Dear Readers

Elayne Walker-Cabral, Director, Family and Community Engagement, The MET School

I believe that building relationships by engaging families in face-to-face contact is a critical factor for student success. Strategies for engaging parents in school life can include an application process in which parents and students to write essays on why they want to be in the school community, home visits, learning plan meetings, public exhibitions of work, and community gatherings.

In designing community schools, family members become partners with school personnel to form safety nets for children. By providing information, training, and learning opportunities that empower parents to plan for their own and their children’s future, community schools offer opportunities for parents to grow and learn with their children. Family literacy programs, health and fitness opportunities, art and technology activities, and workshops on home ownership, legal issues, and tax assistance are some of the options that community schools can offer.

We need to remember that children learn and grow best when they have strong families. We know that families do better in cohesive communities that help them improve their quality of life. We know that if we can construct schools where students and their families are known well, the whole community is much more likely to thrive. These practices create a community of life-long learners experiencing education in a community setting.

It is my dream for communities all over the country to offer viable learning environments for kids to grow—and it begins when we enroll families.

Jill Davidson, Horace Editor

Recently, I participated in an assessment of a graduating student’s portfolio that demonstrated the evolution of his dream to become a rocket scientist. Along with teachers and community members, the student’s mother and sister were there. His presentation was reflective, thoughtful, ambitious—and a tearjerker. Among many artifacts, he included a ticket stub from a space museum visit when he was five. He spoke about the trip as the birth of his intellectual self, recounting his mother’s descriptions of his zeal. I had a vivid flash of how his five year-old eyes must have shined with the thrill of new learning.

His portfolio demonstrated what kept those lights shining brightly through the years. The development of his passion for space travel resulted from collaboration between his family, school, and his own scholarship. I looked, a little misty-eyed, at his beaming mom and thought, “You did this! You paid attention to what sustained your kid’s imagination and you helped him use that to become this extraordinary, accomplished eighteen-year old.” I was deeply moved to witness his intellectual achievement - and the human connections that had supported it.

As I researched this issue of Horace, conversations with CES-affiliated educators and parents deepened my understanding of how connections between families and schools help create the conditions for our children's minds to blossom and thrive. Thanks go out to all of them for the resulting professional and personal insight. I hope that this issue conveys the depth of their wisdom and experience.

P.S. As I mentioned in this space in the last issue, I was expecting my second child. Those expectations indeed were met by Leo, born in April 2003. Thanks to all of you for creating better schools for him and for all children.