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For Public Comments to the Commission, please click here
103
1 In terms of the capacity to get professional
2 development where they will be most likely to be able to
3 succeed in the end is very key. We do a lot with that.
4 Linkages are the most important pieces. When
5 you have a parent in early childhood sitting there
6 picking up a child every day, you have a chance to make
7 that connection and to link them with the community and
8 to develop resources. So that's a very key piece.
9 MR. VALLADOLID: I would certainly agree that
10 on not every student is going to go to a university. I
11 think it's our contention every student should have the
12 option of not going and our reality is very few of our
13 children have that option. That's what we're trying to
14 change.
15 The PIQE Institute does not focus a great
16 deal on vocational schools and other good programs that
17 exist. We're trying to get parents to look at college
18 as a next step to high school.
19 We believe the way to do that is engaging
20 families and let the children know high school is
21 another step.
22 In my family my mother has 14 children
23 grandchildren. 13 are in universities. In our family
24 at every gathering we are asking the kids from day one
25 what are you going to study when you get out of high
104
1 school. That's what we convey to parents.
2 But I accept that they're not all going to
3 go. I just would love to see them all have that option
4 to go.
5 MS. MAZZUCA: Miquel.
6 MR. HERNANDEZ: I think your presentation was
7 very, very good, and I see the parallel between the two
8 approaches that you had and almost in some sense even
9 complement each other.
10 I think something very important that
11 Ms. Costanza indicated which is important for us to take
12 all the different programs that exist at this time and
13 the value of those programs, make it available such that
14 other people who are around understand what the programs
15 are there and where they can take a approach for the
16 programs they have without having to reinvent the wheel
17 again.
18 Now, I have a question for David. The -- you
19 go into the foundation and, of course, that doesn't
20 imply or will not encompass every family because not
21 every family graduates.
22 Now, what about the families that you see
23 that might start and then they drop out because really
24 there are problems in those families and those families
25 are not graduating? Those kids are left behind.
105
1 I understand that your program is not
2 encompassing every child in every school, you know, but
3 do you -- what do you do or do you have anything in your
4 program to look into those families and maybe refer
5 those to other governmental entities or other social
6 workers or whatever to assist those children that the
7 family actually is not that interested in this?
8 MR. VALLADOLID: Yes, we have directories and
9 a lot of information that is distributed to the families
10 during the classes to give them information on health
11 issues, on other programs and all the services that are
12 available in the community so they can access them for
13 their families.
14 We make it a conscious decision not to direct
15 any family to anything. We respect that families will
16 act in their best interest and all we're to do is give
17 them information where they can go to get those services
18 if you need them.
19 But you're right. Our curriculum, which I
20 didn't go into a great deal, the first three of our core
21 curriculum are focused at the home environment.
22 We have heard time and time again, I heard it
23 last night, a mother got up and said: My children
24 thought I was ill because I'm no longer yelling, I'm no
25 longer hitting.
106
1 So we work a great deal with parents how to
2 better communicate with the children, how to better
3 treat children and not react to the pain that they may
4 be in, but take those time-out periods, instead of
5 dealing with the crises in the family.
6 So all the techniques and a lot is parent
7 talking to parent on solutions to problems that every
8 parent is confronting. The course does do a great deal
9 for improving the home environment, and we hear that a
10 lot.
11 Regardless of whether parents are going to
12 continue to push their students toward a university, I
13 think we're helping a lot of families, and I see the
14 work that PIQE does is not only preparing children for
15 this, but it is also helping solve a lot of problems
16 within the home.
17 We're watching. I heard in the earlier
18 presentation -- I was at a conference last year with a
19 California endowment, and when they heard PIQE was
20 there, they came up and told us we know we have to
21 recruit portorias. When we find out PIQE graduates, we
22 grab them because they're engaged with their families
23 and engaged in their communities.
24 MS. MAZZUCA: Micaela.
25 MS. ALVAREZ: As far as logistics, you
107
1 mentioned the number of staff you have. How do they
2 work coming into a new school?
