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The Corner CAFE Podcast: Parent Teacher Home Visits

The Corner CAFE Podcast: Parent Teacher Home Visits(Episode #101)

September 2023 | 36:42

Explore how the holistic PTHV model empowers educators to better support families and motivate each child, both inside and outside the classroom, in this episode of the Corner CAFE Podcast.

Speakers:

Tyler Post
Tyler Post is a veteran educator with Washoe County School District and certified National Parent Teacher Home Visits trainer.

Yesenia Ramirez
Yesenia Ramirez is the Senior Advisor and Founding Parent for Parent Teacher Home Visits.

Nikevia Thomas
Nikevia Thomas is co-host of The Corner CAFE Podcast, and a Senior Education Equity Specialist at MAEC.

Jessica Webster
Jessica Webster is co-host of The Corner CAFE Podcast, and a Senior Family Engagement Specialist at MAEC.

Show Notes:

 

MAEC is committed to the sharing of information regarding issues of equity in education. The contents of this podcast were developed under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education under the Statewide Family Engagement Centers program. However, the contents of this podcast do not necessarily represent the policy or views of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Department of Education or federal government, generally.

Full Transcript:

 

Nikevia Thomas: Hello, everybody. This is Nikevia and Jessica from MAEC's CAFE, and you're listening to the Corner Cafe Podcast. Families, schools, and communities in Maryland and Pennsylvania are looking for strategies to increase family engagement. On this show, we sit down with family engagement experts to discuss the ideas, best practices, and strategies that they use so that the rest of us can do the same.

So let's get started.

Jessica Webster:

 

Nikevia Thomas: Hello, everybody. This is Nikevia and Jessica from MAEC's CAFE, and you're listening to the Corner Cafe Podcast. Families, schools, and communities in Maryland and Pennsylvania are looking for strategies to increase family engagement. On this show, we sit down with family engagement experts to discuss the ideas, best practices, and strategies that they use so that the rest of us can do the same.

So let's get started.

Jessica Webster: Welcome, lovely listeners. Today's episode is a real treat because we're joined by not one but two experts from Parent Teacher Home Visits. Parent Teacher Home Visits is a powerful family engagement strategy that aims to create strong bonds between homes and schools centered around shared hopes and dreams.

Nikevia Thomas: Let's introduce our fantastic guest. First off, we have Yesenia Ramirez, the Senior Advisor and Founding Parent of Parent Teacher Home Visits. Yesenia played a pivotal role in launching Parent Teacher Home Visits back in 1997 through her leadership and community organizing efforts. As a parent herself, she understood the struggle of feeling disconnected from her children's school and witnessed her daughter's challenges.

This personal insight brought critical expertise to shaping the Parent Teacher Home Visit model. Currently, Yesenia directs training for the national network, ensuring the delivery of high quality training modules, developing a certified national training team, and National Parent Teacher Home Visit Trainings.

She has six daughters and eight grandchildren and has lived in Sacramento for 25 years.

Jessica Webster: And alongside Yesenia, we have Tyler Post. Tyler is a 27 year veteran educator with Washoe County School District in Washoe County, Nevada. Six years ago, Tyler embraced PTHV as a strategy to forge connections, and he has done nearly 200 home visits, including virtual bridge visits. In his previous role as Dean of Students at an alternative school site, he conducted home visits with nearly every family as a means to build trust and demonstrate unconditional care.

Tyler is also a certified national PTHV trainer. It is such a pleasure to welcome both of you to our show. Welcome and thank you so much for joining us today, Tyler and Yesenia.

Tyler Post: Thank you for having me. I appreciate being here with Yesenia, and all three of you as well. I look forward to today.

Yesenia Ramirez: Thank you both for having us.

Nikevia Thomas: Oh, yes, absolutely. Thank you again. Our goal here is to have an organic conversation, so feel free to chime in whenever you're inspired to contribute. It's all about sharing your thoughts and perspectives. And of course, feel welcome to build off each other's insights. Jessica, wanna start us off?

