 community PTA, but in Spanish it's key, the word is key. We're gonna have three ladies who represent three different comunitarios. They're gonna talk to us about what it is, why it's important, and the challenges that it brings. Vamos a tener tres representantes de tres PTA comunitarios que nos van a hablar. ¿Qué es el PTA?, ¿Cuáles son los beneficios? ¿Y cuáles son los retos? So, para empezar, la señora Elsa Gonzales nos va a hablar sobre su experiencia. Buenos días. Mi nombre es Elsa Gonzales. Yo represento al PTA comunitario de la raíz, RGV, la raíz comunitario PTA en San Benito, Texas. Nosotros participamos con tres PTAs, tres distritos, perdón, allá en El Valle, y nuestro PTA se comenzó en hace uno, año y medio para atrás, empezamos con tres miembros de la comunidad, porque este PTA es comunitario. Okay, good morning. My name is Elsa Gonzales. I represent the PTA comunitario de la raíz, RGV, and we work with three school districts, which are Los Fresnos, San Benito, and Harlingen. Okay. Nuestro PTA comunitario ha estado creciendo a raíz de que hemos visto muchos cambios en la educación. Este, el PTA comunitario está formado por miembros de la comunidad que se interesaron en participar sobre la educación de sus propios hijos. Our PTA exists because of changes and concerns about the public education system. We are a group of families that are concerned about the education of our children. Nuestro PTA comunitario es muy diferente a los PTAs de las escuelas. Our PTA comunitario is very different to the traditional PTAs that are located in schools. Y es muy importante para nosotros mantener ese comunitario por la razón de que en el valle tenemos desgraciadamente muchos padres que por cualquier cosa y principalmente el idioma no nos acercamos a las escuelas. In the south Texas, in our lower area on the valley, sadly we have many, many families that don't come up to school because they don't understand the language of the school. They speak Spanish. Sí, ese es uno de los barreras que formamos como padres con las escuelas, con los principales. Entonces nosotros como comunitario damos a conocer a esos padres, hacemos nuestras reuniones mensuales con los miembros del comunitario, hacemos presentaciones como estas en las escuelas donde nos han dejado participar. So we make presentations at community meetings, at our own meetings, at schools where we're invited to participate. Y nuestro mayor reto ha sido que los superintendentes o los jefes de distrito no nos han dejado completamente participar al 100% en las escuelas. Our biggest barriers has been that some superintendents, some administrators do not let us participate 100% in the schools. Pero gracias a la comunidad que logramos formar, hemos estado trabajando con algunos de ellos y gracias a Dios nos han permitido despacito estar entrando en los distritos. Thanks to the community that joined us and our communication with at least some administrators, little by little they've been letting us in. Por eso es que es bien importante que mantengamos nuestros PTAs comunitarios y que sigamos formando más PTAs comunitarios para poder enterar a más padres y invitar a más padres que se unan a participar con nosotros como PTA para poder tener un poquito más de fuerza sobre todo en los distritos escolares. That's why we need to organize more comunitarios, get more people involved so that we can influence the school district where our children are going to school. Nuestro comunitario en el que yo participo es un comunitario chico. The community that I'm part of is a small comunitario. Pero ahorita a petición de otros padres de la comunidad en el otro distrito estamos empezando otro comunitario en otro diferente distrito escolar que es el de los Fresnos. Y hemos estado trabajando bien fuerte con la comunidad con principales de las escuelas secundarias y primarias. Y hemos participado en proyectos con ellos como el centro de padres donde nos han dado la oportunidad de platicarle a muchísimos padres de familia que se han enterado por nuestro comunitario de todos esos cambios en las nuevas leyes de educación. So we've been working with elementary and secondary schools. We've gone to many campuses. They've allowed us to go into some parent rooms, parent centers, and we've been informing the community especially about the changes in graduation requirements in Texas because families need that information. Esto es importante para nosotros tanto como padres como personas de la comunidad por el mirar algunos de los injusticias que también en veces se cometen en las escuelas por parte de maestros. Entonces con esa información que nosotros obtenemos y con esos entrenamientos que nosotros obtenemos, nosotros los pasamos a las comunidades donde se están desarrollando más y se están uniéndose más a nuestros PTAs comunitarios. Because there are injustices in schools that we see, we keep informing our families so that they can defend the rights of their children so that we can keep supporting our children in schools. Varios de los superintendentes y principales de las escuelas nos han pedido que nos unamos a los PTAs que ellos tienen en sus escuelas en cada distrito. Some of the superintendents and principals have asked us to join the PTAs that they already have in their schools. La razón por la que nosotros, aunque estamos en contacto con el Estado, estamos aceptados por el Estado de Texas como PTA comunitario, no nos unimos a los PTAs de las escuelas por la razón de que nosotros no trabajamos para hacer fondos de dinero. Lo de nosotros es educar a la comunidad para que ellos estén enterados al mismo tiempo lo que es la educación de sus hijos en sus escuelas. Even though the PTAs have invited us to join them and we are officially PTA members, we are recognized as PTAs by the state, we are not based in schools and we are not here to raise funds or do the traditional volunteerism. We are here to inform families so that they know what a good education is for their children. Nuestra participación en la comunidad hemos visto que ha sido bastante, hemos tenido bastante aceptación en los comunitarios aunque de