Kennewick, Washington

Life Simulation—A District Lesson in Poverty

Kennewick district leaders recognized the disconnect between school expectations of families that were generated by mainly white, middle-class professionals, and the struggles faced by diverse families—many of whom are living at or below the federal poverty level.  In spring 2016, district leaders learned about and participated in a simulation provided by a community agency entitled Food, Medicine, Shelter: You Decide.  Participants are assigned a name and age, and are placed in a “family.”  They have a few minutes to read their biographies and see what they own, owe, and need.  A facilitator guides the participants to take the role of their assigned characters for one month (split into 4 “fifteen-minute weeks”).  The weekly struggles begin, replicating challenges faced by real families.  At the end of 4 weeks, most participants understand the stresses that families who live in poverty face in everyday life.

District leaders invited the community agency to the fall ATP Chair Retreat so that all chairs could experience the same simulation.  The chairpersons brought the simulation back to their full teams to experience together.  One administrator joined in at one of the schools and then brought the simulation to the district office for all administrators to experience.  It is important for administrators, teachers, parent leaders, and others to walk in the shoes of the families who send their children to school.

Building a Strong Foundation—Helping New Teachers Understand Partnerships

Many college courses that prepare new teachers omit information on how to work well with students’ families with diverse cultural backgrounds.  Kennewick’s leaders for partnerships created a two-prong program to help new teachers understand why it is important to form strong partnerships with all students’ families and how to do this.  In a New Teacher Bag, each teacher received a district bag filled with classroom supplies, a flyer about how to work with interpreters when communicating with families who speak languages other than English, a summary of research on the importance of school, family, and community partnerships, and simple steps to conduct these partnerships.

The second component was a workshop on the district’s approaches to family and community engagement.  The district leaders for partnerships worked with the Peer Assistance and Resource (PAR) program to provide one of PAR’s monthly orientation workshops for new teachers in their first year in the district.  The professional development session on family and community engagement and school-based Action Teams for Partnerships was well-received by new teachers, building principals, and the PAR leaders.  One teacher was so enthused that his PAR mentor reported that he made proactive and positive phone calls to the parents of each student in his class.

Building a Strong Foundation—Helping New Teachers Understand Partnerships is featured in Promising Partnership Practices 2017.