|
Emily Hedin is the Executive Director at Breakthrough Montessori, a public charter school serving students PreK3 – 1st grade in Ward 4. She previously served as the Director of Family and Community Engagement at Breakthrough and comes to her current role with a strong focus on building parent leadership. Emily is in her second year of the PLC and has gathered the tools and resources to support and guide family engagement practices in her school community. “Family engagement is a growing and increasingly professionalized field and schools don’t have to go at it alone or reinvent the wheel.” The PLCs have established a body of peers in which participants have shared and expanded ideas, strategies, and best practices to support this work. Breakthrough follows the Montessori model, and applies this responsive and personalized philosophy to relationships with parents, too. “There are many in the Montessori community that are grappling with how to make sure we are meeting parents where they are, and we are honoring their journey. We set an extremely high standard for family engagement.” They put this philosophy into practice through various programs and practices; an extensive and personal home visit program that helps to build relationships between teachers and families, a Family and Faculty Equity reading group (a parent-initiated group that brings the two constituencies together to reflect on the inequities in the public school system and how school communities can authentically advocate for the needs of all children and families), and increased family voice. Over the course of Emily’s two years in the PLCs, Emily has gained the tools that have increased the engagement of all families, particularly with hard to reach families, and transformed that into parent action. Parents are now actively involved in key decision making at Breakthrough: during the 18-19 school year, a committee of parents have been integral partners in planning for a new playground for students. The PLCs have helped Emily empower families to lead these programs and advocate for what is best for their child(ren), working to meet the vision that Maria Montessori developed over a century ago.
The 2018-2019 PAVE Family and Community Engagement Professional Learning Community (PLC) will commence on June 6th at the PLC Retreat. Participants from both cohorts will reflect on their progress towards their SMART goals, celebrate their family and community engagement wins, and will set priorities for the 2019-2020 school year.
|