primero no saben mucho de qué se trata, pero ya con el tiempo se interesan y tenemos muchos padres que están voluntarios en las escuelas platicándonos sus historias y de esa manera hemos estado trabajando con los distritos. At first many parents don't know what we are about, don't understand the concept of a PTA comunitario, but in time they are understanding and the ones that are volunteers are telling is a lot of what they are learning from being volunteers on the campuses. Nosotros les invitamos a que hace familiaricen más lo que es el comunitario PTA y que apoyen y que si alguien está interesado en darle seguimiento a los PTAs tenemos un reto muy grande en el cual estamos peleando un poquito con los distritos para que nos dejen entrar pero no hemos fallado, hemos seguido adelante y nuestro mayor deseo es que se hagan más PTAs comunitarios y que puedan participar en muchos más diferentes distritos escolares alrededor de Texas. So I want to invite others to start their own comunitarios to do the follow up and create more organizations so that we have more organizations like these in the state of Texas. Okay. Muchas gracias. Thank you. Buenos días. ¿Cómo están? Yeah. Bienvenidos esta mañana. Mi nombre es Rosalba Terán. Good morning. My name is Rosalba Galán. Welcome to everybody. Una de las razones por la cual estoy aquí es por la inquietud de conocer más del programa de PTA. Sabemos todos los que estamos aquí que si existe un PTA interno en las escuelas pero sabemos que también se necesita un PTA comunitario afuera. One concern that I had was about the PTA. We know that PTAs exist in the schools but we also know we need PTA comunitarios like ours. Otra de las razones es mi inquietud en participar en la comunidad es de la necesidad que podemos o que yo personalmente puedo mirar afuera. Mi trabajo es comunitario y si miro en los padres ¿Cómo se mortifican? Porque los niños no evolucionan mucho en lo que es las clases bilingüe, que es inglés y español. Y también por la necesidad que ellos tienen cuando los niños van a la prepa, lo que es la prepa y aún no tienen todos los requisitos para llegar a la universidad. Eso es bien importante. One concern that parents have is they don't know if they're taking the courses in a high school that prepares them for college. That's a concern we all have that our children be prepared for college. Entonces, nosotros como PTA comunitario es importante que les comuniquemos a los padres que, claro, que apoyen a sus hijos para que ellos puedan tener un éxito en la universidad. Eso es bien importante. We have to make sure that families support their children to be prepared for college, that's very important. Solamente con un grupo, formar más grupos para tener PTAs en la comunidad. It's very important that we understand we are organizers, that we're doing work in the community, that we don't stay in one group, that we help other families connect, that they have other groups. En la organización de mano a mano, recibimos esta información del PTA comunitario del programa RISE. Entonces, ahí nos empezaron a hablar de este programa PTA y fue donde empezamos a movilizar a la comunidad para formar grupos. Y empezamos también a organizar varios PTAs y uno de ellos fue en Brunsville, en Galaxy y una de las cosas que, como empezamos a hablar con las familias, también este, invitamos a la gente. We're located in Brunsville, the southern tip of Texas and we were working with a group called mano a mano, that is part of a clinic there. And we heard from another organization in another part of the valley called RISE that they had formed a PTA comunitario and we were very curious, we were interested and they told us about it and so we formed one called the Galaxy in Brunsville. Y ahí empezamos con este grupo y hace aproximadamente más de, que será de tres años. We started about three years ago. Y sí vemos mucha necesidad en los padres que sí necesitan más educación para ayudar a los hijos tanto en la prepa, en la middle school y en la universidad. It's clear that our families need a lot more information to support their children in secondary schools and high school so that they can be prepared for college. Entonces, le voy a pasar la palabra. So I'm going to pass the microphone over to my colleague. Gracias. Buenos días. Mi nombre es Juan y García. Vengo de Brunsville, Texas. Venimos a vengo representando el PTS, el PTS formado. Tenemos como tres años que se formó este PTS. Otros fuimos invitados por primera vez por el programa Arise y de ellos agarramos nuestro modelo y nos gustó mucho y lo formamos por promotoras formados por promotoras comunitarias. Good morning. My name is Juan y García. I'm also from Brunsville and three years ago we had heard from Arise about the comunitario and we liked the idea a lot that we formed our own comunitario. Southmost. Southmost. Y pues nuestra meta, verdad, es reunir a los padres de familia y ir a las escuelas a hablar con los directores. Es un poco difícil porque ellos, su campo de ellos, ellos tienen ya pues un PTS, ¿verdad? Y esto era un poco desconocido. Poco a poco hemos ido que nos vayan conociendo porque nuestras metas son nuestros hijos. Hay que dar el apoyo tanto a nuestros hijos como a nuestros padres. So we communicate with many families to unite around the education of their children. We visited campuses but the principals had their own PTAs so it's been a challenge to get them to understand what we're about because support for the education of our children is very important. Y pues a través ya hemos podido lograr poco a poco la introducción en esas escuelas sobre todo para sabemos que hay muchos cambios, ¿verdad? Sobre todo la base está pues desde que empiezan los niños desde la primaria. Muchos padres no estaban enterados con el nuevo cambio. Por ejemplo, cuando tenemos los exámenes estatales ya hay un nuevo, con un nuevo nombre y no lo sabían nuestros padres pues sorpresa para ellos y también en parte para los maestros porque no estaban preparados menos nuestros niños y eso es lo que tenemos que luchar ahora el nuevo nombre que es estar, que son los problemas