Any educator can tell you that a young person’s love of learning begins at home. The year 2014 was a landmark one for Puente and the South Coast community as we tackled chronic problems in local students’ early reading and language skills with several exciting new programs, many of which are designed to engage local parents as much as they do their young children.

In 2014, Puente received a grant from the Heising-Simons Foundation to fund its new Family Engagement Impact Initiative, which Puente developed in conjunction with the La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District. The two-year, nearly $400,000 grant already has helped Puente launch several efforts designed to address students’ struggles by promoting early literacy K-8 and bridging the learning gap between home and school.

These bold steps include:

• Expanding the ‘Raising a Reader’ program to include early literacy training and practice for parents

• Introducing Abriendo Puertas (Opening Doors), a ten-part curriculum that teaches parents how to support their children’s growth and education at every age

• Providing a series of workshops on child development and early learning for in-home child care providers, with support from the San Mateo County Office of Education and WestEd’s Program on Infant/Toddler Care

• Hiring an Early Literacy Specialist to oversee new programs and workshops

• Purchasing books and other materials essential to these initiatives

Parents and children at Raising a Reader training

Significant Partnerships

Puente’s recent efforts around education stem from a close working relationship between Amy Wooliever, Superintendent of the La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District, and Puente Academic Director Suzanne Abel. Their partnership has already demonstrated considerable success this year by bringing bilingual college students into Pescadero Elementary classrooms as teacher’s aides. Additional college students, all part of the Classroom Connection program at Merrill College, University of California, Santa Cruz, are also working one-on-one as tutor/mentors with Pescadero Middle School students who need a boost.

The La Honda-Pescadero School District is one of 11 public school districts in San Mateo County where 42% students are not reading at grade level by the third grade. “Not coincidentally, those are the same 11 communities where the majority of children reside who are English learners, or children of color, or poor children,” says Jean-Marie Houston, Director of Early Learning Support Services for the San Mateo County Office of Education. “Those are the kids who we say have the ‘achievement gap.’ But we know it begins as a readiness gap.”

The South Coast fits that description to a tee. Wooliever sees the ‘readiness gap’ emerge as early as preschool or kindergarten, and it gets compounded from that point on.

“Our students have gaps in language when they come to first grade. Not just English – I’m talking about overall language,” she says.

Learning to read
What’s happening is that some children aren’t spending enough time around books, whether that’s because their parents struggle to read themselves, can’t afford books, or are working too many hours to spend quality time reading with their sons and daughters. As a result, children come to school unprepared for the experience of handling a book, and haven’t known the delight and discovery that come with books.

Puente and LHPUSD are addressing the problem head-on with a series of ‘Raising a Reader Family Nights,’ instructional workshops for parents to practice reading to their children.

“Even if you don’t know how to read and write, you can look at the pictures and make up a story about the pictures, or sing about the pictures,” says Arlae Alston, Puente’s new Early Literacy Specialist.

Just teaching a child how to handle a book, and setting a routine for parent-child bonding around books, is enough to put children on a path toward wanting to explore books, says Alston.

Kickoff training in October for parents of children in preschool and kindergarten was a big success. Four more Family Night workshops will be held in early 2015 for the same families.   Additionally, the “Abriendo Puertas” curriculum will initially target families with the youngest children (0-3), in order to engage families even earlier in shared experiences around books.  Alston says parents will make a book for their children based on a story or a memory they want to share. That’s done for a very specific reason. “Think how empowering and important it is for a child to see that this story from your mom was written in a book. Every one of these programs sends the message that parents are the first teachers of their children,” she adds.

‘Raising a Reader’ sends children home with a colorful book bag that is filled with new books each week – picture books, reading books, numeracy books. So far the program serves local children in preschool and kindergarten, but plans are underway to extend the program to the youngest children in our community.

On November 17-19, 2014, a cohort of 15 Puente and LHPUSD staff, parents, and partners from Peninsula Family Service attended intensive training in the parent engagement program, Abriendo Puertas (Opening Doors), a national program that capitalizes on the cultural strengths of Latino parenting. The institute trained the trainers, who will then offer the series to parents in the community using a common curriculum.  Raising a Reader and Abriendo Puertas will work synergistically to build a culture of early reading with children.

Abriendo Puertas training team

Reading to learn
Third grade is an essential moment of transition in a child’s education, according to Houston.  A student who has been learning to read will start reading to learn. At that point, “If you don’t have those basic tools in place, you start to lose ground and you get further and further behind,” she says.

In fact, students who are not reading proficiently by the third grade are 13 times less likely to graduate on time, as compared with those who are.

There is ample evidence that a good-quality, full-day preschool program can prepare a child for academic success.
That data was enough to convince the La Honda-Pescadero School District to approve a full-day preschool program for South Coast children for the first time this year – even though the school district has no sustainable source of funding for the effort. “It was just too important,” says Wooliever.

“Our board was open to taking a leap of faith, knowing that extending the school day was going to be better for students educationally, and more manageable for parents.”

In spite of the fact that San Mateo County is one of the most affluent counties in the nation, only half of children who reside here can afford preschool, according to the county Office of Education. As a result, 3,300 children who could be attending preschool in the County are missing out, starting out behind.

There is a good reason to believe that will change very soon. The Silicon Valley Community Foundation was recently selected as one of seven national recipients of a $7.5 million grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency. That money will go to The Big Lift, an innovative San Mateo County campaign to advance early childhood learning. The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors has set aside $10 million in Measure A funding to match the federal grant and is raising additional dollars from the business and foundation sectors.

Preschool funding is one of The Big Lift’s four areas of focus, and Houston says the La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District is on a list of priority districts.

“We’re going to move the dial for our children,” she says.

