Learning the language their children speak

Educators spend most of their money on students, but three King County elementary schools recently won $600,000 to spend on teaching parents as well as their children.

On Wednesday, White Center Heights, Beverly Park and Mount View elementary schools -- all in the Highline School District -- were the latest U.S. schools to formally win money and support from the Toyota Family Literacy Program, a nationally led initiative designed to develop an entire family's English-language skills.

As part of the effort, the program brings parents into elementary classrooms with their children and into separate classes to work on their own.

The program's obvious goal is improving literacy for parents and students, but it also focuses on arguably the most important factor in a student's success: parental involvement.

It also brings a little balance back for some immigrant families in which students have become translators for parents who struggle with English, according to Sharmu Luna, who coordinates the literacy program at White Center Heights.

"Now we are giving the tools back to the parents. You can learn English. You can learn what's happening in the school, and here is an opportunity and space for you to do it," Luna said.

Parents often spend three-hour stints attending their own English-language learning class before heading to their child's classroom, where they join whatever is happening, perhaps reading, building with blocks, math or field trips.

It is not a light commitment. Typically, parents are at the school six hours a week, on top of their jobs.

Maria Munoz sometimes arrives at her daughter's class at Beverly Park Elementary armed with only three hours of sleep after her 10 p.m.-to-6 a.m. shift cleaning the Bellevue Hyatt Hotel.

Still, she and her husband show up every Tuesday and Thursday. And the payoff is sometimes far simpler than fluency in English.

"She's very happy when I come," said Maria Mora, referring to her daughter, Dallana.

		Meryl Schenker / P-I
	Toyota Family Literacy Program participant Maria Mora, with daughter Dallana, 5, waits to speak a news conference on the program at White Center Heights Elementary School.

The program also helps with a critical, though often overlooked, element in parent education: child care.

Working parents often want to attend parenting workshops and other helpful courses, but are hard-pressed to cover child care, which can run from $8 to $15 an hour.

The effort also spills beyond Toyota, with Para Los Ninos, a local group that offers support for young Latino children, helping with child care and education, and Highline Community College providing English instructors.

The three White Center schools were strong candidates for the national literacy program, given the region's growing Latino population, relatively high poverty rate and gang activity, according to the Toyota Family Literacy group.

The three Highline schools also beat out nearly 230 schools around the nation for the $600,000 payout from Toyota, which has sponsored the program since 1991.

The money actually began flowing this fall, though Toyota didn't formally announce the winners until Wednesday.

LEARN MORE

For more information about the Toyota Family Literacy Program, check www.famlit.org.