estatales y se está pasando uno y el otro no. Y también es una inquietud muy grande tanto para los padres de familia como para toda la comunidad. There have been many changes in the state but one big change has been that the tests have changed, the names of the tests and parents, even teachers were surprised by some of the new tests but parents were not informed and some children are fading, others are passing and we're seriously concerned that parents have that information. Y también es muy importante implicarnos en la escuela saber todos los programas que hay porque hay variedad de programas que no sabemos que podemos informarles a nuestra comunidad para nuestros hijos, hay muchos beneficios a pesar de que hay reducciones, síguenos beneficios hay tanto para niños de educación especial cada niño tiene su necesidad y hay que saber y hay que apoyar y hay que investigar porque si no investigamos no sabemos lo que tiene la escuela tiene muchos beneficios pero hay que navegar para poder saber que es lo que hay para poder ayudar a nuestros hijos y sacarlos adelante. Schools have many many benefits that families aren't aware of yes there are challenges but there are also many good things and parents aren't aware of that so we have to investigate, we have to find out if a child has special needs but it can be done for that child there are many benefits and we need to make sure we know what they are and families know what they are. Por eso es bien importante asistir a las reuniones a las juntas porque siempre hay algo nuevo siempre hay cambios y los cambios son buenos y cuando no hay un cambio también hay que decir que no nos gusta, lo que no nos gusta hay que decir porque primero son nuestros hijos y nosotros como padres tenemos todo el derecho de exigir lo bueno para nuestros hijos y si nos escuchan y por eso tenemos el apoyo también de muchas personas pero tenemos que hacer valer nuestra voz para que nuestros hijos tengan el apoyo y poderlo sacar adelante. We have to get information there are many good changes and we have to support them and know about them but if we don't like something we need to say that because it's for the benefit of our children we need to have our voice heard. Y esto es lo que es un PDS comunitario trabajar, trabajar y por la mayoría somos promotoras voluntarias, se formó con promotoras voluntarias en Brownfield, Tegas. En Brownfield, Tegas es un poquito difícil y ya se han abierto muchas escuelas, si hay escuelas nuevas pero pues como le doblas repetir los directores son un poquito tenemos que luchar con ellos y ya si nos dejan un poquito poderse uno involucrar con ellos y con personas verdad que están adentro para poder saber también y poder saber lo todo lo nuevo que hay porque si hay cambios, hay muchos cambios. There are changes, there are many new schools some of the principles are challenged to deal with but we have to do it. Porque a veces oímos también en las noticias que ya en las escuelas quitaron esto que quitaron lo otro, no, tenemos que estar dentro de la escuela para saber y luchar que ahí está todos esos beneficios para nuestros hijos. When we hear in the news that they added or changed something in school we have to be present, we have to know because there are benefits for our children. Y como le doblas repetir, es bien importante asistir a las juntas. It's very important to go to meetings. Siempre al pendiente de asistir a las juntas es como vamos a poder darnos cuenta y sacar adelante a nuestros hijos. There is something I didn't translate. They call themselves promotoras these are outreach workers that do home visits they are volunteer promotoras the original group that started them mano a mano are promotoras they are health workers these are promotoras de educación. Y pues nuestro reto es seguir adelante y estar siempre preparada con lo que viene nuevo porque siempre va a haber cambios. Siempre hay que estar esperando los nuevos cambios y pues prepararnos para poder salir adelante y sacar a nuestros hijos porque todo cambia. Los exámenes cambian y si un niño en la primaria no pasa en los problemas estatales ahí se va a quedar. Así tenga 100 en matemáticas tenga 100 en historia tenga puro 100 y si no pasó a los estatales ese niño ahí se va a quedar. There are many changes we have to be careful. The tests are going to keep changing and if a child fails the state test even though he has a hundred in math he still fails because he didn't pass the state test. Ahora también pasa esto que a veces decimos porque mi hijo pues no puede no puede tenemos que tratar de buscar porque hay acomodamientos les pueden ayudar y lo sacan adelante. Tenemos que buscar el por qué qué le está pasando a ese niño y para eso estamos el pitiges comunitario para apoyar ese padre no para decirle qué busque si aquí te dicen que no acá hay otra puerta que te ayuda así como una persona que te dice que no va a haber otra que sí y hay ayudas y muy buenas en las escuelas. Okay, if a parent says the child can't or somebody is saying the child won't be able to we have to find another path there are many different ways not to give up that's why we as PTA have to support families that the children succeed and find a way. Porque tenemos que buscar el bienestar para nuestros hijos que ellos estén contentos y yo cuando yo voy a hablar directamente con las directoras yo no me quedo cruzada de brazos yo mi trabajo trabaja con niños especiales y que me diga no yo que me quede aquí no yo voy a ir el busco en una escuela busco en otra escuela y yo yo me voy directamente con los directores. She said I work especially with special ed children and I don't take no for an answer I keep looking I persist but I don't give up So there's help for all children special ed or otherwise there's a way so that our children succeed all the way through high standard are prepared for college. This the new newest exams caught some teachers by surprise they had to have special training said children can pass these tests if there are properly taught. Gracias. Disculpe la pregunta es Dice que el examen es difícil si tiene toda cien en todas las materias mi