| | Dear Friends,
As we enter into the spirit of the winter holidays, I extend my heartfelt greetings to each of you. In this month’s newsletter, we place a spotlight on authentic family engagement – a theme that resonates deeply, especially during the holiday season when many of us will be home connecting with loved ones.
In Massachusetts charter public schools, we deeply understand the importance of creating collaborative partnerships with families, where decisions are made hand in hand for the betterment of kids. We appreciate the profound impact empowered parents have on student engagement, and our schools have embraced diverse approaches to family partnership.
Below, you'll find inspiring stories from two Massachusetts charter public schools, offering practical insights and best practices for creating meaningful relationships with families.
As we close out the calendar year, let us express our heartfelt gratitude for your engagement and unwavering commitment. The holiday season is a time of reflection and appreciation, and we extend our sincere thanks for your dedication to our schools. Here's to a season of gratitude, togetherness, and the promise of exciting new possibilities in the coming year. |
| With gratitude,  Tim Nicolette
Executive Director, Massachusetts Charter Public School Association |
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|  | “Salem Academy's effect on our child's development is impressive and comprehensive in its influence on character, learning, social awareness, and scaffolding of skills and knowledge-based instruction. The school has provided our child with a first-rate education in a highly supportive and challenging environment led by engaged teachers and an administration that understands how to inform, guide, support, encourage, inspire, and hold students accountable. Students are inspired by their peers and educators who are motivated to see their students succeed and, more importantly, excel. We discovered a school that takes its mission seriously and seeks to educate a scholar's holistic trajectory through formative years.” - Mark Sanford and Gabriela Garcia,
Parents, Salem Academy Charter School |
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| | MCPSA Spotlight:
Family Engagement |
| At charter public schools in Massachusetts, we believe in inviting families to the table, in walking hand in hand, and sharing the power of key decision-making when it comes to their scholar’s education. |
| | At KIPP Massachusetts, school staff have created ways to come together with families around important decisions – an approach they call “co-authorship.” Their family engagement model focuses on bringing parents into conversations early – even as an idea is being created – and then continuing engagement as the idea grows. KIPP MA families have the opportunity to join a variety of working groups to inform school-based decisions that impact their children, such as decisions around teaching and curriculum, school safety and culture, communications and fundraising, and more. KIPP MA Executive Director Rhonda “Nikki” Barnes even convenes an Executive Director Family Advisory Group to help inform her leadership and decision making. As she shared in public testimony at the Massachusetts State House, “Listen deeply, embrace difficult conversations, and be prepared for that idea to change, ensuring families hear their own voices reflected when that idea becomes a decision.” As a result of this work, at the end of 2022, 87% of KIPP MA families agreed that they had a voice in their child’s education. |
| | At Prospect Hill Academy (PHA), a deep commitment to family engagement and community support is a cornerstone to the school's identity. With almost half of their families speaking a language other than English at home, PHA’s commitment to family engagement and community empowerment goes beyond translation – it embodies a dedication to language justice and a transformative shift in power dynamics. In Paik, a PHA parent and the school’s Family Engagement Coordinator, oversees the implementation of the school’s community engagement strategies. When describing the school’s approach, Ms. Paik shares, “It’s about more than access. English is the power language. We want to normalize shifting the paradigm from [mere] access for families with a different home language. We want to move from language access to language equity and language justice. [We approach this work thinking] what are the things we can do to really make people feel welcome?” |
| | As a result, PHA has adopted a robust family engagement structure, featuring a full-time Family and Community Engagement Coordinator and three part-time Family Liaisons, who actively participate in school events and parent meetings. The team approaches the work as cultural brokers – providing crucial real-time interpretation and translation services for both families and school faculty and helping to build trusting relationships even across language barriers. The school fosters a strong sense of community through a robust calendar of family events – often led by parents. For instance, the school’s Family Advisory Board (FAB) has become a mainstay programmatic element – offering a safe space for weekly support and advice for families through Zoom meetings.
For Lewis Perdomo, a parent of three PHA students, these deep opportunities for families allowed him the space to leverage his interest in special education and help to form the Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SEPAC) at PHA. “As I saw it was a need for my kids, for the whole school and beyond,” Lewis explained. “We just had a meeting last week which was amazing, about teachers and families getting together and building relationships. This is the core of family engagement. To bring everyone to the table to understand each other and foster a great healthy environment for the purpose of serving our students.” |
| | Family engagement can also mean providing resources to your families through community partnerships. Launched almost a decade ago by two PHA parents, the PHA THRIVE initiative provides monthly grocery shopping gift cards, school markets, and community dinners in partnership with Food for Free and Community Cooks. |
| | | | Charter school supports immigrant students with clothing drive, Spectrum 1 News
Featuring Phoenix Academy Charter Phoenix Charter Academy is preparing for winter with several of its students living in shelters as funding for those shelters is left in limbo due to state lawmakers' disagreements over a supplemental budget. The school has three campuses in Massachusetts and serves many non-traditional students, including a large population from Central and South America. Classmates are raising money to send them home with warm clothing, since many of the students don’t own winter coats. |
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