constraints, Daly cannot offer a traditional summer school, but our staff felt
strongly about the need to preserve
contact with students throughout the
summer as well as to remain a resource
for academic support. Thanks to a
massive book drive at the end of the
school year, all students who attended
last summer’s program received free
books.
As we’ve become more successful
in building our Hispanic parent out-
reach, our focus is no longer just on
attracting parents to school events or
teered for PTA committee posts. These
families have found their unofficial
voices already—voices like that of Mrs.
Aguilera, who, at her first PTA meeting,
spontaneously offered to translate
various PTA forms into Spanish. She
explained,
I asked the PTA secretary at the meeting if
she could give me the forms in Spanish so
I could give them to my friends, but she
said she didn’t have them. So I thought,
that’s how I could help. I’ll translate
them. And that would help other parents,
too.
Parent outreach is not just about
reaching out to disenfranchised,
economically challenged parents
to raise student achievement.
making home-school connections to
address behavioral or academic issues.
The crucial next step is nurturing Hispanic parent leaders to organize a self-sustaining Hispanic parent community
that will become a full partner in school
improvement.
Eager to jump-start the leadership-growing process, we arranged for
successful Hispanic parent leaders from
other schools to mentor our Hispanic
parents in a structured goal-setting
process. This past January, a group of
12–16 Hispanic parents and Daly staff
began exploring barriers to Hispanic
student achievement and developing an
action plan for the establishment of a
sustainable leadership voice at school.
Even as this project gets underway,
however, we have been encouraged
by the emergence of several Hispanic
parents who have crossed the barrier of
the previously all-white PTA and volun-
A Core Belief in Including All
Thanks to our focus on serving the
needs of the Hispanic and ELL populations, Daly Elementary School has made
adequate yearly progress in these No
Child Left Behind subgroups for the
last three years. Even more important
than high-stakes assessments, however,
is the school’s growing relationship
with the Hispanic community and the
significant increase in Hispanic parents’
participation in all areas of school
life, including field trips, classroom
volunteering, and fall parent-teacher
conferences.
The school’s success with its Hispanic
community cannot be attributed merely
to the implementation of a list of action
items on the school improvement doc-
ument, as instrumental as that may be.
More important is the match between
the school’s core commitment to cre-
ating a welcoming school climate and
nurturing personal relationships and the
traditional Hispanic styles of interaction.
Traditionally, the Hispanic culture is
characterized by an emphasis on warm,
personal interaction, a relaxed sense of
time, and an informal atmosphere for
communication. 2 Given these prefer-
ences, a culture clash may result when
Hispanic students and parents are con-
fronted with the typical task-oriented
style of most U.S. schools.