pregunta es si tiene todo cien en todas las materias por qué no va a pasar el examen estar el estatal. El estatal se supone se supone que les están dando esa clase si están sacando todo cien por lógica es lo mismo que va a venir en el estatal o no. Dejame traducir. If the child is learning the content in a class he should be able to pass the test. Why is the child not passing the test even though he's doing well in class. El estatal es diferente a lo que ve el niño todo el año es un examen muy diferente los exámenes del estado son muy diferentes a que todo el niño mira matemáticas. Her answer is that the test is testing for something that was not taught. Aunque los niños los preparan para ese examen. Even if they prepare for the test. Pero es difícil. It's hard. Y esa es la razón. Ok, let's talk about the PTA also please ok. Si sabe usted que el niño aunque tenga todo este aunque te muy bien en las calificaciones que nos mandan está pasando todas las calificaciones pero si el estatal no lo pasa ahí se que. Just that I can reiterate that because when my daughter took it she was in shock. She said that she had not even what was on the test was not even brought into the classroom at all for what she was to prepare for that exam. Pasó con mi hija que lo que el examen no era lo que le había enseñado en la clase. So schools are going to have to figure out how to make sure that what's taught in the class and the test match. Las escuelas tienen que hacer el cambio de lo que se enseñe en la clase y lo que trae el examen que conjugan los dos. Now el PTA comunitario has to inform the community about that. In other words, es algo que se tiene que informar la comunidad. ¿Verdad? Si. Una pregunta señora. Estaban diciendo que pues en nuestro distrito de verdad comenzamos a tratar de enseñar a los padres de que tan importante es la educación de colegio, universidad, los diferencias. La problema que tenemos nosotros ahoritas es que tenemos muchos menos padres que nosotros pensamos que íbamos a agarrar. ¿Cómo? ¿Cómo un PTA? ¿Cómo hicieron eso para agarrar tanta gente a venir, a preguntar, a enseñar a ellos que tan importante a participar y que tan importante es? Ok. Ok. We have tried to get parents together to inform them about these issues but it has been really hard. How did you do it? Ok. Nosotros, como le volvamos la revisión, somos de Francis Dejas y allá en Francis, me imagino que en varias partes tienen somos promotoras de salud y salemos, salemos a la calle. Tenemos comunicaciones, repartemos flyer como sea. Tenemos que comunicar, pasar la palabra, pasar la palabra y a la vez hacer muchas, muchas cundas. One of the things that we do in Brownsville is we are promotoras. We do home visits. We send out flyers. It's the home contact. Incluso tenemos presentadores que de aquí de San Antonio han ido a prepararnos. Bring presenters to talk to them. Ok. Estamos bien informados. Ok. To that inform. I'll talk a little bit about the outreach. No. Le voy a hacer una pregunta a ella. Cómo empezaron ustedes a formar el PTA y cómo con cantas personas? Desculpe, no le entendí. No le entendí. How did you start the PTA with how many people? Cada una tiene distintas respuestas. El PTA comunitario se inició organizando. Organizando a la comunidad. Iniciamos como con 20 personas. Ok. We organized it with 20 people. Lo iniciamos de esta manera para invitar a las personas de la comunidad organizamos una feria de salud con servicios para que ellos se beneficiaran llevándoles chequeo de presión, chequeo de la diabetes y otras más información para ellos. Bueno, nosotros como PTA comunitario lo que hicimos fue organizarnos porque yo formo parte de ellas más que voy a explicar un poquito más. Lo que hicimos fue buscar un lugar, nos fuimos a la comunidad encontramos a una persona a una ama de casa y le pedimos que si ella podía apoyarnos para hacer una junta comunitaria ahí nos fuimos, repartimos flyers, para tener la junta ahí. Vino gente, si vinieron antes de hacer esa feria que dice mi compañera tuvimos como 10 personas y después a 10 personas nos fuimos a repartir flyers para que vinieran para hacer la junta. Ok. We started a home, a private home and we had a lady who hosted the home and people got together and from there the word spread. We went from there. Let me just mention something about promotoras and what's key, algo que, porque al tener juntas, that's traditional. Tiene la junta y nadie viene oh God we invited them to come. That's the old record. The key thing is the communication with the home outreach. The promotora visits the home that's how the health outreach started. La promotora visita la casa forma relación con la familia es una red de familias que se conectan. No es nomas tener una junta y amar gente que venga. No, no, that's because otherwise you're going to get into the old cycle where we invited them and they didn't come. Te ves, en el otro ciclo, pues limitamos y no vinieron. No. El PTI comunitario son relaciones de familias unas con otras y se mantiene esa relación. No buscamos 100 personas, 10, 15, 20, pero que se conectan, que se comunican en las casas. Bueno y la persona que nos prestó la casa era conocida de Rosalba. De la comunidad. De la comunidad que conocíamos y eso es lo importante. Si tú conoces tu vecina, tú te quieres organizar. Ya ven que la escuela, tenemos los vecinos casi por la realidad nos conocemos como padres, ¿verdad? Como aunque vamos a dejar a nuestros hijos, uno mismo se puede organizar así. Yo conozco cinco personas que están conmigo. Yo le voy a decirle inquietud que yo quiero, porque yo quiero que mi hijo vaya al colegio. Elvia hit it right on the heart of why this thing has had power. It's not media, it's not the news, it's she knows five families that are her neighbors and she connects with them over their concern about the education of their children. Conversations about the education of their children is the magnet. It's not an outreach worker at the campus that wants to get 30 warm bodies into the room. That'll happen. But the most important thing is the communication among families, la comunicación entre