Westgate Elementary School’s Focus on Math aimed to provide families with simple, but useful, strategies to enjoy standards-based math activities with their own child at home. The ATP partnered with the Refugee Liaison to coordinate an outreach event designed to help families understand the standardized tests that their children would take.
Kennewick, WA
Focus on Math
The ATP at Westgate Elementary School knows that helping children at home with math assignments can be a real challenge for parents. The school receives large numbers of new immigrant and refugee students and families each year, with more than 20 languages spoken at home. Nearly half of the students receive bilingual services. Focus on Math aimed to provide families with simple, but useful, strategies to enjoy standards-based math activities with their own child at home. This included providing information and examples of math vocabulary that could generate conversations about math at home in any language.
Over 195 families attended Focus on Math and all families received the math materials and guidelines whether they came or not. The school is experienced in conducting multiple communications to increase attendance at key involvement activities. In this case, the ATP and math teachers sent “save the date” notices. Teachers talked with families about Focus on Math at their parent-teacher conferences. The reader board and Facebook page were used and students went home with stickers on them as a final reminder. Each family also received a personal invitation and each teacher called five families who might respond only to the extra, individual communication. The ATP also provided bus transportation to pick up families that lived too far to walk.
Focus on Math is featured in Promising Partnership Practices 2015.
Westgate Elementary Community Outreach: Best Practices for Standardized Testing
The ATP at Westgate wanted to foster better communication channels with its Burmese, Karen, and Somali speaking families, and orient them to new standards and tests that will measure their children’s skills and progress. In the past, a lack of transportation limited these parents’ participation at meetings at school. The ATP partnered with the Refugee Liaison to coordinate an outreach event held at a central location in the families’ neighborhoods. The content was designed to help families understand the tests that their children would take, the purposes of the tests, strategies for students’ success on tests, and how to help children prepare and feel “ready” and confident about taking the tests.
The team identified a good location in walking distance for most families. A pamphlet and PowerPoint presentation were developed on tests and their purposes, with time left on the agenda for parents’ questions. Three stations were established to accommodate the 3 major language groups of these parents. As an added workshop feature, all families worked with teachers and interpreters to write messages of encouragement on cards for their children to receive before testing. The Refugee Liaison reached out to families who were unable to attend the workshop so that they, too, had the information, and another similar session was conducted at the school building for other families who could attend, with Spanish and Arabic translators available at the general meeting at school. All families received the pamphlet on ways to help their child with testing, whether they attended a workshop session or not.
