WACO, Texas (ABP) — The words “Yes You Can, Si Se Puede” frame a large wall at Cesar Chavez Middle School in Waco, Texas. An innovative family literacy program has gotten families in the school's largely Hispanic neighborhood believing that statement.
The program is operated jointly by the middle school, Baylor University and Gear Up Waco, a local program designed to help prepare disadvantaged children for college.
Eighty-six percent of the students from the 40 blocks of South Waco that feed into Cesar Chavez Middle School are Hispanic. Two years ago, Randy Wood, director of the Center for Christian Education at Baylor, asked the middle school's principal for permission to work with the 25 lowest-performing students.
Wood and 25 Baylor education students began one-on-one tutoring of the children, who each came from a non-English-speaking family. Ninety percent of the children they tutored later passed a major standardized test for the first time.
Wood said he knew the tutoring sessions were making an impact when a woman thanked him for saving her family. Before her daughter entered the program, she did not understand school and was about to drop out. After two weeks in the program, the girl began to succeed in school, the mother told Wood in broken English.
The tutoring program expanded over a year to 50 students taught two-on-one by Baylor students. Many students may know conversational English, Wood said. They can greet others and ask simple questions. But 10 percent of students at Cesar Chavez lack the English skills needed to excel, he noted.
The program's directors realized they could improve their success with children if they helped their parents learn English. So they created Learning English Among Friends — LEAF — to serve the parents. A new family literacy model emerged.
The program began with about 30 adults, many of them parents of Cesar Chavez students. Today 200 adults attend LEAF each week. The group eats a dinner provided by Gear Up Waco and briefly hears from a speaker before beginning English lessons in groups based on skill level, Wood explained.
Parents have learned their families “cannot progress economically, socially or politically without English,” Wood said. One man in the program told Wood he is considered very smart in Mexico but in America is considered dumb only because of the language barrier.
Children attend child care at the school gym during the adults' tutoring time. That could change this year if the program receives a grant that would allow students to be taught the same things their parents are learning.
The impact on individuals and the neighborhood has been huge, Wood reported.
Some adults have received job promotions because their English has improved. Families have taken an interest in improving their neighborhood, repainting their homes and fixing up yards. Because the LEAF program is held at the school, many parents are becoming involved in their children's education. “Pride is developing here,” Wood said.
Two years of tutoring established the trusting relationships that made LEAF a success, Wood said. “People figure out if you're half-hearted.”
The program, begun with a grant from the Baptist General Convention of Texas, also is successful in part because it is based in a school, he suggested. The neighborhood has a high concentration of Catholic and unchurched residents who might never go into a Baptist church for English classes. By doing “God's work” in a neutral environment, Wood and his team are reaching a larger population.
Churches and other groups could duplicate the family literacy ministry in other communities, Wood said.
“Churches are filled with educators. We need to find educators to open up their schools,” he said. This is the “secular model of literacy,” he said, “but we are able to show God here.”
— Sarah Farris is a summer intern with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
— Photo available from Associated Baptist Press.
-30-