These days, the youthful energy at Puente’s Pescadero office is tangible. Three college-aged students recently took over some of the most important public-serving roles at Puente. But they are not newcomers – they are already among the most seasoned staff members on the Puente team.

Monica Amezcua, Laura Rodriguez and Omar Ortega were all in their mid-teens when they started work with Puente’s Youth Employment Program. Over the years, they held all the typical jobs: office administration, working as counselors with Puente’s summer camp programs. Some got internships with companies like Symantec, where they earned wages and learned new skills, courtesy of Puente and the San Mateo County Workforce Investment Board.  Slowly, they began taking on more responsibilities. Amezcua, now 23, began assisting Lorena Vargas de Mendez, Puente’s former Safety Net Services Manager. Rodriguez, who is 20, started assisting Executive Director Kerry Lobel with various projects. And Ortega, 20, used to organize Puente’s summer program at YMCA Camp Jones Gulch.

Today, the two women share responsibility for health care enrollments (for both adults and children); all safety net services including financial assistance; Puente’s student backpack distribution program; handing out car seats; and organizing holiday gift card enrollment and distribution for 147 South Coast children and 63 families. They also oversee transportation for the men who attend La Sala and keep attendance.

Laura Rodriguez and Monica Amezcua

Ortega now oversees both Puente’s tax preparation program, which is quickly ramping up, and Puente’s Adult Education Program.

Omar Ortega

The promotions occurred as a result of two staff  transitions. Executive Director Kerry Lobel saw an opportunity to combine a number of staff roles in a way that made sense. Previously, one person held all the information about economic security assistance. If that one person went on vacation or had to take sick leave, participants in our community were at a disadvantage. Now, “there’s synergy in being together,” says Lobel. “It’s created an opportunity for more teamwork and less isolation.”

The twentysomethings were a little daunted by their new roles at first. They are all full-time college students, and their part-time jobs with Puente came with high expectations.  “They’ve had to command respect here, especially in the beginning, and remind people they were no longer youth staff – that they were adults with all the responsibilities and privileges accorded to adults,” says Lobel.

Rodriguez is working hard to get new participants signed up for Covered California during the open enrollment period as well as participants enrolled in ACE and Healthy Kids. During the holidays, worked with the Sheriff’s Office to distribute toys to 60 children.

“Sometimes it’s stressful, trying to manage lots of cases. But at the end of the day, when the family is helped, you just see the smiles on their faces and it’s all worth it,” she says.

Amezcua is learning all about what it’s like to hold an adult job. “We’re expected to ask fewer questions and get the work done. Now it’s like, you make it work because no one’s going to do the job for you.” Both women say their favorite case so far was when they worked together to help a couple make an emergency mortgage payment; both the husband and the wife are fighting cancer. The wife later called to thank them, says Amezcua. “It was really hard for her to ask for something, but at the end she knew that it was worth it.”

For his part, Ortega sees a direct connection between managing Puente’s tax program and his interest in business management – he is a business administration major at Foothill College. Ortega confesses to being “overwhelmed” in his first few months on the job, between overseeing the September start of adult education classes at Puente and the beginning of his own classes at Foothill. After helping a co-worker coordinate the summer youth program for several years, the prospect of working with adults seemed like a challenge. But then he saw who was enrolled in adult education – parents whose sons and daughters Ortega had worked with over many summers. It was a pleasant surprise. “I went into the adult education program knowing the majority of the people in the classes. I know the kids are in school, and it’s good to see their parents are trying to learn as well,” says Ortega.

At the Christmas Posada last month, Puente handed out 27 cozy new sleeping bags to farm workers, courtesy of Ms. Martinez’s kindergarten class at San Francisco’s Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy.

The students raised more than $1,000 for Puente in four hours, selling baked goods and lemonade to passersby on a Saturday in November at the corner of 18^th and Castro Streets. As a service-learning project, it was a big success. Everyone pitched in, from the students, who blew bubbles and poured lemonade, to their parents, who furnished the homemade treats and supervised the bake sale. But the larger point was not lost on Marisa Martinez’s students.

“It’s not just about the classroom. It’s about how we help other people. That’s the best thing I can ever do as teacher – to spread that message: there are always people in more trouble than you are,” says Martinez, who lives in Kings Mountain and is raising two young children of her own.

Youth from Harvey Milk Academy

Martinez’s students are not affluent. Many are adopted or in foster care, low-income, or born outside the U.S. So learning about the farm workers who need donated bedding to stay warm was a powerful lesson for them.

Martinez herself has spent a lot of time with migrant populations. Back in New Mexico, her home state, she would go down to Ciudad Juárez and join volunteers who set up emergency sun shelters for people risking their lives to cross the border, men and women starving for food and water. (Nowadays, the border is too dangerous for that kind of support work).

Since she moved to the South Coast, Martinez has spent a lot of time talking to local fieldworkers about their own circumstances – the drafty, crowded places where they sleep; the family members they left behind, whom they support with their earnings; the ultra-thin margins by which they survive.

Martinez has always valued human rights, having grown up with two mothers. Prior to Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, she taught at El Dorado Elementary School in Hunter’s Point, working with classrooms full of traumatized, homeless, fatherless students living in San Francisco’s most violent neighborhood.

Martinez plays fiddle and guitar, and her teaching experiences informed her popular children’s CD, Chicken & ABC’s. The album won a silver medal in the Parents’ Choice Awards.

Puente’s seasonal request for warm blankets and sleeping bags inspired her to make a difference for South Coast farm workers, and make it a teachable moment as well. Thanks to 17 kindergartners at Harvey Milk Academy, 27 local men will be sleeping well this winter.

“It’s going to be even bigger next year,” says Martinez. “Thanks to Puente for being such an amazing nonprofit.”

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