Social Services at School Center Aids, Inspires Parents and Students

Inside Vaughn Street Elementary School’s Family Center, all things seem to have a double purpose. An eye chart becomes an alphabet lesson, a gathering of mothers a session in empowerment. Even the center, a single room painted bright yellow, is much more than its name would suggest.

Envisioned as a model for other schools throughout Los Angeles, the Vaughn Family Center in San Fernando has been open for business less than five months. But in that time, it has become a bridge to the working-class, mostly immigrant community that surrounds it, offering health and social services to those who lack the wherewithal to get them elsewhere.

At the center, families with no insurance bring their children to have their teeth examined and their eyes checked. Parents learn how to speak English and be more understanding mothers and fathers. Even those who may not have a child enrolled at the school can come for a pat on the back or a bit of advice to get them through difficult times.

“Some get their hands held every day,” Vaughn Street Principal Yvonne Chan said of the 200 families who have sought assistance at the center since it opened in January. “You can’t be a school that just educates. You have to be a school that cares, and the community in turn takes care of us.”

Sponsored by the United Way and the Los Angeles Educational Partnership, the center was the brainchild of the two organizations and school officials. Through their efforts, a former classroom has been turned into an on-campus gathering place for community agencies offering services ranging from psychological counseling to immunization shots. English classes for parents are held on Mondays and Wednesdays. On Thursdays there are counseling sessions and classes on computers and parenting.

Parents trade time and interest in their children’s education and the community at large for the center’s free offerings. They can volunteer to teach dance classes, or use school sewing machines to make crafts to sell at fund-raisers. Many baby-sit for one another to make it easier to attend classes offered by the center.

“They have to contribute,” Chan said. “That way you bring out the talent they may not know they have. We’re moving them forward in terms of their own skills, and also giving them power in the school.”

The center costs the Los Angeles school district little to run; the director’s $43,000 salary is paid by corporate sponsors, Chan said. The center will be seeking more funds from the private sector to purchase computers and hire social and community outreach workers, she added.

The school hopes to expand the center to include such services as legal counseling, laundry and shower facilities for children whose homes have no running water, and a dental chair so dental work can be done on-site.

It is a long way from what school used to be, parents, teachers and administrators say of the innovative center. But, they note, it is what school must become to meet the needs of a complex, ever-diversifying society.

“School isn’t just coming in . . . closing the door and teaching,” said fourth-grade teacher Stephanie Moore. “If the kid is hungry or there are problems at home not being addressed, it (doesn’t matter) how many books we buy. . . . You’ve got to have these integrated services to address the whole child.”

Vaughn Street is not alone in establishing such a center. Six other schools in the San Fernando Valley have parent centers funded mainly with federal money for low-achieving students. Murchison Street School in East Los Angeles is mounting a similar program. More than 40 district schools have applied for state funding to help them bring social services and programs onto campus, said Pam Wagner, coordinator of the district’s student health services project.

Family centers are necessary in schools throughout Southern California, officials emphasized. But in the neighborhood of one-story frame homes and apartment buildings that surrounds Vaughn Street, such a resource center is of particular importance. Many of Vaughn’s 1,086 students are the children of illegal immigrants, who work for low wages with no health benefits. Some children are homeless and have only one or two changes of school clothes. For others, free lunches--for which 95% of the students qualify--are a nutritional mainstay.

Maria Elena Gutierrez, who has had two sons go through Vaughn Street, remembers the days before the center. “I don’t have insurance,” she said. “In this community, all the parents have the same problem. The kid is sick and they don’t have money. What can we do?”

In the past, there were few solutions. Often, she would go to the mercado , buy Tylenol and wait for the illness to go away. But now, at least for basic checkups, “I don’t need insurance and I don’t need to go to the clinic and pay money,” she said. “I’m happy for that.”

And there is something else that the center has done for her. “I feel I can be great,” said Gutierrez, a former housewife who works part time at Vaughn Street, where she is taking English and computer classes. “Two years ago I didn’t have spirit. (Now) I feel maybe I have a future. I can go get a job.”

Heightening self-esteem is a priority for the parents visiting the center.

One class deals with self-image, said Yoland Trevino, the center’s director. “I start the class with: ‘How are you feeling today?’ ” Trevino said. She has the mothers respond with the words, “I feel beautiful.”

“At first they hang their heads and don’t want to say it,” Trevino said. “But if you keep starting the meeting that way, they’ll say it enough and start to feel it.”

It is a slow building process. But Trevino and Chan said they have seen the parents assert newfound confidence in myriad ways.

They have observed it in the mother who had never picked up a paintbrush, only to give it a try and create beautiful murals for the school’s walls. They have watched parents make decisions ranging from who would direct the center to what furniture would go inside. They have seen a mother help preschoolers learn the ABCs and teach herself the alphabet along the way.

“We want them to realize this is not a handout,” Trevino said. “It’s a hand up. We’ll help you help yourself.”