Welcome to this edition of the New Mexico Statewide Community Schools Newsletter!
Empowering immigrant families with the tools and resources to support their child’s learning can lead to long-term student success and wellbeing. Yet, educators and school staff often face challenges around implementing inclusive and culturally competent family engagement practices that are meaningful to immigrant parents and families with diverse backgrounds. This challenge in school communities brought to existence an exciting opportunity to develop transformative partnership supports for schools across the state.
Sin Fronteras Education Partnership
The New Mexico Public Education Department partnered with Sin Fronteras Education Partnership (SFEP) to provide a professional learning series that equips educators, educational leaders, community partners, and school staff with the mindsets, skills, and strategies necessary to practice equitable and effective family partnership in their school communities. SFEP seeks to build strategies anchored in the unique cultural, linguistic and community wisdom in the state of New Mexico.
SFEP has created a Sin Fronteras Education Partnership Task Force made up of local education and family partnership experts from across New Mexico. The Big 3 training modules have been co-created with the Task Force to ensure the training content is reflective of the needs and builds on the assets of New Mexico communities. Our professional learning series aims to build local capacity around high impact relationship building, effective communications, and meaningful partnership between educators and families.
The training modules will also be offered in Spanish to provide further accessibility to our Spanish-speaking families. We are currently recruiting school staff, parent leaders, and community partners to serve as trainers across New Mexico.
To learn more about our family partnerships trainings, please visit our website: https://sinfronterasep.org/family-partnership-trainings.
ECHO for Community Schools Update - The Practice of Sustainability
ECHO for Community Schools presented a successful series of four workshops on Sustainability. The 4 Ps toward sustainability of a community school were presented throughout the series and are: Provisions, People, Practice, and Policy. Below are summaries of the four sessions.
March 3, 2022 – The Practice of Sustainability: Part 1
This session started with a summary of a couple of previous sessions where the 4 Ps of sustainability were introduced, and then focused on practicing sustainability. In Community Schools, the practice of sustainability also relates to the pillar of Collaborative Leadership, involving multiple stakeholders and sharing resources. It is imperative that the site-based leadership team work together with the system-level leadership team and use reciprocal accountability, which is key to success. The purpose of a community school is to create systems that require a broad voice in decision making, thus creating equitable decision making. For this reason, a needs and assets assessment are also called an opportunity inventory. Ideally, everyone at the community school should be engaged in this process to help create an inclusive culture. The session ended with a case presentation and recommendations for the case. You can view it at https://padlet.com/educationecho/82okubn60z2vnb7g.
March 17, 2022 – The Practice of Sustainability: Part 2
José Muñoz, Director of the Coalition for Community Schools at IEL, led an interactive session where participants had a rich conversation on sustainability. With the cooperation of attendees, Mr. Muñoz put together a definition for sustainability – it is the concept of enduring over a period of time. It was highlighted that in the Community School world, the most important piece to sustain the enduring part of this definition indefinitely is the Community School Coordinator. This person coordinates partners, resources, engagement, structures and processes of a community school.
Three Es to sustainability were part of the conversation, which are efficiency, effectiveness and equity. In order to have all three of them, resources have to be coordinated effectively, thus the hyper focus on the Community School Coordinator. It is very important for this person to have a plan in place and a consistent practice that engages people in order to lead a successful community school. Ultimately, the coordinator should nurture community building and relationships that create trust.
March 31, 2022 – Sustainability: A Framework for Financing Community Schools
José Muñoz, Director of the Coalition for Community Schools at IEL, started the session by asking what disrupts sustainability. It was concluded that the lack of collaboration is the greatest factor that disrupts sustainability because no single person or organization can sustain it on their own. Therefore, a high-capacity Community School Coordinator needs to be employed to lead the work of coordinating all resources.
Strategies for financing community schools were shared in the session, placing a focus on accessing existing resources at the federal, state, local and private levels. These resources can finance the community school using braided and blended funding strategies. Lastly, the idea of developing new resources was introduced, including philanthropic funding for community cultivated programmatic solutions and innovations, dedicated funding for Coordinators in local public budgets, dedicated local funding for consistent community school pillars and alignment of facilities, equipment, and staffing with partners.
April 7, 2022 – Sustainability: The Policy in Sustainability
Pamela Campos, Community School Coordinator at Garfield STEM Magnet and Community School, presented on how her school had a positive change in student discipline. Her school discovered that a big part of their attendance problem was actually a behavior problem. The school then proactively worked to make changes to their student dress code and adopted restorative practices. The end result was a decline in their suspension rates thus improving student attendance.
