"Many Cultures, One Community" 

Cajon Valley USD's Approach to Transforming How Families and Communities Work Together to Promote Student Success

Since 2019, the Community Engagement Initiative (CEI) has gathered students, families, community partners, educators, educational partners, and researchers to forge meaningful connections across culturally and linguistically diverse communities. The goals of these gatherings have been to share best practices for community engagement and support one another during challenging times—all while peer leading and learning from each other to accomplish these goals. This Spotlight was created from an issue of CEI's Voices from the Field, which highlight stories that offer lessons and models for other schools and districts looking to engage their communities more deeply and effectively. 

Overview

Cajon Valley Union School District (CVUSD) boasts a diverse population with various religious, cultural, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds. It is also home to the country's largest middle eastern refugee population. With over 40 languages represented in the district and home to one of the largest student refugee populations in the state, CVUSD saw a need to prioritize opportunities that nurture a sense of belonging for all families. The Family & Community Engagement Office (FACE) led the district’s efforts in building relationships with "disengaged" families — which the district rephrased to "families that need more love" — by creating spaces for them to share their thoughts, perspectives, and individual situations. In doing so, CVUSD was able to learn how they could more effectively engage families to support student learning and connect them with the appropriate resources.

The Importance of Relational Trust in Students' Learning

Building relational trust within the community was at the center of CVUSD's plan to increase family engagement. To build authentic and respectful relationships of trust, CVUSD trained its teachers to participate in voluntary home visits that were universally provided to all students and families who expressed interest in building those relationships. Conducted in teams of two, home visits allow teachers to learn about the families' experiences, their hopes and dreams for their child, and their expectations of each other. By investing the time to understand their students as a whole, teachers found that home visits led to increased communication and a deeper connection between the teachers, students, and families. Not only were students more engaged in class, but parents were also more invested in the collaborative partnership to work towards a common goal — student success.

CVUSD's Family Teacher Teams is another innovative program that aims to nurture an ongoing relationship with parents. It repurposes open houses, parent-teacher conferences, and back-to-school nights into a more engaging and teachable experience in which parents learn how to better support their children's learning at home. Similar to the home visits, these meetings begin with each parent sharing what their hopes and dreams are for their child. Grounding families around a shared goal of wanting the best for their children creates a safe space to introduce a piece of student data that illustrates how their child is performing academically. Based on the data, teachers then model a specific skill or strategy that parents could work on with their children. Once parents practice and master the skill or strategy, they become tutors that can extend the learning at home. As families recognize the role they play in their children's success and build relationships with their teachers, parents see the impact that family engagement can have on their children’s success.

Creating Welcoming Environments for Newcomer Families

A large percentage of CVUSD's student population is comprised of newly arrived students. To better understand and respond to their needs, the district invites newly arrived immigrant families to a Newcomer Welcome Meeting, which aims to welcome students and families with a simple orientation, introduce them to their school’s staff, and understand how to best support their child's instruction. 

These meetings are conducted in the families' native languages — either through the district's Bilingual Community Liaisons or a telephone interpretation agency. This reflects CVUSD's commitment to engaging and building stronger relationships with all families despite any language barriers that may exist. By offering an avenue for newly arrived families to directly communicate their questions or concerns, the district helped them feel like they belong as true partners in their child's learning and growth.

Languages Spoken by CVUSD's English Learners

(Data Source: EdData)
CVUSD's team of Community Liaisons have the capacity to speak Arabic, Chaldean, Spanish, Farsi, Pashto, and Swahili — the most spoken languages within their English Learner student population.
An Afghan American family in CVUSD describes their experiences from when they were stranded in Afghanistan after the US military troops withdrew from the country.

From March 2022 to March 2023, CVUSD welcomed a total of 853 new students from other countries, with 67% of these new students coming from Afghanistan (CEI Voices From the Field). Through the efforts of the FACE department and their Community Liaisons, the district was able to build a community that fosters relationships beyond the school. The level of trust and connectivity between the district and its families proved to be pivotal when the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, leaving CVUSD students and families trapped without a flight back home. Without a way to stay in contact via phone calls, the families relied on social media channels, such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, to communicate and stay in contact with the district's Community Liaisons, in hopes of finding a safe way home. Through its network of community resources and support, as well as help from Rep. Darrell Issa's office, CVUSD was able to safely welcome back their students and families.