Jessica Webster: Absolutely, Nikevia. So for those of you who are familiar with the work that we do, we welcomed Yesenia onto our Community of Practice this year to tell us about Parent Teacher Home Visits and so inspired by the conversation there that we wanted to dive a little deeper today. So, Parent Teacher Home Visits is recently celebrating its 25th anniversary.

Can you share a little bit with us about how Parent Teacher Home Visits started and how your approach to Relational Home Visits came into play, Yesenia?

Yesenia Ramirez: Sure. My pleasure. Thank you, Jessica, for that question. I started back in 1996 and it started as a organizing strategy in my community. here in Sacramento under our district, Sacramento City Unified School District. And We really wanted to connect with our educators. It's a very low income community.

There was a huge disconnection between the community and the school where our kids were attending. Point eight students were reading at grade level. There was no family involvement there. Back then there was, nobody was talking about family engagement. It was just like 'We don't have parents coming back to, back to school nights or conferences', those kind of things.

So we have no parent involvement at all. And pretty much the two most important adults in our children's lives were just not communicating with each other. We were just blaming each other, pointing fingers at each other, and meanwhile our kids were falling through the cracks. The idea of home visits, we talked about a lot of things.

We did a lot of cleaning around our community. There was three of us parents. But the idea of how can we break these barriers, these walls that existed between the community and the school really came from having conversations with an incredible amazing group of teachers. They were also leaders in this specific community organization, Sacramento Area Congregations Together or Sacramento ACT.

And these wonderful teachers, some of them were retired, some of them were still teaching and we wanted to hear from them and really understand what they went through day to day at a school site, right? Because they were all working in low income communities and what were they doing to involve their parents?

And we did not invent home visits. That is not what Parent Teacher Home Visits claims. Home visits have been conducted for many generations. What we started doing was having a conversation with this amazing group of teachers and really wanted to know how they were connecting with their families.

What were they doing to build you know relationships and trust and communication with them? And the only thing that they were doing different was that they were visiting their families. Without an agenda, without no training, they just really from the goodness of their heart, were doing that extra thing to really get to know where their families were coming from.

The idea excited us. What are the possibilities with this? Could this be expanded to other educators or will other teachers want to do this? Will the families want them to be in their homes? We started doing a listening campaign. We did 150 home visits the three of us parents in our communities and our educators with their colleagues.

And after that those 100 home visits, we all came back together and really hammered out what were the things that were a common thread? What were we listening that, really pointed to that disconnection, that distrust, that ‘you stay over there. I stay over here.’ And meanwhile, again, our kids were falling through the cracks. Once we had all of those, the idea of creating a training really came from our educators. They wanted to create a training that they could train their colleagues on how to do a different kind of home visit and not the typical home visits that happens to our communities when something is wrong, right?

So the training idea really came from them. We worked together for two years and developed this model on how to do a different outreach to our families and just get to know them, get to know their story, get to know where our kids were coming from, what did they do on a day to day basis, what did kids do when they're not in school, when they're not in the classroom, what motivates this child that can help me back in the classroom.

All those conversations were happening. Once we had that model, the very first entity that we approached was our local teacher’s union. They loved the idea. They were on board from day one. They have been our number one supporter from the very beginning. And then, of course, we needed our district.

And in 1998, we launched here in Sacramento, in my district, Sacramento City Unified School District, with eight schools. Six elementary into middle schools. Back then, we didn't know how to get into the high school world. It took us about another year or two to get into high school. And today we are pre K through 12.

But it's really a grassroots model. It's really a grassroots organization. It's a training and a model that was developed by teachers and parents working together to really bring down barriers and focus on how can we move our kids forward.

Nikevia Thomas: Wow I'm just--

Jessica Webster: Powerful.

