There’s seemingly no end to the stories Laurann Gallitto Patel can tell about working with immigrant and refugee families. Some are heartwarming. Others are heartbreaking. All have been helpful in her nearly eight years of helping them adjust to life in America through its public schools. Read about her work and how her experience as an immigrant helps shape the work she does at CFEC.
Julia Price Beaty knows the power of story, particularly as it affects children who’ve experienced complex developmental trauma. In her work as a clinically licensed social worker, she’s seen how understanding someone’s history – as early as in utero and up through adulthood – can explain challenging behavior.
In South Carolina’s upstate, a successful collaboration draws Latino residents to the library. Read how a creative and dedicated team from Walhalla Public Library came together to help reach an underserved part of their community. Through the coordinated efforts of staff, energetic volunteers, and passionate community members, they have bridged the gap between the library and the Latino community around them.
For SIC Members, involvement is everything.. A great school needs more than a great faculty and great students. It needs a committed community, one that recognizes everyone in town can help their youngest citizens succeed. Enter the School Improvement Council (SIC). Whether members are concerned primary caretakers, employees of local businesses and non-profits, or educators themselves, these volunteer advisory groups are often the quiet engine humming in the background, making sure schools meet their goals.
Claressa Hinton learned early there would always be things she couldn’t control. But that’s not surprising for someone who moved between 30 and 40 times between ages two and 18, who sometimes didn’t go to school at all because her parents couldn’t get her there. It was a turbulent childhood marked by failing grades, a dearth of dreams, a paralyzing fear she wouldn’t graduate from high school, and little of the structure she craved. And yet.
Check out this great blog from our CFEC Co-Director, Gina Kunz, Phd in the Wandersman Center Blog. You can read her great work on the important role of Family-School Partnerships.
Check out the amazing work from our CFEC Liaisons: Lorilei Swanson, Julia Beaty and Laurann Gallitto Patel in the August 2021 issue of The Learning Professional: The Learning Forward Journal. You can read their great work on the important role of Family-School Partnerships to bolster SEL.
Ruth Hill, teacher at Sims Middle School and CFEC teacher partner, tells her story on how parent engagement is crucial to students' success. If we hope to see students grow to their full potential, we need not journey through these middle school years alone. Building educational partnerships with families can be defined in both single or multiple encounters that help us all to experience a sense of home. We all have what it takes to take this journey to its magical end. We just need to concentrate on the quality of the moments we share. In order to be productive we must internalize that #wearebettertogether.
On December 27, 2020, the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations (CRRSA) Act was signed into law. Pursuant to this law, the U.S. Department of Education is adding an additional $54.3 billion to the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund for K-12 education (ESSER Fund). These are commonly referred to as ESSER II funds. On March 11, 2021, the American Rescue Plan (ARP) was signed into law and provides an additional $121.9 billion to the ESSER Fund; these funds are commonly referred to as ESSER III funds.
Julia Beaty, our Regional Liaison, transports us into an IEP meeting with her compelling story, modeling how we can become -la norma- instead of -la excepción. Read about Julia's harrowing experience supporting this family and the critical importance of advocacy.
Parents are their child’s first teacher, playmate, friend, role model, you name it – parents embody it! Parents are everything to their child(ren); as such, they have a lot on their plates. Ultimately, parents spend the most time of any adults with their child, day in and day out, especially prior to their child even entering the school system. There is no question that parents know their children; therefore, their knowledge should be valued in the educational process. What does this mean? Quite simply, don’t leave parents out of vital conversations regarding their child(ren)’s education.
Our Liaisons are Making It Grow! Check out the article in the recent issue of Statewide Family Engagement Center Network newsletter, where they highlight the amazing work our team and partners are doing to bring gardens to Great Falls Elementary School and Marshall Primary School!
"The Carolina Family Engagement Center (CFEC) has partnered with Empower Oconee South Carolina (EOSC)* to develop and disseminate resiliency kits for families with children in elementary school. The resiliency kits demonstrate the power of CFEC’s mission to form school-family-community partnerships to foster the academic and developmental growth of all students. Over the summer, 400 family resiliency kits were distributed in five neighborhoods in Oconee County. The kits included a guide and materials for families to engage in fun activities with their children to foster academic achievement and development. A QR code on the CFEC bookmarks also linked directly to EOSC family engagement activities. United Way of Oconee was so pleased with the response from families that it requested 200 additional bookmarks for their Back to School giveaway the following week.
This Friday November 13th we have a not so scary theme. Our volunteer Fadiana Mendoza will talk to Julia Beaty of the Carolina Family Engagement Center about her role with the Latino community in Chester, York, Aiken, and Union counties, and the work she does to support school districts, schools, and the teachers better involve Hispanic families.
Covid has required us all to be flexible and creative. Thanks Lisa Libraries for partnering with us to help bring books to families in South Carolina. Read about the wild trip these books took in their recent newsletter
Last year CFEC was invited to participate in Parent Super Saturday at Hand Middle School. This “Parent University” program was hosted in collaboration with the University of South Carolina Parent Advocacy group, local schools and community organizations. Parent Super Saturday was created to inform, empower, and inspire parents to take an active role in their children’s education. Due to the incredible collaborative work of our team and partner organizations, this event was featured in the NNPS Best Practices 2020 issue. Thank you to Dr. Yasha Becton and her team for all their hard work.
CFEC Teacher Partner María del Rocío Herron at Jackson Creek Elementary School and CFEC Specialist Julía Lopez-Robertson detail their chance meeting that turned into a fortuitous school partnership. They tell their story in “Learning through Engagements with Multicultural and Global Literature” published in Worlds of Words- WOW Stories Vol. VII, Issue 1. WOW Stories is a regular online peer-reviewed publication of WOW containing vignettes written by educators about children’s experiences reading and responding to literature.
CFEC in collaboration with the SC-School Improvement Council and invaluable input from Terry Peterson developed an outline for a virtual SIC town hall with an accompanying user guide to discuss ESSER II funding.