familias. Eso es lo que le da el poder a ustedes. Es un importante. Y la clave también es darle seguimiento. No nada más hacer, reunir el grupo y dejarlo ahí. Dale seguimiento y seguir formando más grupos para el PTA y comunitario y que se haga todo esto más grande. See, the follow up and seguimiento, the follow up is key. It's not just getting people to a meeting. It's the connections that we keep with each other as we move from meeting to meeting from project to project. Nosotros ya tuvimos dos conferencias donde asistieron cerca de 100 padres, ¿Verdad? Y gracias al apoyo de Idra que nos ha apoyado bastante para ir y hablar sobre temas. Y es lo que estamos haciendo. Orita, si quieren ir a la otra, al de líderes, las invito se quedan aquí porque vamos a explicar un poquito más de todo lo que hemos avanzado y hemos hecho. Pero lo más importante es que nosotros le echemos ganas como papás. Y si no nos queremos organizar, no importa como dice Mr. Montemayor, 10, 15 personas no pidan mucho. Si con 10 tenemos, ya después vamos a ir animando otras personas, empiezan a escuchar otras personas y empiezan a decir yo quiero aprender. Yo quiero saber porque como decía ahorita, Juan, no sabemos qué está pasando en la legislación. También tenemos que estar interesados como papás porque qué es la ley que están pasando. Como la que pasó en la HB-5 y nadie nos enteramos y nadie conocemos la ley y es lo que estamos haciendo ahorita. One of the things is our connections with each other, these conversations, there's a natural interest we're connected. But we also need to know about laws that are passed. Like when this law was passed several years ago, the HB-5 about changing graduation requirements, none of us knew anything about it. We have to be on top of that and that's important. Nomás quiero hacer una pregunta. ¿Alguien sabe qué es la HB-5? Levante en su mano. Do you know what HB-5 is? No, it's the graduation requirements. Requisitos de graduación. Requisitos de graduación. Graduation requirements. A presentation was made in the previous session and we're going to talk about projects in the next hour here. But what Elvia is focusing on is that people are thirsty for information. When they connect with each other around these issues, they stay connected because they're interested. Bueno, pues les damos las gracias por su tiempo. No, también no se acabó la sesión. No, no. Digo, no, no, no los estamos corriendo. Les damos las gracias por su atención y esperemos también, verdad, que aprendan un poquito de cada uno de nosotros y pues gracias por la paciencia que tienen. Thank you for your attention. We hope you learn a little bit from us. The session continues. We have 20 more, 15 more minutes. Quince más minutos. Bueno, yo nomás quería comentar un poquito del inicio del PTA comunitario de nosotros. I just want to talk about our PTA when we started. Nosotros, todos los comunitarios se forman diferente. Each one is formed differently. Nosotros empezamos solamente con tres personas. We started with three people. Esas tres personas en la primera reunión que tuvimos, fue como nos enteramos de lo que estaba pasando de la invitación que se nos hizo a participar en un comunitario. Y en el siguiente, en la siguiente reunión que pedimos invitamos, cada uno de esas tres personas invitamos a otra persona. Entonces, ya en la siguiente reunión nos hicimos seis. Okay, so in the next meeting there were six. Everybody invited one more person. Así no es como fuimos creciendo nosotros hasta juntar las 20 personas. De esas 20 personas ahorita hemos dado seguimiento y entrenamiento a más de 400. Okay, finally we had a group of 20 to form our comunitario and now we have trained more than 400 parents. Entre escuelas, comunidad y lo que... Both in schools and in the community. Nosotros también hacemos las reuniones y cuando vamos a la comunidad aunque sea con otro tema, no necesariamente es el de educación pero vamos con otro tema, pero allí los padres se interesan y se involucran porque lo que nosotros hacemos como organizadores es hablar un poquito de cada tema y cuando se llega la educación se les comunica cómo estamos trabajando en el comunitario y es como se va juntando. So even if the session is on other topics, health or something else education is one of the things we touch on and those interested we explain what the comunitario is and that's how we recruit new members too. Y al participar con las escuelas lo que empezamos a ser es primeramente hablar con el superintendente que nos dé el permiso para entrar al distrito escolar. So when we go to a district we go to the schools that we targeted. So once we have permission we go to the schools that we targeted. Entonces allí con los coordinadores de los centros de padres, ellos nos invitan a ser una plática del comunitario lo que estamos trabajando y allí también regaudamos más gente. So we go to the schools, we talk to the parent coordinator, go to the parent coordinator's room, speak to those parents and there we pick up some more members for the comunitario. Entonces ya de un grupo de tres pues ya nos hicimos muchos tanto es que ya empezamos con el de la RGB la raíz, ahorita tenemos la raíz los fresnos que es otro nuevo distrito entonces allí ya crecimos. So our original project was RGB Rio Grande Valley la raíz and that included San Benito, Los Fresnos. So now Los Fresnos is another independent new PTA comunitario, Los Fresnos is right next to Padre Island so a lot of people might have driven by there. Entonces de esa manera es como se se organizan los comunitarios o como se hace que el comunitario vaya creciendo es todo es en la manera en que uno lo trabaje como uno haga las informaciones y la información que lleve sobre todo la comunidad. So that's how you organize a comunitario, it's all in what information you have, how you present it. Entonces nosotros los invitamos a que si quieren formar un comunitario aquí en San Antonio no sé si hayga este pero estamos más que dispuestos de decirles o darles nuestros tips. So that's how we help you start one. Pero todo es comunicación. It's communication. Oh, she