Girls Inc. of Greater Santa Barbara’s Post

Check out this amazing guidebook from #parentsasallies! It highlights the work of teams of families and educational leaders pioneering what it means to engage parents in co-designing possibilities for the benefit of children, families, schools and communities! #familyengagement

"In many communities around the world, there have never been clear ways for parents and teachers to connect and genuinely partner to support students. A generation of mothers and fathers have made efforts to help kids learn, but not necessarily in partnership with teachers. Likewise, most teachers spend their careers with no roadmap for welcoming parents as collaborative partners. When the COVID pandemic made the already spotty and often ineffective communication between families and schools even more difficult, it was clear than communities needed to make progress on this key aspect of the learning landscape. That’s why Parents as Allies was born. This global, collaborative project — led by Kidsburgh.org, grounded in research by the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at The Brookings Institution and including valuable partnership with HundrEDorg and Learning Heroes (US)— was launched in 2021 to help school districts and the families they serve hack this challenge...." https://lnkd.in/eRgcNgBP #schools #families #teachers #parents #familyschoolpartners #familyschoolengagment

#GiveSTLDay Early Giving is now open! I'm asking friends in my network to consider supporting Navigate STL Schools. Navigate advocates for equitable enrollment by sharing relevant resources and transparent information about the traditional, charter, magnet, and independent school options available. Navigate focuses on Early Childhood Education, Transition (ECE, elementary, middle and high school) Programs, and making sure residents understand their educational options in the city of St. Louis. Kindergarten and the skills learned at this grade level are critical to a student’s educational journey. And currently, kindergarten isn’t a requirement in the state of MO. In addition to this, being prepared for the transition to kindergarten starts earlier than most caregivers anticipate, putting them behind in the enrollment process - leaving them with less school options, and less time to access any additional resources they may need to get their student to [and through] school. Our Kinder Readiness Program works to solve this problem! Did you know that $73 can provide one month of kindergarten readiness services to a family? And $877 can support one entire ECE center with Kinder Readiness Services for a month? Will you join our Kinder Readiness Giving Club and help support this pivotal transition time for one or more families? https://lnkd.in/gfNDazU8

Here is a free workshop to get a taste of what my comprehensive Feminist Youth Programming training will explore!

"Probably the best tender process I ever went to was when we had children on the panel, and they were asking us questions. They probably asked the best questions!" 💬 💥 Craig J., our go-to expert in children's activities, dropped some serious wisdom during October's Kidztivity webinar on "Engaging Schools with Activity Providers." 🏫 With initiatives like Play Their Way, established by The Children’s Coaching Collaborative (CCC), a collection of 17 like-minded organisations with a common purpose and desire to create a nation of child-first coaches, is it time we enable a sea-change moment in children's activities and actually involving children in programming and decision-making?💡 🌊 Drop your thoughts below! 👇 How should we best involve young minds in shaping their experiences? #Kidztivity #ThinkKidsThinkKidzitvity #ChildrensSport #KidsActivities #ChildrensActivities #KidsProgrammes #SportsActivities #KidsActivitiesProfessionals #KidsTraining #KidsActivitiesTraining #KidsActivity #ChildrensActivity #ChildrensActivityProfessionals #KidsClub #KidsCamp #KidsCamps #ChildrensActivityProviders #Schools #WrapAroundCare #AfterSchoolClubs #PrimarySchools #Education

Each Fall, I follow American Education Week, listening to the stories of schools and educational organizations doing inspiring things to help young people reach their potential. How did National Education Week come about? Originated in 1921, it launched to address shortcomings in the American public education system. A group of educators and politicians were very worried about a startling statistic: the illiteracy rate was nearly 6%. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/e-V4-t3W Urban Arts #ThankATeacher #QualityEducation #EducationMatters #TeachersRock #EducationForAll #EqualAccess #educationnonprofit #compscithroughgamedesign #compsciforall #zipcodeprivilege @usedgov @nycstudentss #title1 #aew2023

