Fathers at Esperanza

Fathers' Day seemed to be an appropriate day to write about how we can involve fathers (biological, stepfather, adopted father, grandfather, and/or other male role model or father figure) at Esperanza.

I recently finished reading the book Principals Matter by Mavis G. Sanders and Steven B. Sheldon. There is a chapter in the book focused primarily on how to involve fathers and why it is important to do so. Research studies have shown that fathers have a unique influence on children and therefore, ignoring their place in the school and with their children would be a loss of a tremendous resource. For this reason, as we develop our School, Family, Community Partnership plan father involvement goals need to be part of the plan taking into consideration the different educational and ethnic/cultural backgrounds of the fathers.

Based on the determined vision and specific goal(s) for father involvement some of the following goals might be appropriate:

• "Donuts for Dads" biweekly or monthly held in the parent center where fathers can mingle together


• Implement FatherRead


• Implement the Hispanic Father/Son Program patterned after the program Dr. Josie Tinajero developed in Texas


• Arrange to have a night at a place such as Lowe's were fathers and children can do some project together


• Invite fathers to share their "funds of knowledge"


• Specifically ask to speak to the father when making friendly calls to the home


• Have a "fun night" at the school specifically for fathers and their children

It might take up to three years to develop a high quality program that involves fathers but the effort will be well worth it for the impact it will have on our Esperanza scholars and their families.

Read, Write, and Talk

Thursday and Friday another founding Esperanza Board member, Carmen Thompson, and I had the opportunity to attend the 3rd Annual BYU (Brigham Young University) ELL (English Language Learning Symposium in Provo, Utah. The theme for the conference this year was Family, School and Community Collaboration: Assuring the Future through Student Achievement. The symposium was excellent! Not only did we learn lots but we also made some great connections for implementing a Community Learning School Model at Esperanza.

I have also been reading a book called Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning by Michael Schmoker. Although he is talking about improving student learning the principles apply to educators as well. He talks about the need to read, write, and talk about a topic after hearing a lecture about it. Otherwise our knowledge of the topic will be very superficial and the chance of any changes is minimal. Therefore, this morning I ordered four books on the topic of family, school, and community collaboration (including one by Mavis Sanders, one of the Symposium's keynote presenters) that we can read and study and then use as a basis for training on family and community involvement. We will then write about the topic in our Esperanza binder.

Learning this way will help us to become the school we want to be.