Nikevia Thomas: Yes, I'm just, it's quite remarkable. I'm just thinking about how remarkable that is that you're taking two of the most important. Adults in children's lives and bringing them together. That's great, an amazing model. And this is actually a great start to our conversation. Building trust and connection for parents and teachers. And those are such crucial elements. And speaking of elements, PTHV operates with distinct core beliefs and values that guide your work. Could you shed light on these and explain their significance in driving your efforts?

Yesenia Ramirez: Some of our core practices that we have are some of our district's course values. Because, at the end of the day, all we want is for our kids to do better, right? some of our core practices is that our home visits are voluntary.

They're voluntary for all. They're voluntary for our educators and they're voluntary for our families as well. If an educator after receiving the training feels this is still something that's not, they're comfortable with, or, they've. For whatever reason, they're still an amazing educator.

If a family says, 'no, not right now', they're still an amazing family, but we wanted it to be voluntary because we really wanted this to work and we knew that, doing all this, research that we did, I personally, as a parent really understood. How hard our teachers worked, how hard our educators worked, and most of the time they weren't getting compensated.

And how they were told what to do all the time. And as a parent, I thought the teacher makes all the decisions. They're the ones that decide, so it's their fault, right? If my child is failing, it's because the teacher decided not to do what my child needs or whatever, but I've, I really understood that no, they're told what to do and most of the time it's not voluntary for them what to do.

So understanding all of that, when we got to asking our teachers to do home visits, it was really important for us that we compensated them. That's another huge core practice for us that our educators get compensated for their time, for their visits. That was very important.

And again, the training piece came from our educators. They really wanted to set their colleagues for success. They wanted them to have a training that they could go and feel comfortable with and not just go and knock on a door and see what happens, right? So they were going to get trained, they were going to get compensated, it's going to be voluntary.

And then our third core practice is that we really just wanted this home visit to be about getting to know each other. Again, just understanding where our kids were coming from. What is our story, as families? And what is your story as an educator, as my child's educator? And really sharing hopes and dreams.

We don't have that opportunity and neither do educators. They don't have, they have so much to do that they don't get that opportunity to really just let their families know that they also have hopes and dreams for their students and their families and the future of the kids that they're teaching.

So this is an amazing, incredible opportunity for us to really. become human in each other's eyes, right? To just share with each other how much we care for this little person or this big person that we have in common, even though they're in high school, they're still kids to me, but I'm going to call them big person.

But it's so powerful because at the end of the day, I want to believe that those are the same core beliefs that our district has, they really want the best for our kids and this is an opportunity to shine some light at each other and understand where we're both coming from and our goal is to get this child to be successful. And then there is another core practice that we are very attached to that is that we do not target our students and that was really important for us because we knew our kids were failing, we knew our kids were struggling, and so did our educators, and so does our districts. They know that we're struggling, right?

It was really important for us to understand that there is some core beliefs and values that our district has when they want to really push our kids to be successful. But there is a way that Parent Teacher Home Visit focuses our work around it when we talk about not targeting our kids.

We want to visit all our kids. We want every kid to have, to feel important, to have the opportunity to have an educator in their home. Even if they're, a straight A student, even if it's that student right in the middle, or even if it's the kid that's a challenge for you.

They all deserve to have this opportunity. They all deserve to have this amazing, incredible person. That's their educator, their teacher, their counselor in their home and have a conversation with them. And then we have our fifth core value that is under our model we never go to do home visits by ourselves.

We always go in pairs. And there is a debrief that happens as well. So it's very powerful. And I think this is where another one of our core beliefs that our district operates with, our districts really want. Our entire schools to be part of the community and the Parent Teacher Home Visits.

Our work is driven by creating that space where everybody can come out and do a home visit. and really get to know the community, the school. The home, the child, the family, and debrief on, how can we, use what we learned here and link it back in the classroom?

And the other beautiful thing that has happened is that it has created a community back at the school. Like we had teachers that were in kinder that I was shocked to know that they never had a conversation with the fifth grade teacher. And I'm like, 'what do you mean you teach in the same school?'

Jessica Webster: Yeah.

Yesenia Ramirez: But they never had a conversation.