Following this presentation, José Muñoz, Director of the Coalition for Community Schools at IEL, talked about the 4 Ps to move policy. These are pitch, people, process and politics. Mr. Muñoz gave recommendations for each one of them, taking note of the importance of understanding the power sectors, identifying the power people and political considerations to be taken into account.
4/21/22 - Active Family and Community Engagement – Partnership Circles, Part 1
Ms. Valeria Martinez, Program Associate for Sin Fronteras Education Partnership, CEI, led part one of a two-session workshop on Partnership Circles. This strategy is the improved version of the typical “home visits.” It builds capacity on effective communication and equitable partnership between educators and families. Its main purpose is to connect all stakeholders at a human level to identify needs and together create a plan to ensure student success. Ultimately, Partnership Circles build trusting relationships and rapport between students, their caregivers, and educators.
The reason for this type of partnership being a “circle” is because both educators and families play an equal role and share the same amount of power. This means that the relationship moves from being transactional to being transformational. Partnership circles consider the process of healing from trauma and the importance of the continuity of the relationship. Fundamentally, Partnership Circles mean to include the student, not just the adults and the main goal is to create a more responsive learning environment based on positive conversation.
Part two of the series will continue on May 5. If you are implementing or would like to implement this strategy, please submit a case to be presented at the next ECHO meeting.
You can access any of the recordings and materials via the ECHO for Community Schools' Resource Library: https://padlet.com/educationecho/yaf8cnwrbxc7uxck.
Contributed by Alma Arango, ECHO HUB Member
Supporting Immigrant Families in Taos
Taos Immigrant Allies (TIA) is a volunteer-run organization founded in 2016 that works with immigrant families and their children. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the group helped with immigrant needs, such as rent, utilities, food, DACA fees, and more. Under a Con Alma Health Foundation grant, 20 COVID-19 vaccination clinics were coordinated. Although not all served were immigrants, outreach to immigrants’ families was conducted.
As the pandemic crisis recedes, the focus turns toward undocumented families which receive less help overall. A new support group for women – Mujeres en Progreso - is in the planning stage. Topics at each session revolve around the women’s needs and wants. Enos Garcia Elementary, a community school in Taos, works with these volunteers to provide services to their immigrant students.
TIA serves the community at large by giving out school backpacks, donating to the Imagination Library, and coordinating with Twirl - a local toy store and playground - to hand out holiday gifts, and by maintaining our 10 Little Free Pantries project that helps any who struggle with food insecurity.
Last year, Taos Immigrant Allies was able to fund a part-time Family Navigator to help with applications for the Emergency Rental Assistance Program. Now TIA has returned to a fully volunteer organization which continues to follow its goals of supporting “immigrant families educationally, financially, and emotionally, and educating our community on immigration issues to become a more supportive, integrated, and prosperous Taos community.”
To learn more about this organization, visit our website.
Contributed by Del Endres, TIA Volunteer.
Raíces Del Saber (Roots of Knowing) Xinachtli Community School
Raíces is a free Public Elementary K-5 School that uses a Dual Language 90/10 model within a US/Mexico Border cultural context and embeds Mesoamerican indigenous concepts in its curriculum. Xinachtli (Sheen-ach-tlee) is a Nahuatl (Aztec) word describing the moment a seed germinates, reaching its “bursting” and “in between” point when it is no longer a seed and not yet the plant it will transform into. Xinachtli’s curriculum component of positive identity formation engages the children (as individuals and as members of a group) to practice introspection; develop the ability to explore, understand, and construct their own knowledge; and cultivate a positive personality.
At Raíces, students and parents are valued as participants in the construction of
knowledge and the creation of a learning community that promotes high academic performance, positive identity formation, and the reclaiming of cultural heritage. Raíces is an affiliated school of the Native American Community Academy-NACA Inspired School Network. The school integrates Mesoamerican Indigenous knowledge as part of the curriculum to promote an appreciation of cultural heritage with an authentic approach to bilingual education using English and Spanish. Nahuatl is also offered as an enrichment language.
Parents are essential partners in the success of the school. Raíces has created opportunities for parents to exercise leadership and grow their advocacy skills to facilitate navigating the education system throughout their children’s lives. As a community school, Raíces also has a Concillo de Padres (Parent Council). This group has become an advocate to the Board, which has also led to the creation of an Equity Council.
