In Celebration of Mothers

When we talk about Family Engagement and Home-School Connections, we sometimes focus on ways in which parents can help the school through volunteering their time or services in the classroom or by serving on committees that help steer the work of the school district. For many of our migrant families though, there may be barriers to these types of involvement including inflexible work schedules, childcare, transportation and inadequate time in the evenings to take care of homework, dinner and any extracurricular activities that the kids may be involved in. Taking all of these potential barriers into account, I'd like to share with you my account of a successful event for migrant families that took place in Sedro Woolley:

This week I had the opportunity to visit the Mother's Day Celebration that was held for Migrant and Bilingual families at Evergreen Elementary School in Sedro Woolley. The event took place from 6:30-8:30 to accommodate most parents' work schedules. The atmosphere welcoming, the food was incredible (posole and other dishes made by the Parent Advisory Committee's parents eliminated the need to feed the family dinner at home), and the children were engaged in activities to celebrate their mothers (eliminating the child care question).

There was a table set up for kids to work on cards for their mothers and each child came to the front of the cafeteria to get a rose and bring it to their mother. It was a very sweet and poignant gesture of appreciation for all that mothers do to support their children in school and at home.

By acknowledging and accommodating the needs of these families in their planning of this event, school district personnel and teachers had the opportunity to share an evening, a meal and a moment of appreciation with a very large group of families who are now better informed about the programs that are being offered to their children (an update was given in English and Spanish before the meal started), more comfortable at the school and more connected with each other.

Nicely done, Sedro Woolley!!!

Please feel free to comment and add information about your successful events!