To me, that was very powerful that it was building that community in those relationships back at the school site. And I think those are some of our district's beliefs as well, right? To create a strong school climate, a strong community at our school site these are some of the things that need to happen and we could Share some significant light on how we can all work together through Parent Teacher Home Visits to really drive our work, the work that we do along with their beliefs and core beliefs also so we can be successful with our model and what they're looking for as well and see the outcomes, cause the research is there, the outcomes are there, and that's always something that districts are looking for, and we know that with this model, we can definitely show the outcomes with our home visits.

Jessica Webster: Yesenia, thank you so much for that background information and the shared values. And I know you mentioned some of the benefits already for families and teachers participating in Parent Teacher Home Visits. But Tyler, could you give us a little bit more information about outcomes as, you know, you joined this as a teacher.

Can you talk just a little bit about what you saw in the outcomes that you saw with students and families from participating?

Tyler Post: Yes, for my sixth going on seventh year, I've seen many of the outcomes and even thereafter because I'm in high school now, and the outcomes are a huge community bonding outside, getting, working in the community and helping others because I was listening to those core beliefs Yesenia was saying, and I was comparing them to our school district.

And we're here to get college and career readiness for our students, and sometimes they don't know where to go. And so our foundation of what we do with Parent Teacher Home Visits allows them to sometimes access doors that we know and they don't. And so getting them ready for the world as high school as we do a lot of this is coming through our doors not knowing, yes they're getting educated, yes they're here and they're showing up, but sometimes we need a little bit more, a little bit more love, a little bit more support.

And we bring that, and I've seen that. I've been to, as you said, I think I'm up to 280 visits after the last year. And it's, and I'll surpass 300 this year and I'll keep going. And it's just, it's powerful to see in their homes, in the community. I've been to their work. I've been, some have restaurants and I've been to the family restaurants and all of that is to answer your question about what I've seen.

There's so much more and we'll dip into that. And... [school loudspeaker announcement in background]

Jessica Webster: To prove Tyler, that you’re actually a teacher.

Tyler Post: That's a true teacher right there, but the foundation is key and community is key and that's in our Washoe County mission statement with getting students ready for the world and that's a comment we like to say quite often and it's not just college, it's career.

It's family. It's not just going to be someone going to the next Four Year University, but in so many different ways and when I was reading that earlier last week about getting our scholars- students ready for the world. What does that look like? It looks like a lot of different things It's not just reading a textbook going out and testing assessing and leaving that's that's part of it, you know, we all have to deal with that. But the civic responsibility, the personal responsibility, is a part especially the schools that I've worked at we push that and we want them to be ready for the world because the world throws out a lot of things and some people aren't ready for that and we are really strong in doing that, building leadership.

I've seen that with some students, not all, not everybody wants the leadership role, but there's many students that become leaders. And I've seen that with the Parent Teacher Home Visits, either at the home or on the screen when we had during COVID, you still see that come out. The students sometimes are shy, and it starts that way.

But many times that 45 minutes becomes an hour and a half because they just keep talking about hopes and dreams and we're going to get into that for sure. But the hopes and dreams and the goal setting, right? We want these students and these young people to dream big.

Because dreams do come true and we know this and some students that I've worked with don't have that capacity. They haven't been... Pushed to really dream big and these doors are open with parent teacher home visit and it makes us very proud to go out, and I'm in my third week back at school here.

And some of the students from last year said, ‘Hey, we're doing Parent Teacher Home Visits again?’ I said, ‘absolutely, we just haven't got started. We're just getting the wheels greased here at school.’ But those are the results that I see. And again, there'll be more, I'm sure it'll come up with more stories.

And, when you're pushing 280 visits, there's so many stories, and sometimes I forget, and then Yesenia will bring something up, or another colleague, and I'm like, oh, this one time, at this one house. And we get to think back about all our visits, and I have seen a few kids that I haven't seen for two or three years, not on the streets, but like out and about in downtown Reno, and they bring that up, and it's a pretty powerful thing to hear.

