Parent Leader Hany Huessein (middle) with Principal Lai (left) and FIA Team member Susan (Right)
Hany Huessein is a native of Eritrea who lived in Ethiopia for 10 years before immigrating to the United States and settling in Oakland. He’s only been in this country for 11 months.
In that brief amount of time, though, he’s already seen his children make a dramatic shift in their reading habits at home. He gives a lot of credit to FIA’s Lit for Literacy program, which he has been participating in at his son’s school, Franklin Elementary.
“He used to only want to look at my phone and his tablet,” Hany says of his son. “Now, he doesn’t even ask for his tablet anymore because he only wants to read.”
Hany says his children, who are learning English just like he and his wife, now correct their parents’ English grammar. “I never thought it would be like this,” Hany says. “It’s positive for me; we have many positive interactions.”
Hany is speaking from the Franklin Elementary campus as he tours classrooms with other parents who make up the school’s Lit 4 Literacy cohort. They are observing literacy instruction in Franklin’s classrooms in small groups and taking notes, which they share in a group session at the end of the morning.
Lit for Literacy in action with FIA Organizer Gabby, Principal Lai, and Franklin parents
This is the cohort’s fifth session. Over the previous sessions, the Franklin parents explored the school’s vision for literacy and talked about the importance of strong home-school partnerships in lifting student success. They learned practical literacy strategies to use at home and shared their own stories, both of their children and of their personal experiences with school.
Suzhu Ruan is a Cantonese speaker and a parent of a kindergarten student, and she visits classrooms with other parents who speak her home language. During the session, she observes her son’s class and witnesses firsthand how his teacher leads and teaches. (“I like her style,” Suzhu says through an interpreter).
Suzhu says the program provided her with insight into what her son is learning at school and how she can support that learning at home. After completing the fifth session, Suzhu says she’s eager for more. “I want to learn how to help the school educate my son,” she says.
Parent Leader Suzhu Ruan (middle) with Principal Lai (left) and FIA Team member Susan (Right)
FIA organizer Gabby Donaldson sees these personal stories as the core of the work. She is observing parents building irreplaceable knowledge. “They can walk into any classroom and recognize what quality instruction looks like,” she says. “That knowledge is irrevocable.”
The parents learn from one another and benefit from sharing their observations with each other. “It’s a safe space,” Gabby says. “To come into a space and you’re exposed to a lot of information, and you also have all these people around you who are in similar spaces.”
The Franklin parents represent a diverse group, with more than 30 home languages. “We pride ourselves in that,” Principal Lusa Lai says. “We call ourselves a global village.”
Franklin Parents observing a classroom during the Lit for Literacy Accountability Walk.
Principal Lai said she values having parents on campus and the direct feedback they provide. Having parents visit classrooms to observe firsthand is “powerful”, and she hopes that parents utilize the literacy strategies they observe and take those learnings home to their children.
“The more aligned we are between the school and the home environment, the stronger the instruction, the more effective the learning,” she says.
For Hany, getting his kids out from behind their screens and in front of books is a big win in itself. After completing the session, he says his hope and a new goal is for more parents at the school to gain that power.
“Now we have to spread the word and encourage other families to participate,” he says.