wants to start a comunitario. Okay, thank you. Questions, comments? My name is Edward James, I'm with the U.S. Department of Education. I want to say thank you first for presenting today. You've done a lot of very hard work and it takes a lot of work for two years now and he speaks very highly of all of the PTA comunitarios, so I want to say again, excellent work. Thank you. The question that I have for you is have you noticed a change in the superintendents and the principals since you have been forming your comunitarios since you've been doing work for three years or so now? Have you noticed the relationship? Have you noticed is it easier to talk to people about the issues? I know that the testing is an issue. What's the relationship like now? Now that you've been developing? I want to congratulate you for the work you're doing. I come from Washington. I'm the director who connects with the community and with Aurelio. But I want to know if with your work there has been a change in the superintendents and the directors in the community? We've seen many changes. In relation to the superintendents it was more difficult because the city of Fresno, the school district of Fresno didn't let any community organization enter. The school district of Fresno has been a very difficult one because historically they would not allow any community organization to go into their schools. At first it was very difficult to have a meeting with that superintendent. I had to really work hard but finally when I sat down with him and I started explaining what the community was about and what we were going to do, he had to really work hard. But finally when I sat down with him and I started explaining what the community was about and what we were going to do, he said he opened the schools to us. He said any school you want to have a meeting, here's the director, your parents invite you have to open door. It was that conversation with the superintendent that shifted. The doors were opened for the community to go and present to the parents in the schools. In which schools have you presented? In the high school. 9th grade academy. And two middle schools. And two middle schools so that the secondary system had opened up in that district for them. She said the treatment of teachers towards students was changed. This has been a big change for us. I'm going to give one example. This was a drastic change. Pre-kinder. Almost six years old. He was an immigrant child and the teacher would kind of put him on the side. The child would approach the teacher saying I don't understand, I have to teach these children your ignorant, you don't know, I can't deal with you, I have to teach these children. A six year old was told that by the teacher. When we go to the community we have a survey. Just four or five questions. Do you have any comment? down the treatment of her child in that pre-k class. They went to the principal and showed him what the mother had written on that subject. The teacher was replaced. That's concrete. That's what we're specifically talking about. Bad bus routes have changed so that they're more appropriate for the children. There were three to a seat and some standing up in the buses. The buses were so crowded. Thank to the community and to God that through that effort we've been able to see some of these changes. Excellent question and good answer. Have they seen any changes? Something did happen last week. I have a special ed child and the teacher said your child is not motivated. He doesn't listen to me. That's a teacher talking. I know that sometimes the child is just not ready to learn. May I go by the school and be in the class? It's a small group. She said you're a special ed teacher trained to work with these children. Sometimes they're not in the mood to learn. You have to know how to motivate them. You're here to motivate them and help them. I'm in my house and I have to send them to school. The teacher told her why don't you motivate your child at home because she's not motivated in school. You're a special ed teacher trained and you know you have to use a variety of ways to motivate the child. I'll do my part at home but you have to do your part in the classroom. He said I understand. Most of the mothers I've been working directly with need children. Being a part of this community has brought me a lot of experience. But the most beautiful recognition is to be able to help mothers because they're special children. The teachers don't know much about autism and ADHD. What's most gratifying to her is to work with mothers of children with special needs. She said it's a special challenge for teachers for autistic children. I've been able to guide the parents through social workers and other services to get the special services. So especially how they're going to get the evaluations, the assessment they need for their special needs. Thank you. It's a little bit past 10-20. Thank you for your attendance. We're going to start our session, our third session. It's from 1130 to 1220 Central Standard Time. The session's title is Mesa Comunitaria. Projectos de liderazgo para familias, family leadership projects. The basis of the comunitarios and the basis of this process is family leadership. We started at IDRA in 1980 developing and carrying out what we call family leadership and education. In 1980 we started at IDRA to develop the program, the process called liderazgo de familias en educación. The participation of families, family participation has different streams, it has different paths. Traditionally, one aspect of the participation of families is to teach families how to be better parents and mothers. One aspect of parent involvement, the oldest and most traditional, is where we teach parents how to be better parents. That's a good one. IDRA is not interested in that. Another river in parent involvement, and these are good rivers we're just not interested, is traditional parent volunteerism. Otro camino es la participación tradicional, parents at the cheap labor pool for schools. Los padres trabajo gratuito para las escuelas, que son