are accessible to all communities. Fis provided leadership training to ten parent leaders participating in the parent warriors program, who leveraged advocacy day at l.a. city hall to engage l.a. city council members from districts 10 and 11- uplifting parent voice on critical digital equity issues, and the benefits of ab41.

Training and capacity buildingin 2022-2023, we partnered with 23 Schools, engaging over 400 educators and Families throughout California in learning sessions that centered authentic and inclusive community engagement practices. As a trusted expert, districts like hueneme elementary school district (huensd) contracted us to take a more expansive and extensive approach to reviewing their family engagement practices among educational partners, Families, staff, and administrators. The huensd findings informed numerous reports and recommendations to individual Schools and the larger district. Additionally, in partnership with gear up 4 la, over 65 educators underwent intensive training in delivering engaging online training workshops to parents and students. Advocacy training was also provided to 60 more Families across la county, equipping them with tools to engage in current local/ state college and career readiness issues.