Jessica Webster: It, what more do you need in terms of a seal of approval if kids are asking you when they're starting up again for the school year? That's all you need, I think.

Tyler Post: That's what I want to hear, right? That's exactly what I want to hear.

Jessica Webster: That's it. Yeah. Yeah, so it sounds like what I'm hearing is a lot of these visits really are setting up the stage for effective collaboration.

And Nikevia and I have been thinking a lot about how, the political narratives between school and home and parent rights and parent voice continue to evolve. And educational institutions are continuing to face these shifting expectations. So tell us a little bit about how PTHV can serve as a mechanism to amplify parents voice and ensure that, indeed, their concerns are actually being heard during these changing political currents in our society.

Yesenia Ramirez: Go ahead, Tyler.

Tyler Post: My turn. There are parent teacher, or sorry back to school nights are a good thing. There's other venues that we can do in collaboration but when we go out to show them that we're coming out into the community and getting away from school, opens doors more than they've ever been open. Again, this is the start of my 28th year, and I've done visits, as Yesenia mentioned, way before.

It just wasn't structured. This is structured to where we want to get to know them in their community, our community. And sometimes the students see teachers of some, like we're not human beings of some sort. And they, we start to talk about all these things and it shows how we are part of the community.

We want them to be successful because this is our communities, all of our communities. And getting the family's voices to be heard. On a different level, I have seen first hand dozens of times where they talk way more when we're off campus. They feel like it's an open forum, which it is. And, we come in, I always go with a colleague, that's part of our core beliefs.

And those, we have four ears listening to these parents or guardians or whoever may be in the room at their house. Talk about their hopes and dreams for their child. The child hears that. And that gets a snowball effect. And then the next day at school or the next week, parents come in and they're just more relaxed.

They're more understanding that I am with them. It's not that it's us and them. It's not a school and community. It's all community. And that is a big part of the families. Amplifying their voices to ensure that they Can be heard and there's times I'm like we'll dig into that. That's gonna be difficult, but you got my word We're gonna we're gonna make this better than it is whatever, you know trying to reach their hopes and dreams maybe applying to colleges Maybe getting some financial aid and so when they come in to ask about Futures for their child.

That's what we're here for and when we have a different platform, which is outside of school It just, it seems more empowering for them, and they seem to come out of their shell instead of coming into a classroom, which again, is school, but when it's their home, it's their home.

Nikevia Thomas: Wow. That's a really wonderful way to foster meaningful engagement, Tyler. And I'm thinking about engagement, like what does effective family engagement entail and how does it tie into the Parent Teacher Home Visit approach? Can you all talk about that?

Tyler Post: Absolutely, I'd love to. That's a big reason why I continue to do this, because, we mentioned earlier, there's some teachers that I've trained nationally I know more Washoe County, but even nationally, and sometimes they're hesitant, and I understand that. I was not. I jumped feet both end to it, and just started running, I haven't stopped since.

But it, the engagement looks, personal, it's vulnerable, it's all different levels. Some are more vulnerable than others. We've shed tears. We've we've opened doors. We've got to know each other. We listen a lot. Because I'm not there to tell them anything about what they should be doing.

That is not what I'm there for. I'm there for listening and to assist in guiding. Sometimes more guiding than others. But it depends on what the child wants to open up on that day about their hopes and dreams and sometimes because I've done this with 7th graders, their dreams are a little bit different than a 17, 18 year old.

I do enjoy the 17, 18 year olds because their dreams are start, they're starting to become reality, going to college, maybe getting an apartment, getting a full time job, a car. But that engagement entails, building a foundation that I'm a part of. It's not their foundation, so they include me in that sometimes.

And I enjoy hearing that. So does the partners that I go with. I have two great colleagues at this school that I'm at, that we get to go out and build those experiences, those friendships and tie my community into their community because I don't live in the same part of Reno. That's okay.