According to Lucia V. Carmona, Co-Founder and Director of Operations & Community Engagement, one thing the school has noticed about the immigrant community is that, initially, they are afraid to enroll their children in a bilingual program because they want their children to immediately be immersed in English. The parents don’t want their children to experience the same struggles they experienced when coming to the United States. Lucia understands the teachers and school staff play important roles in engaging parents and creating a welcoming school environment for diverse families. Therefore, Raíces is adequately staffed with certified bilingual teachers who are sensitive to the barriers that culturally diverse families face. In no time, families develop trust and embrace the schools’ unique approach to bi-literacy instruction.
“As educators, we have a commitment to engage all families and all learners regardless of race, ethnicity, language or socioeconomic status. The only thing that defines our differences is our birth certificates. Were you born on this side of the border or the other side of the border? Those are things a kindergartener will not understand. But they do understand, through the teaching of Mesoamerican Indigenous knowledge, the meaning of respect,” Carmona says.
Establishing the home-school connection, coupled with guiding parents toward a partnership in the learning process, begins early at Raíces Del Saber Xinachtli Community School.
Contributed by Cindy Solis.
Equihelion Day Activity
Celebrating the Ancestor of Corn, Teocintle
Kindergarten Class Planting a Tree
Street Data Book Club from NEA-NM
NEA-NM invites Community School Coordinators, Principals, Systems Leaders and all educators to attend the upcoming book study exploring Street Data: A Next-Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy, and School Transformation by Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan.
In this book study we will explore what happens when we collectively "shift our focus from “fixing” and “filling” academic gaps, to envisioning and rebuilding the system from the student up—with classrooms, schools and systems built around students’ brilliance, cultural wealth, and intellectual potential. Street data reminds us that what is measurable is not the same as what is valuable and that data can be humanizing, liberatory and healing.
By breaking down street data fundamentals: what it is, how to gather it, and how it can complement other forms of data to guide a school or district’s equity journey, Safir and Dugan offer an actionable framework for school transformation. Written for educators and policymakers, this book:
- Offers fresh ideas and innovative tools to apply immediately
- Provides an asset-based model to help educators look for what’s right in our students and communities instead of seeking what’s wrong
- Explores a different application of data, from its capacity to help us diagnose root causes of inequity, to its potential to transform learning, and its power to reshape adult culture
Now is the time to take an antiracist stance, interrogate our assumptions about knowledge, measurement and what really matters when it comes to educating young people.
Contributed by Angelia Ebner.
Featured Coordinator: Chloe Cawthon, 1st Year CS Coordinator at Polk Middle School
Why did you get into the position of Community School Coordinator?
I was looking for jobs working with/for students, came across the listing at Polk and fell IN LOVE with the concept of community schools when I read more about it. I believe it's the key to fixing many of the issues facing our education system today!
Share a success that you have had as a CSC?
Creating a meeting space for our school's community to connect with one another, our students and our families. I love my community school council and am so proud of the collaborative team I have been able to help gather together. It's an honor to work with everyone on the council.
What is one of the most interesting partnerships that you have brought to your school?
South Valley Band Project! They teach our students guitar, drums and vocals every Tuesday and Thursday after school and has had a high attendance rate this year. Students LOVE this program!
Name one initiative that you would like to bring to your school under the Community School Model and discuss why it is important.
Creating a beautiful outdoor space on our campus that can be used for regular community building events and gatherings, tapping into and boosting our school garden to do this. It is so important for our families to feel that they belong on our campus. We want them to be here not just for parent-teacher conferences or one-time events - we want them to have a beautiful space at our school that they can enjoy themselves in and get to really know their students' school staff by sharing food and company.
Share something else about your role as a CS Coordinator?
My favorite part of being a coordinator is working with and for students. At each stage of their development they are experiencing the world in a way that is SO different than how adults experience it. Listening to their lived experiences offer us adults wisdom on how to create truly equitable and ENJOYABLE conditions for quality education for all. I love building community with our young people. They make me better and wiser.
FY23 Community Schools Grant Applications
The application window is now open for 2022-23 Community Schools. May 12 is the deadline to apply for these grants:
- One-year, one-time planning grants for up to $50,000
- Implementation grants for $150,000
- Implementation renewal supplemental grants for up to $75,000
Existing implementation grantees will receive an implementation grant award if they have met all the grant award requirements. An implementation application is only required if the original application has changed based on a comprehensive needs assessment or the type of application. Applications, instructions and additional information is available here. Questions? Feliz Garcia or Marangellie Trujillo
