On the same page: Families get extra help with literacy

As a Tukwila School Board member, Mary Fertakis has watched the district's percentage of non-English speakers steadily increase over the past decade -- to almost one-third of its 2,500 students.

Aware of the link between illiteracy and criminal detention rates, Fertakis is concerned that the community's children and families get the help they need to function in an English-speaking society.

But in Tukwila, an arrival point from which many immigrants move on to established communities in surrounding areas, stability is a challenge.

"We have tried very hard to have parents understand that whatever family crisis or issue they're dealing with, if they can keep their kids in the schools they started in, they have a much better chance of success," said Fertakis, a 10-year board member.

As of yesterday, Tukwila families have an extra resource available to them.

The Tukwila Children's Foundation, in collaboration with other community groups, has opened what are believed to be the first family literacy centers in the Pacific Northwest. The three new centers, which offer free reading assessment and one-on-one tutoring to children and adults, are located at two schools and in an apartment complex.

Since transportation is an issue for many immigrant families, the goal is to open about eight centers in neighborhoods throughout the 17,000-resident community. Plans are in the works for centers at a public library and at least one church, which, Fertakis said, would make the project eligible for federal grants to faith-based initiatives.

Grants so far have come from the Bezos Family Foundation, United Way, The Marguerite Casey Foundation and other organizations. Local law firm Garvey Schubert Barer donated some computers, "and it just sort of exploded from there," Fertakis said.

"What became clear to me is that there are a lot of groups in our community -- service providers and others -- who have been doing something related to literacy, but they haven't had an umbrella to come under and pull everybody's resources together," she said. "The family literacy center initiative is doing that."

The program has so far raised $60,000, including donations of notebooks and written materials. There are plans to hire a coordinator as more money comes in.

For now, management of the centers is being provided by the Tukwila Community Schools Collaboration, established in 1998 to provide academic assistance, medical and dental services, extra-curricular activities, and other family support at each of the district's five schools.

Deborah Salas, the group's program director, said mobility rates among district students have decreased almost by half over the past three years, to 23 percent leaving or arriving during the school year.

Salas believes the decrease is at least partly attributable to the services provided in Tukwila schools. She's hopeful that the literacy centers will provide an additional impetus for families to stay in a suburb frequently perceived as little more than a regional shopping mall and industrial parks.

"These family literacy centers are a way to connect people and to address that mobility issue," Salas said. "If we're placing them in apartments and churches and mosques and community centers ... people might move, but perhaps because of where these are located -- not just in institutions, but in our neighborhoods -- they will come back."

The literacy centers are an outgrowth of the Tukwila Children's Foundation, started by Fertakis and five other residents four years ago. Its first step was to establish academic and extra-curricular scholarships and provide funding for children's emergency needs, such as clothing or basic hygiene items. From there, Fertakis said, the group considered how it could make a long-term difference in the community.

"The issue that rose to the top very quickly was literacy," said Fertakis, whose experience in community-building was furthered by a Peace Corps stint in Senegal.

"There are states, and we are not one of them yet, that actually use their data for literacy at third grade to project how many prison beds they're going to need. There is such a direct correlation between literacy skills and that particular issue. You can't ignore it."

A friend put Fertakis in touch with Ed Green at Family Literacy Centers Inc., a Utah-based non-profit that has helped establish more than 50 centers around the country.

Green said the educational challenges facing migrant families are the same everywhere he goes.

"Studies have shown that four out of 10 kids going to school now will experience at least a couple of moves in their lives," he said, "so we have a lot of kids who become a transient population. The schools are very good at large group instruction and small group instruction, but they don't really have the resources to do one-on-one."

Green came to Tukwila a few weeks ago to train about 25 volunteer tutors on an interactive software program. The software will be used at all Tukwila centers. Students are required to show up for two 45-minute tutoring sessions a week, and on the other days parents are asked to read with them for 20 minutes.

The approach, Fertakis said, is intended to provide children with the most support possible while also involving parents, whose culture may create distrust of schools or shame at their children becoming more educated than them.

"If they can be there at the same time that the child is learning, we know they're going to be learning with them, and it's going to happen in a way that allows them to save face," she said.

"The bottom line is -- if people can function in an English-language society, they're going to be improving their lives and their children's lives."