We're still in Reno. We're still in Nevada. We're both human beings. And those family engagements are, I should say, the foundation is that family engagement, how we just bring everything, we tie it all together. But we also are different, and we talk about that, and we say how healthy that is. But trying to get them to understand that the engagement is a big part of why we're doing that, because a lot of questions would be like ‘how's my child in school?’

And I say ‘I don't have my computer with me, but tomorrow I can... I, we'll talk about that, but I'd love to hear about your hopes and dreams.’ And so we always keep it back to the family engagement. And they ask me the same question, they say, ‘Tyler, what are your hopes and dreams?’ And they know it's travel.

And so we, we talk about that and they start to see that I have the same dreams and hopes as they do, but just a little bit twisted in a different way, just in a different direction. I definitely say the family engagement is a huge part of what Parent Teacher Home Visits does and we'll continue to.

Nikevia Thomas: That's that's really nice.

Jessica Webster: That's amazing.

Nikevia Thomas: Yeah.

Jessica Webster: Tyler, you've given us a real good sense of what a visit looks like and how you build that trust with the family. Let's turn the tide a little bit though, because we have some exciting things happening here. It's your second annual National Parent Teacher Home Visit Week coming up, and that is September 18th through the 23rd.

So Yesenia, can you tell us what this week is about and how our listeners can get involved in that now and even into the future?

Yesenia Ramirez: Yeah, of course, Jessica. We celebrated a Parent Teacher Home Visit week in conjunction with our 25th year anniversary last year. And it was for us it was like we were coming out of a pandemic and we really wanted to focus relationships as a healing and recovery strategy. Parent Teacher Home Visit was a strategy to celebrate teachers and to have the focus on our teachers and our parents and to really honor the teacher and and parents’ relationships.

Our goals really for Parent Teacher Home Visit Week are to do that, to celebrate and honor just all the incredible work that our teachers, our educators do, and to really honor the relationships that come out of those home visits. Those are our goals, really to, recognize our teachers, generate our awareness about our proven model of building relationships of trust, most importantly of trust, because that's what happens with Parent Teacher Home Visits.

There's a trust that's created and a lot of the times, that is the barrier. We just don't trust each other. It's a great opportunity to celebrate that, those relationships, celebrate that trust and really encourage home visits. That is really our goal. To just acknowledge and celebrate all the wonderful work that our teachers and educators do.

And I said educators because, anybody can do a home visit. It's not just our classroom teachers, it's the entire school. So for me, I always share about how I have had home visits from everybody except the janitor and the cafeteria lady. So it's a village. It really takes the village, right?

So that's what we're celebrating and parent teacher home visit week. We're celebrating all our educators and really bringing awareness to To this model that it's been proven that, it's very powerful.

Jessica Webster: It is very powerful. And how can people find out more information if they would like to?

Yesenia Ramirez: You can go to our website. There is we, to learn more about it, of course. There's lots of information there about Parent Teacher Home Visit Week. We also have tools, we have a lot of great information for those advocates out there that want to bring Parent Teacher Home Visit to their communities. So lots of great information, lots of ways on how to promote this at back home and lots of other tools and resources. But mainly through our website, which is P T H V P dot org.

Jessica Webster: Thank you.

Nikevia Thomas: Thank you, Yesenia. I think that what you've just described about Parent Teacher Home Visit Week, it's just a wonderful way to celebrate and honor, as you said, the trust that is built between families and educators so that we can break down the barriers between two of the most important groups of adults in a student's life. It's wonderful. And so as we wrap up, here is a final question. If a school wanted to adapt its current practices to engage and empower families as true partners at the table, where should they begin? What's one thing that people can do today to start building relationships of trust between families and educators?

Tyler Post: I would definitely say that getting Parent Teacher Home Visit on your campus is key and like I said, when I was in a different city, I did some visits, wasn't paid for it, didn't care. We just talked. This has structure. I know, and to add to what you just said about trying to promote for our Parent Teacher Home Visit, we have bumper stickers, we have buttons, we talk about in our morning meeting at our school, so we're promoting it.