voluntarios, van con los niños a día de campo, están en la clase, ayudan a limpiar la pizarra. In other words, parent volunteerism and fundraising, that's another traditional path. We're not interested in that. We're interested in families being able to influence schools to be the best schools possible in their neighborhood. Lo que nos interesa es que las familias tengan el poder de crear las mejores escuelas posibles en su barrio, en su vecindad. Family leadership, es lo único que nos interesa en IDRA, es lo que más nos interesa. From that concept, ese concepto de liderazgo de familias en educación, nació el comunitario. We just had a session on the call, what is called the PTA comunitario, stressing the word comunitario. It's in Spanish because it's different. Again, it's family leadership and education finally having a home. Por fin tiene casa, que es el comunitario. No nos importa dar servicios, other people do that well. Promotoras de salud dan mucho servicio muy bueno, eso no nos interesa. Por qué las promotoras para este programa es de invitar a las familias, conectar con las familias, invitar a las familias que se unan para formar una organización en pro-educación de los hijos. So that here the outreach is about connecting with families in their homes and getting families to connect with each other over the education of their children. The crowning point of any comunitario are its projects. El punto más importante de todo comunitario son los proyectos, projects. And what we mean by projects are things that the parents come to do to influence schools and education. Un proyecto es que se unen estas familias para hacer algo, para informar la comunidad a cambiar algo. Este año tuvimos un proyecto que tuvo muchas partes. This year we had a project that had many sections to it. So we're calling it Mesa Comunitaria, community table, the community round table. To talk about Mesa Comunitaria, we'll have Elvia Cala, who's one of the coordinators from Mano a Mano, which is a sponsoring organization in Brownsville for two PTA comunitarios. We're going to have Elsa Gonzalez, who's the organizer of the RGV La Raíz Comunitario and other groups. She works in several communities. And Fatima Perez, who's a high school student in FAR, who is part of this project, the follow up on the project and then myself, who's going to kind of weave in and out. So para empezar, le voy a invitar a Elvia Cala, que nos venga a decir un poquito de que eran las preocupaciones el año pasado que tenían sobre la graduación. Buenos días. Voy a hablarles un poquito de nuestra preocupación. Yo formo parte de la red de Voces Unidas. Soy co-chair del grupo de educación y nos reunimos varias diferentes agencias. Los PTAs que se han formado en el valle son bastantitos ya. Yo formo parte coordinando de dos PTAs, el que está a Galaxy, Southmos, pero había mucha preocupación qué es lo que teníamos que hacer. Okay, we had these serious concerns. I'm co-chair of the Education Working Group of the Equal Voice Network in the valley. We have a large number of comunitarios that we're the umbrella for and we're very concerned about certain things. Sí, y nuestras preguntas eran qué tanto saben las familias. One question we had is what do families know about graduation requirements, right? Sí, nuestros hijos estaban preparados para ir a la universidad también. Are our children being prepared for college? We had these concerns. ¿Cómo podíamos responder estas preguntas? Por eso fue que nos unimos. How could we answer those questions? That's why we came together, we united. ¿Qué empezamos a hacer? Empezamos a planear y se decidió que éramos un grupo bien formado porque somos bastantes que estamos en el grupo. We came together, we're a good strong group. There are enough groups that are united here so we could do something. ¿Cómo podíamos llegar a los distritos escolares? How could we get to the school districts? How could we connect to them? Por eso fue que se decidió hacer una encuesta para ver qué tan preparados o qué tanto sabían nuestras familias o nuestros padres sobre la educación de su hijo. We needed to know what families knew about the education of their children. Estamos muy preocupados porque sabemos que nuestros hijos tienen que saber elegir las materias importantes para poder ir al colegio. We knew that our children needed the classes that would prepare them on their transcript for college. Y nos preocupamos mucho por lo que les decía hace rato la pregunta de la ley SHB-5 que habla sobre los carriles que los nuestros hijos o las materias que nuestros hijos deben de tomar para estar bien preparados para ir al colegio. We knew that there was a law, a new regulations passed that were called House Bill 5 then that changed the requirements for college, for high school graduation. Y decidió que íbamos a hacer una encuesta. We decided we were going to do a survey. Y nosotros estamos en el área de Brownsville. Creo que hicimos como 400 encuestas. My area is Brownsville. We interviewed about 400 families. O un poco más porque sí abarcamos. Brownsville es grande el área. It's a large city. Y el distrito escolar de Brownsville es grande también. The school district is a large school district. Y fue así como pudimos, ahorita, Mr. Montemayo, yo que les va a hablar de porcentajes, sí sé que el 84 por ciento de esas encuestas creo que se hicieron como 1,600. Y el 84 por ciento no sabían de los pases. We interviewed more than 1,600 families and over 80 percent did not know anything about graduation requirements. Y fue como decidimos hacer nuestra mesa comunitaria invitando líderes de la comunidad, invitando a los distritos escolares, tanto los... ahorita hablamos después de la mesa. Bueno, nos involucramos mucho en hacer esas encuestas y fue un gran logro. ¿Qué es que va? Ya, que siga con el survey. Ok, le voy a hacer el lugar a... Buenos días otra vez. Nosotros también fuimos parte de esas encuestas. Nosotros como parte de la raíz hicimos 300 encuestas. My organization at raíz did 300 interviews. Esas 300 encuestas las dividimos en 100 por distrito porque trabajamos en 3 distritos. We