3 MR. VALLADOLID: We are invited into a
4 school. The director or associate director will go in
5 and make a presentation. If the principals want to host
6 a program, we sign a memorandum of understanding in
7 which we ask the school to provide a site for the
8 classes, and we hold the same class in the morning from
9 8:30 to 10 and that class will be repeated in the
10 evening from 6:30 to 8, so if the parents can't make it
11 in the morning, they can come in the evening.
12 We then ask the school to provide a child
13 care center and the children will be taken to a place
14 where they're taken care of until the class is over. We
15 ask the school to provide refreshments for the parents.
16 These are the agreements we enter into with
17 the school once they agree to cover half the cost and
18 there is a memorandum of understanding that's signed.
19 MS. MAZZUCA: Alex.
20 MR. GONZALEZ: David, I've seen the program
21 in action. One of the things that struck me was the
22 fact that your program isn't exclusive. It takes in all
23 different groups.
24 MR. VALLADOLID: Well, we found initially it
25 was focused at the Latino community, because we had been
108
1 dealing primarily with the crisis in education.
2 As we went into our schools, probably very
3 similar to most of the places you come from you find
4 there is a multiple of different cultures and languages
5 in those schools; and if we were going to offer it to
6 the Latino families, we had to offer it to every family.
7 So we have expanded our reach to at least 14, 15 other
8 communities. Armenian, Russian, there's huge
9 communities that have recently come in as immigrants.
10 We are open to working with any communities.
11 As long as we have 15 -- we try to set that. Sometimes
12 we got into schools with as little as five parents and
13 we will teach it. We try to limit ourselves, if the
14 school will provide us 15 parents of another language
15 than English, we will prepare a course for those
16 families. Is.
17 That where you were looking at? Yes. So we
18 have been totally inclusive with every parent in the
19 school and we will serve any parent that's interested.
20 MS. MAZZUCA: I have a question.
21 David, what do principals, superintendents
22 say about the give back from the parents that attend the
23 workshops.
24 MR. VALLADOLID: Early on we would hear a lot
25 of principals says you guys excite the parents a great
109
1 deal, but when you leave, there's a tapering off. So we
2 then from Stanford Research -- they're the ones that
3 advised us on developing the coaches model where we
4 would have ongoing contact with parents for four months.
5 What the schools are telling us and what
6 research is telling us, Dr. Crisfield has actually used
7 her students to go into the families and does a control
8 group that didn't go through and those that have gone
9 through and she has found dramatic inattention to
10 homework.
11 Turning the television off. We're on an
12 campaign to turn the televisions off because they are
13 the greatest interference with learning in our nation.
14 They break the child's ability to concentrate. And how
15 does a teacher compete with Friends or any of these
16 programs that the kids are stuck on?
17 So Dr. Crisfield found dramatic changes in
18 the home. She did find in interviewing parents -- we
19 never believed after nine hours of a class parents would
20 all of a sudden charge into the feeling fully
21 capacitated. They felt they needed more development.
22 Many of our parents coming back, as their
23 children move, they will go through the course two or
24 three times. The principals are telling us now with the
25 new coaches program that there is a lot more involvement
110
1 in the parent/teacher conferences, there is a lot more
2 -- the schools that want to engage the parents, we see
3 them doing creative things, computer courses, bringing
4 the parents in, real meaningful ways, not just cupcakes
5 and cookies, but actually coming into the school and
6 engaging in that school to help their children.
7 MS. MAZZUCA: Thank you.
8 Jose.
9 MR. CANCHOLA: How do you handle families
10 without documents?
11 MR. VALLADOLID: We basically do not ask any
12 questions on documentation.
13 MR CANCHOLA: How do you disseminate that
14 information? How do you get that information across?
15 Do you go on the radio, put this on television?
16 MR. VALLADOLID: A lot of it is word of
17 mouth. Parents will go to this principals: We heard
18 about PIQE. We would like to bring you in.
19 What we do when we go into a new district, we
20 will actually host a class for free, bring in a hundred
21 or two hundred parents, and then we will ask the
22 principal of that school to invite her colleagues.
23 When they come, the most amazing thing at our
24 graduation is each class accepts a parent to do a
25 testimony. I had a superintendent break down when he
111
1 described a meeting with the mayor. I had a farmer who
2 came in. I have to describe him. He was about five
3 foot tall, heavyset, big old buckle.