Some kids had no idea what it was. But I could see him start talking to people who I visited. And those are the things that we do to spread that. To move forward with that concept would be to get the families into our doors to meet us and to allow us to tell them, to explain what parent teacher home visit is. Because they don't know and they don't understand that it's not about school. Because that's what they've always been trained. To say it's an 8th grader for 7 years, it's always about school.

And we need to get that word spread more. And we're doing a pretty good job in Washoe County. And I have a friend in a different county and they do it as well. But spreading that word, getting the families in so we can talk about it. Or I've made cold calls to the families and explaining what it is. And 99 percent of the time they’re flying colors. They'd love to do it. And when we leave it's even better and then they talk to other families and I know that's how... The school should begin is just promoting it and talking about it. Sometimes in a parking lot when the kids being dropped off or picked up

Phone calls, even letters are sent home at times.

So I know that's how we've done it at our schools in Washoe County.

Jessica Webster: And it builds through that word of mouth, right? Because it's voluntary and so families say, ‘Hey, this, I had this really great experience when Mr. Post came to visit’ and and so that opens up the door and builds that trust when it's done well. Families will come along for the ride, right? And be part of that ride and that experience if they know that their friends and their families have had a good experience doing it too.

Yesenia Ramirez: Absolutely.

Jessica Webster: Yeah. Yesenia, what do you think?

Yesenia Ramirez: Jessica, when as you were asking that question and Tyler was responding to me, I have a whole other title now, right? But I started this as a mom. I was a mom of six little girls, a single mother of six little girls that didn't even graduate from high school. So for me putting my mom hat on and a parent hat on for me is so important still to this day as I'm still involved in my grandchildren's education now is to be listened to. And not be judged to be able to have a conversation and to be to be listened. My, my dear friend, my sister many years ago when we started all this, she always wanted us, when we were still writing things on chart paper, she always wanted us to highlight three times, listen because sometimes a lot of the disconnection exists there, right?

We just don't listen to each other. And of course, I second what Tyler said, Parent Teacher Home Visit is an amazing strategy to be able to do that with your families, right? But it's a strategy. And if it's not something that's happening at your school site, if it's not something that's going to happen tomorrow, you can still just start by listening to your families.

And I think that is a huge first step.

Take a big breath. We're all in a rush. We all have a hundred, two hundred things to do every day. Probably more. Just take a breath and just listen and I think that is the best gift that you can give to a family when they feel like they don't know where to go anymore.

Or they don't know what to do, or they don't know how to help their child and just to be heard it's a huge first step to build that trust and that relationship. And I can't even tell you what it does to a family when, when an educator just listens to you and tells you what Tyler said, it's going to happen.

For me, it would be that. Through Parent Teacher Home Visits or any other way that you can do it.

Nikevia Thomas: Yeah. Thank you. Just, yeah that's awesome. Just listen. Just listen. Valuable information. Tyler and Yesenia, thank you both so much for sharing your expertise and experiences with us today.

Yesenia Ramirez: Thank you.

Jessica Webster: Thank you so much guys. Any, anything else you would like to add before we close out from our talk today?

Tyler Post: We all have hopes and dreams and listening to others. Some because we all know writing it down and talking about it is a huge step forward. And I know that I'm finally, getting to one of my 20 year old dreams of traveling somewhere and it took 20 years to get there. But just to get these kids talking about their hopes and dreams, it lightens up their eyes and they try harder in school because they want to achieve it.

Jessica Webster: That's it.

Nikevia Thomas: Wow. Awesome.

Jessica Webster: That's awesome. And to our listeners, thank you for sharing a cup of conversation with us, and we hope that you've enjoyed the conversation today. Until next time, keep those meaningful relationships with families brewing, and don't forget to follow us on X at CAFE_MAEC.

Additional Resources:

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Parent Teacher Home Visits
PTHV works to equip educators with the training needed to develop trusting relationships with families in service of student success and school improvement.
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