"When my daughter was ready for school, I was determined to find a nurturing experience for her. I searched for a school where she would be affirmed and loved for all of who she is. But that school didn’t exist. I toured many different programs and was mortified by what I saw in early childhood education. The entire system is rooted in misogyny and exploitation. The workforce, 97% women, made an average of $14/hour in extremely challenging teaching roles. The conditions made it near impossible to embrace equity. ❓️What would an early childhood program rooted in embracing equity look like? ❓️How would it be built? ❓️How would it function? ❓️What infrastructure is required to integrate a DEI strategy from the inside out? My good friend Esther, an Indigenous Montessori teacher from Zuni, and I started dreaming our wildest hopes into a plan. The plan started to take shape and we decided to start a tiny, one room classroom in rural Texas. Esther and I both relocated to the area, pulled all-nighters doing renovations, writing lesson plans, and building out the pilot program. But at the end of the day, we learned that it takes more than two dedicated teachers. A school must be the heartbeat of a community. Without systemic support, an individual school cannot thrive. Through blood, sweat, and a lot of tears, we deteriorated our mental and physical health. We were both diagnosed with severe depression and for 3 months I thought I had cancer. Although the school was only open for 8 months, it was a life-changing and extremely valuable learning experience (I’ll share more soon). I’m not fully recovered yet but I am proud that we preserved our friendship and, in the end, we chose our wholeness and well being. That choice represents so much healing. It represents no longer being governed by self-sacrificing reactions. It means that as educators and as women of color we get to be affirmed in our full humanity, too." Read the full article by our founder, Daisy Han, here: https://lnkd.in/gMj3YFn3

Picture a community event where homeschooling families are empowered with the resources they need to teach their children Black history and beyond. This is the "Parents-As-Educators" movement. I am honored to invite all supporters to the Flourish Black Family Homeschool Conference, an event that supports havens of nurturing, safe educational spaces for Black and Brown children. This conference hosts over 300 attendees and aims to EQUIP parents-as-educators, ENERGIZE a community of academic support and social engagement, ENCOURAGE home-educating families to cultivate community and EMPOWER home-educating families to advocate for a culturally rich education. OUR MISSION IN ACTION: This conference aims to equip parents-as-educators. We have partnered with Compudopt to bridge the digital equity gap by distributing 350 FREE laptops to families of school-age children. Digital equity is the concept that every person should have equal access to digital technologies. We want to showcase the best of classes, activities, summer programs, field trips, products, and advocacy for homeschooling students and that's your business or organization. Conference Features: - Georgia Homeschooling 101 - Developing a Student Education Plan from an IEP - The Path to NCAA Transcripts & High School Planning - Developmental Milestones & Autism Awareness - Black Homeschooling Fathers Panel - End Game: Meet Homeschool Graduates - Leadership Track: Pathways to Financial Sustainability for Educational Entrepreneurs - Exhibitor Hall of Diverse Providers Why Exhibit at Flourish 2024? With an expected 400 in-person participants, including families and educational entrepreneurs, this event is set to be transformative. Georgia is now the third fastest-growing homeschool market in the U.S. with over 91,000 Students and we witnessed Black homeschooling surge from 3.3% to an impressive 16.1%. Additionally, the 2023 Conference hosted 339 attendees and 53 exhibitors, with media coverage from Fox 5 Atlanta Morning Show, CATO Institute, and SXSW EDU.  Check out more details on the sponsor and donor page. Follow us @georgiablackhomeeducators on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter (X). #homeschool #parentaseducator #conference #educationalequity

🧠Late Night thoughts of a #ChildWelfare Director 📝 I have been a long time supporter of #CommunityPartnershipSchools because of the strong work of CHS Florida and Andry Sweet!! As we are thinking about upstream prevention, I wonder the business case and a case study where this model is implemented at a school that averages high number of abuse calls and/or removals and over time see if there is a reduction in intakes to truly building the momentum for moving from #MandatedReporters to #MandatedSupporters.

When we share wrap-up information about our parent empowerment events, you might notice we often reference an “NPS,” which we use to help determine how successful the event is. It’s a bit of a specialized piece of information, so we wanted to break down what NPS is and why we find it important. NPS means “net promoter score,” and it’s calculated through the answers to a specific question: How likely is it that you would recommend ____ to a friend? Now bear with us here: The answers are rated using a 0-10 scale, where those who respond with a 9-10 are considered promoters, those who respond with a 7-8 score are passive and those who give a 0-6 score are detractors. To get the NPS, you subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. From there your brand, school, event or whatever you’re asking folks to rate can be considered world-class, outstanding, great, good or below 0. Why does this matter for our work? When we think about our services and support at schools through our family empowerment work, families are considered the clients. Schools may struggle with enrollment, so it’s important for us to understand if parents and guardians would recommend that school to others. When families are happy and satisfied with what’s happening at the school, they’re more likely to tell other families about it, and to be more involved with their schools. This is why this question is included in our pre-surveys, is asked throughout the year and is asked again at the end of the year. Schools are funded upon enrollment, so the more parents are happy at a school, plan on staying there and recommend others to come to it, the more consistent revenue the school gets. It’s important in our work to see the NPS go up throughout the year through our work, which we achieve by listening to what parents want and providing resources and community programming along their needs. This is why we calculate an NPS score and use it to determine our success throughout the year!