The first Friday of May, I got to attend the MELLC (Massachusetts English Learner Leadership Council) gathering focused on family engagement at Fitchburg State with Halima Noor, an assistant principal from one of our partner schools. First off, Fitchburg State is such a cool campus! I’d never been before, and it was a beautiful building, and a perfect place for this type of meeting.
What I love about these gatherings is how organic and collaborative they are. Directors shared what’s already working in their schools when it comes to family engagement, while others asked the practical follow-ups:
“How did you get funding?”
“What kind of outreach did you do?”
“What metrics did your district need?”
So many strong ideas were circulating, but I was especially drawn to the connection between adult education and student attendance. It makes sense, schools are already trusted spaces for families, so of course they’re natural places for learning. Seeing parents take English classes, getting familiar with the school, and setting that example for their children? The impact on student attendance and connection to school was powerful. It’s a heavy lift to run adult ed well, but the outcomes shared were incredible.
Another idea that stood out was “Parent University”. Helping educators understand the schooling expectations families bring from other cultures. Alongside the stories being shared was an important reminder: one family’s experience (say, in the DRC) isn’t everyone’s experience.
It brought me back to something I did as a teacher: I’d show high school scenes from movies and ask the staff, “Who actually went to a school like High School Musical?” (Almost no one!) It was always a great way to reflect on how varied our own school experiences are, and how new families might assume U.S. schooling looks like the media they’ve seen.
I’m always in awe of how much Multilingual Learner directors hold. I left feeling grateful — and hopeful — that ReachMyTeach can be a small but meaningful part of supporting their work, whether that’s interpreter-inclusive parent-teacher conferences or just helping communication flow more easily, every day.