4 MR. CANCHOLA: My brother?
5 MR. VALLADOLID: Yes. This man stood up and
6 said I learned through PIQE that I must decide my bus my
7 children get on, the bus that takes them to the field or
8 the bus to the university, and I decide tonight that my
9 children get on the bus to the university.
10 It's those statements, that remarks by
11 parents, they will ask PIQE to come out and we'll figure
12 out a way to pay you.
13 We don't have a problem selling the program.
14 Where we have the problem is raising enough money to
15 reach the need.
16 MR. CANCHOLA: They don't have the documents.
17 As you're aware, they have fear. There's other
18 services, even though I'm working, but the people from
19 INS can come in and take my kids.
20 I think that's the fear that somehow if we
21 could get that information out that says, hey, you come
22 to these sessions or whatever, rest assured that INS is
23 not going to come here or the border patrol and check
24 out whose cars are out there and things like that.
25 Parents who really want these things to happen because
112
1 they want to move ahead, but they're reluctant.
2 MR. VALLADOLID: I'm sure there are parents
3 that don't come because of those elements, but what we
4 have found when a parent, another parent calls you and
5 speaks to you to in your language and speaks to you from
6 your experience, that they lose all those fears and they
7 come, because I know a significant number of parents
8 that have come in.
9 Ms. Millan shared with me -- because the
10 White House called me to profile her on their web site,
11 so I went to immediately find out if she documented
12 because I knew from the first stories I got about her
13 she had come here undocumented. So I called her. She
14 indicated, oh, yes, PIQE told me never stop knocking on
15 doors, because one door will open. They get information
16 to how to go about.
17 MS. EGGERS PIEROLA: I have a personal
18 experience I want to share with you.
19 In Massachusetts, in my child's school, when
20 he was little, there was a very important political
21 issue that Latino parents cared a lot about and actually
22 somebody started a vicious rumor that immigration
23 officials were going to be at the Latino parent
24 organization meeting, and we found what was really
25 effective was to get the word out to put in the flier
113
1 and to put word of mouth and to place it every time
2 where that the superintendent was going to be standing
3 at the door making sure that no infiltrators or no
4 police or nobody who was not in the parent organization
5 was going to be entering there and that their children
6 had the right to be given education whether or not they
7 had -- and they did not have to give their names if they
8 attended, and this was very, very important because this
9 was in the formational session and a lot was decided.
10 That was important where they knew somebody
11 was guarding the school and saying nothing is going to
12 happen to you.
13 MR. CANCHOLA: If I can just add this, and I
14 saw it happen in Chicago. We actually got INS to give
15 amnesty to anybody who attended these meetings. We went
16 to the University of Illinois and had kids volunteer and
17 tell them what your problem is and in many instances
18 there was an easy fix, the fear of going there.
19 So we got amnesty from INS, commitment that
20 they will not come in to -- these people were leaving
21 the meetings asking for their documents. It became a
22 very successful program.
23 Is there any possibly way we could do
24 something like that? That would give us a bang: Go to
25 PTA, INS is not going to show up.
114
1 MR. VALLADOLID: That's certainly something
2 we can look at. We had not had -- maybe we've been
3 blind to that reality that some parents are not coming
4 because of those fears. But we will certainly think
5 about that.
6 MR. CANCHOLA: Chicago, half the population
7 isn't on papers, talking about Hispanics. Because when
8 you -- I mean it's not a success story, but at least you
9 alleviate the fear that you can go and ask -- better to
10 go ask the teacher than have the kid hang around with
11 gangs and dropping out of school.
12 I think maybe that could be a big help to
13 this particular group, too.
14 MS. MAZZUCA: I wanted to make a comment
15 again. To get back on that, in Philadelphia obviously
16 the majority of our Latino parents are Puerto Rican,
17 therefore, we don't have the issue of papers, and again
18 being the principal of the largest middle school in the
19 state right now, I know my challenges of getting parents
20 involved in any kind of way is one of my most serious,
21 serious issues.
22 And so we're struggling to look for programs
23 like yours that can, you know, help us.
24 It's just -- it's a real shame, you know,
25 when report card conferences last week and we had lots
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