THE SALEM/KEIZER COALITION FOR EQUALITY
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Mission Statement
Our Mission is to Partner and Advocate with Latino/a/x Parents, Schools and the Community to Ensure Equitable Educational Outcomes. We believe: a) that Parents are the first teachers of their children, b) that Parents are the key to the education of their children, and c) that Parents are leaders at home, at school, and in the community. Our Vision is that Every child and youth from every background receives (1) an equitable and just education in Oregon and has an equal opportunity to succeed, (2) is academically prepared to graduate from high school with the skills and opportunities to continue their education, obtain job skills, and gain financial self-sufficiency, (3) lives in a healthy, safe, just society and an inclusive multicultural community, with a stable functional family and a vibrant economy, and (4) is well-represented in and served by institutions that function inclusively, with shared power, and serve the whole community without prejudice. SKCE combines "top-down" and "bottom up" strategies in reaching the goal of educational and life success for Latino/a/x children and youth from Spanish speaking immigrant households with farm working histories. A) SKCE engages, educates and equips Spanish speaking parents, caregivers and families to access opportunities and exert leadership on behalf of their children and also the children of their community. Our mantra is that parents are Leaders at home, Leaders at school, and Leaders in the community. B) SKCE staff and parent leaders advocate with policy makers, administrators and the business community to ensure equal and equitable access to resources and opportunities for Latino/a/x parents to represent their community and their children, and a voice in the educational system's decision-making.
About This Cause
We have three main program areas that lead to Equitable Educational Outcomes for Latino/a/x students. 1. The Parent Organizing Project includes Parent Leadership and Systems Change work with the Salem Keizer School District. 2. Our Early Learning programs include Parent-Led reading intervention, Parent-Led preschool, evidence based parenting programs and Kindergarten Readiness. 3. Forming Strong Families is our newest department, and includes a) Crucial Conversations, focused on family relationships only, modified and enhanced to include restorative justice practices, historical and personal childhood and adult trauma and mental health awareness; b) Strengthening Families, where youth and their parents come together to build on the assets of their families and learn positive communication with each other; and c) mentoring and coaching, both individual and in groups. We are currently evaluating pre and post program impact with Protective Factors surveys, Crucial Conversations surveys, children's reading progress assessments, Parenting assessments and Parent Involvement (in education) assessments. We also did a four year study on Chronic Absenteeism, and had to stop because of the pandemic. The study showed that among the families in all our programs, attendance was far greater than the district cohort of like students. PARENT ORGANIZING PROJECT & SYSTEMS CHANGE DETAILS: The Parent Organizing Project (POP) was our first program, created in 2004 and grew into a Spanish only curriculum "Educa e Inspira" (Educate & Inspire) with an 18 workshop series by 2015. Educa e Inspira engaged over 6000 Spanish speaking parents during that time, most of whom engaged with their child's teachers and schools, and some of whom became leaders and staff of SKCE. A Parent Leadership institute followed, in collaboration with Capaces Leadership Institute and their People's Representative Initiative in Woodburn Oregon. Always involved in changing the education system, we began our official Systems Change Campaign in 2015 with the Goal that "Salem Keizer School District has a culturally responsive workforce that represents and meets the needs of its diverse students." The four main objectives are: Recruitment, hiring and retention of bilingual bicultural teachers; Professional development develops all teachers to be culturally responsive in their teaching; Parents are meaningfully involved with school and district decision-making; and SKCE is influential, respected and an effective partner to schools and the district. Of these four main objectives, the area of professional development and effective teaching has continued to include much more than culturally responsive teachers. The experiences of the last two years (2020-2022) have caused the district heavily focus on significantly increasing student access to mental health resources and emotional support, removing police officers from schools and replacing them with an increased number of adults (including social workers) and adding Security Specialists, trained in restorative practices, focusing on positive interventions through relationships with students, creating a sense of safety for all students. One goal is that their results should be a reduction in discipline disparities and bullying by changing the focus from ineffective discipline methods, to mental health access and parent engagement, Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS), Multi-tiered Systems of Support, and Restorative Practices, and creating a school culture of belonging. EARLY LEARNING PROGRAM DETAILS: Our Early Learning programs focus on parents as their child's first teacher. A) Leyendo