Learning Matters: Resources exist for parents of local students

As teachers will tell you and the Glendale Unified School Board knows, education doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Academic success — or the lack of it — happens in the midst of personal and cultural influences over which districts and classroom teachers have very little control.

Glendale Unified’s Local Control Accountability Plan lists seven goals to address some of the “outside” factors affecting students — such as the social, emotional, and physical needs of students (Goal No. 3) and the importance of parental engagement (Goal No. 6).

I’m confident the district provides many excellent services in these areas. But school resources are, for the most part, directed to student needs. Schools aren’t funded or staffed to offer much help to parents.

According to district reports, nearly 49% of Glendale Unified’s approximately 26,000 students qualify for free or reduced lunch, indicating that many families struggle financially.

Parents worrying about the next paycheck may not have time to search for resources that could help them. Those wondering when their rent will increase and where they’ll move when it does might have a hard time setting aside an appropriate study area for their child. Moms anxious about how soon the family car will break down might not risk driving to Back-to-School Night, much less to their student athlete’s game in another city.

It’s hard for parents to engage with their child’s school experience in such circumstances, and family stress has been observed to have negative effects on student achievement.

I can only speculate about the relationship between financial insecurity and mental health, recently identified by the Glendale Healthier Community Coalition as the top health priority for Glendale in the past three years (Glendale News-Press, Sept. 21).

Luckily for Glendale, the community has abundant resources in the form of nonprofit volunteer organizations, including PTAs and service groups, public and private agencies, faith communities, charitable foundations and community-minded businesses, all trying in their various ways to work with schools to make residents’ lives a little better.

Still, too few of our families know what help is available, and too few of the organizations know and support what the others offer.

So I’m optimistic about some of the collaborative efforts underway locally to help students and families increase their incomes and financial stability.

Two efforts stand out in my experience: the Adult Education Block Grant (AEBG, also known as the GCC District Regional Consortium), administered by Glendale Community College’s Garfield campus in partnership with Glendale Unified and the Verdugo Workforce Development Board; and the work of the two-year-old non-profit, Glendale Communitas Initiative, known at Communitas.

According to a recently published brochure, AEBG’s goal is “…To empower our adult learners through accessible and convenient programs making them college and employment-ready.”

Some of the programs in development include job-skills classes for adults with disabilities, more adult literacy classes in additional venues and vocational English-as-a-second-language courses designed to meet the needs of local employers.

But as the consortium representatives have concluded in their meetings over the past two years, accessibility and convenience of classes don’t count for much if potential students don’t know the classes exist.

With prodding and funding from the California Community College Chancellor’s office and the California Department of Education, AEBG members and partners such as the Glendale Public Library, Armenian Relief Society, International Rescue Committee and the Department of Rehabilitation — previously working independently “in silos” — have started sharing program information with each other for the benefit of community members.

New office space on the Garfield campus has been arranged to accommodate various service providers on a rotating schedule, with the hope that providers will readily refer potential students to whichever consortium opportunities best fit the students’ needs. It’s called putting students first, and I’m hopeful the practice will blossom.

I’m even more hopeful about the possibilities presented by Communitas, which “…Provides communitywide poverty prevention and recovery programs personalized for individuals and families.”

Collaborating with civic nonprofit, faith-based and business organizations, Communitas, like AEBG, is working to supplement services provided by existing agencies, not to duplicate services. It’s working with individuals referred by local agencies and churches, helping them overcome barriers to take their own next steps toward financial security.

As Jason Schlatter, executive director of Communitas, recently told a group gathered at the home of board member Ramella Markarian, “We do with, we don’t do for individuals.”

In the first full year of operation, Schlatter reported, Communitas helped 20 individuals and families increase their household income by an average of 123%. Meanwhile, 70 people attended its “Your Money Matters” series of free workshops hosted at the Library Connection@Adams Square.

Continued statistics like that could go a long way to improve student success in Glendale.

For more information about Communitas, visit glendalecommunitasinitiative.org, or for AEBG, visit glendale.edu/Garfield

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JOYLENE WAGNER is a former member of the Glendale Unified School Board. Contact her at jkate4400@aol.com.