As CVUSD is located in El Cajon, a national refugee resettle destination, it is home to one of the largest student refugee populations in the state. The district partners with various community-based organizations and groups to provide a boost for their refugee students in learning and exploring their community, student development, peer interaction, and relationship-building activities. The International Rescue Committee (IRC), for example, integrates student development opportunities during and after-school. The IRC also plans and organizes regular field trips around San Diego to help our students learn about their local community and build meaningful relationships with their peers.

Transforming the Parent's Role in Their Child's Education

Along with the extensive list of community resources on the FACE webpage, CVUSD also offers a variety of personal development, academic, and general support services for parents to build their skills and confidence in becoming more active participants in their children's education. After identifying the need for parent resources and learning, the district was able to offer 147 different workshops in four different languages to 400 unduplicated families (CVUSD, 2022-23 LCAP). One example of this is CVUSD's Parent Chromebook Workshops, in which parents learn about some of the computer programs utilized in the classroom. By familiarizing themselves with the software, parents are not only able to support their children at home but are also able to learn general computer skills that can support their own professional growth. 

CVUSD's Parent University is another program that strengthens the connection between the home and the school. Offered at several school sites, this multi-week afterschool program develops parents' literacy skills. Sessions are designed to mirror the curriculum taught by teachers in the classroom, allowing parents to utilize their newly acquired skills at home with their children. Parents who have graduated from the program often return to the classroom and read to students as a way to give back to the community.

Last but not least, the district actively involves parents in their children's education and career planning through the World of Work workshops. As CVUSD students "engage in a modern curriculum that will prepare them for the World of Work, based on their strengths, interests, and values," their parents are also engaged in workshops that complement the students' curriculum (CVUSD, 2022-23 LCAP). Not only does this provide them with the context and tools to be more actively involved in their child's education and career planning, but they're also able to engage in professional development that helps them identify their own strengths, interests, and values that could potentially lead to new career opportunities. Engaging parents in the World of Work initiative allows them to serve as present-day role models for their children, with the hope of "[developing] happy kids, living in healthy relationships on a path to gainful employment" (The Cajon Valley MVP).

Lessons Learned: Implementing a Family Engagement Blueprint

Through their participation in the Community Engagement Initiative (CEI)'s Peer Leading and Learning Network, CVUSD was equipped with the tools to identify a Problem of Practice, determine root causes, and provide recommendations for change to more effectively engage all families, including "families that need more love." CVUSD initially piloted a program at Anza Elementary to address this Problem of Practice, conducting parent focus groups to create space for parents to share their needs, suggestions, and concerns. Recognizing the need for a compassionate approach, the district focused on building trusting relationships in order to connect with their families and engage them within the CVUSD community. By opening up those lines of communication with the families and setting the tone for ongoing collaboration, CVUSD was able to gather valuable insights around the root causes of "disengagement." 

This prompted CVUSD to scale up the pilot program across the district with the aim of increasing the percentage of engaged families in the district's Parent Survey. To support other school sites through this process, CVUSD designed a blueprint that guides them in identifying a Problem of Practice and creating an implementation strategy for meaningful change.

Learn More About Cajon Valley Union School District's Partners 

Meet the Team

Michael Serban

Director,
Family & Community Engagement

Sandra Candler Wafer

Supervisor,
Family & Community Engagement

Janice Raymond

Teacher Facilitator,
Family & Community Engagement

About the Community Engagement Initiative

The Community Engagement Initiative (CEI) is intended to strengthen California's System of Support by building the capacity of school districts to authentically engage one another. This includes identifying effective models of community engagement, developing metrics to evaluate those models, having difficult conversations, building trusting relationships, and participating in the Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) development process.

Since 2019, the Community Engagement Initiative (CEI) has gathered students, families, community partners, educators, educational partners, and researchers to forge meaningful connections across culturally and linguistically diverse communities. The goals of these gatherings have been to share best practices for community engagement and support one another during challenging times—all while peer leading and learning from each other to accomplish these goals. This Spotlight was created from an issue of CEI's Voices from the Field, which highlight stories that offer lessons and models for other schools and districts looking to engage their communities more deeply and effectively.  

Learn more about CEI's Lead Agencies

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