Avanzamos (Reading Together We Advance) is a parent led K-2 reading program in which parents help their children build Spanish literacy skills--reading, writing, comprehension and vocabulary--in their children enrolled in bilingual and ELL programs, using many materials--some of which are from their home countries. B) Aprendiendo Avanzamos (Learning Together We Advance) is a parent-led preschool that meets twice a week for for parent/child practice together, modeled by our preschool staff. Parents then conduct preschool at home each day with the many materials we send home each week. In addition to the 24 week program, parents attend READY! for Kindergarten classes and take home large kits of materials with a parent manual. C) Evidence-based Parenting programs: Both parents from preschool and many other parents attend evidence-based parenting programs with SKCE such as Abriendo Puertas (Opening Doors); Haga de la Paternidad un Placer (Make Parenting a Pleasure); Soluciones Positivas (Postive Solutions); and Crianza con Cariña (Nurturing Parenting). FORMING STRONG FAMILIES PROGRAM DETAILS: Formando Familias Fuertes (Forming Strong Families) grew out of a support group established 12 years ago as a result of monthly gatherings with speakers and resource referrals on issues parents requested help with. Over time, those resources and issues requested began more and more to focus on mental and emotional health in families. In 2018, we added a class to the monthly gatherings, Crucial Conversations, modified and enhanced to focus on family relationships, restorative justice, historical, cultural and generational trauma, and mental and emotional health awareness. We also created an assessment tool for measuring Protective Factors. Then the Pandemic hit. We canceled classes in all departments and started calling hundreds of participants to find out what their families' needs were. Staff gave referrals to other providers for basic needs and focused on what SKCE could do to meet educational, parenting, and mental health and emotional needs. Our families had no access to school libraries or public libraries and few had home libraries. We provided hundreds of bags of reading books in Spanish (for 0-10 year-olds) and English or Spanish (for 9 to 18 year-olds). Also in those bags were a variety of art and school supplies, face masks, correct COVID-19 information (to counteract rumors, myths and fake news), and resource lists. The survey also included questions about parenting and mental and emotional health needs. Staff offered a new program: Phone mentoring and coaching by their peers: Latino/a/x staff with children in the district who were former program participants, now hired and trained to teach other parents. With all in-person programs closed, those staff met the needs of nearly 200 parents who responded to the survey with requests for follow-up phone calls. They problem solved the new issues facing them as children were home all day and starting online school. During that confusing and frantic April, May and June of 2020, we connected hundreds of parents with school staff, getting internet and Chromebooks, structuring a manageable schedule of parenting and schooling at home, and parenting advice from the programs we were teaching. After about six weeks, the number of parents who still wanted and needed more follow-up support reduced to about 40, and after another month, reduced to around 10 families with urgent struggles. We supported those families as long as they needed. Amazing stories emerged: the mom in the middle of a divorce, both parents working and grandmother caring for the Kindergartner, suddenly faced with having to teach her granddaughter at home. Long buried traumas from her life in Mexico surfaced and grandmother became suicidal. Mom called to beg for help and we got her connected to professional help. We also delivered supplies and taught mom how to provide Kinder-ready learning for her daughter in the evening since their was no one available to help the child attend online kindergarten during the day. Six months later, the family was managing well and the child was doing satisfactory. Another mom was in crisis in April, barely able to function daily, with twin 3-year-olds with no structure, a 7-year-old daughter who was already very behind in reading before COVID, and a 13 year-old son who had significant ADHD and very low academic performance. She was overwhelmed with worry for her children and the impotence of not being able to help them. With very frequent phone support, she learned how to structure play/learning activities for an hour a day with the 3-year-olds using all the materials we delivered, how to teach literacy skills to the 7-year-old with our unique curriculum and materials, and how to gain cooperation with the 13-year-old to attend online school and make some progress. By the end of June she was significantly relieved, taking one day at a time with hope and determination, and happily reported that the 3-year-olds had learned their letters and numbers, the 7-year-old had caught up in reading, learning better than she had at school, and the 13-year-old had allowed mom to help him learn math for 15 minutes a day, and was attending school online satisfactorily. The impact of this work is truly critical and life-changing, even life-saving. Therefore, we decided to develop a full program area and added the research-based Strengthening Families course and a structured peer mentoring and coaching program, both individual and in groups.