work in 3 school districts, so we decided to do 100 surveys in each of those 3 districts. En base a esas encuestas que obtuvimos, como dijo Elvia, de esa manera nos dimos cuenta de que los padres no sabían nada de que era el requisito para graduarse. So we found out that most families knew little or nothing about graduation requirements. Algunos nos comentaban o ponían en su encuesta que eran pocas preguntas solamente ponían pues sea un poquito, no sé nada, quisiera enterar... We had just a few questions of the survey and they would, I know a little bit, I don't know anything, those were the responses. En esas encuestas también se hacía una pregunta que decía tienes algún conocimiento de las materias que tu hijo lleva y cuáles son los créditos que tu hijo necesita para graduarse y todos los padres contestaron que no. We asked them, do you know what classes your child is taking in high school? Do you know how many credits he needs to graduate? They knew very little. Esas encuestas nos sirvieron a nosotros para darnos cuenta de que había mucho trabajo como comunitario a salir a las calles, a las casas, a las comunidades, colonias y sobre todo a las mismas escuelas. En algunas hasta las mismas escuelas atendimos a hablar sobre esas encuestas. It made us realize that we need to go out to the community to inform the community. We went to the schools. There was a great need for information in the community. Y pues esas encuestas, como dijo Elvia, fueron entre las varias organizaciones más de 1,600 encuestas que juntamos en como 6 organizaciones. Nos dividimos más o menos por distrito lo que podían hacer y en eso nos basamos para formar nuestra mesa comunitaria. So to form the mesa comunitaria, there were seven comunitarios and many more organizations that participated. It was in three counties and I think 15 school districts in that area and over 1,600 families were surveyed. Ahora voy a hablar un poquito de reporte. They collected the data and started making sense de ver, colectaron la data y empezaron a tratar de hacer que quiere decir esto. So Idra les ayudó a hacer un report that we helped them do a bilingual report and there's a link online. You can see the full report. So now they had this report that showed and in your materials for the conference you have one of the graphics that shows the percentages in that report. Hay una hoja que dice key findings, conclusiones de la encuesta. This we helped do this report. They collected the data, they sit down and looked at it, read it and we helped them crunch the numbers and then that education working group that Elvia's part of el grupo de educación dijo pues que vamos a hacer let's have a community meeting. Vamos a tener una junta de la comunidad para informar la comunidad. Let's have a community meeting. Y ahí vino la mesa comunitaria. Se decidió tener... ese fue el reporte, la mesa comunitaria. What was the purpose of that meeting? Fue en agosto, el año pasado, en Huesla Cotejas. Para informar la comunidad, invitar a los directores de las escuelas tener diálogo crítico y planes de acción. So, Elvia, platícalos un poquito del evento, la mesa comunitaria. Elvia is going to talk to us about the mesa itself. Estuvo muy interesante, me encantó porque si vinieron personas del distrito escolar, creo que tuvimos dos superintendentes ahí y tuvimos representantes de los superintendentes, de los que subo agencias, líderes que estaban muy interesados cuando hicimos la invitación. Fue un poquito de planear de participar en mesa redonda, y integramos PTAs, distritos escolares, líderes de la comunidad en las mesas para poder llevar a cabo cómo vamos a planear, qué vamos a hacer, qué va a seguir, los resultados que íbamos a tener ahí. ¿Cuál va a ser el plan de acción? Ok. I'm very happy with this meeting. It was very well attended. We had superintendents, we had school people, we had program directors, and we mixed everybody up in the table. So at a table you had a superintendent, a representative of an organization, they were mixed and to have the conversation at the table. So there were two rounds of conversations. In the first round we mixed everybody up and at each table the first presenter was a parent talking about her experience in trying to get this information or communicate with the school district. So at each table por medio de los PTAs comunitarios también con la ayuda de nosotros de los grupos de PTAs cómo hacer las cosas para poder alcanzar los problemas que hay que estábamos hablando con los consejeros cuando queremos ir a hablar qué materias escoger entonces ese era un testimonio de los padres que teníamos en cada mesa. So at each table each parent that gave testimony at the table talked about their concerns, their problems, their challenges, how they got information, their dealing with counselors, there was one mother who said she had to go back four times to get an appointment to meet with a counselor and then the counselor told her there's only 70 seats in algebra, it's full, your daughter cannot be in algebra too. There was a lot of testimony what was important, as Elvia said that school people were hearing that in those tables. Y nuestra meta era fijar un plan de acción pero también involucrar al distrito escolar que trabajaran con nosotros junto con los padres con los PTAs que estamos formando y con las agencias que están participando con nosotros. Era importante at this meeting that schools be affected by this information and that we have a plan of action. It was important that all of us work hard because our common interest was that our children go to college. We wanted them to know what our needs were for those parents as community. We actually accomplished certain things. So for each district we came out with a plan of action. So that our children can take the classes that are appropriate to be prepared for college. Wait a little while for Elis. It's a great person that has supported us a lot. He has guided us more than anything as PTAs, how to organize and I want to congratulate him because he is a very important person in our PTAs. I have to recognize him. He doesn't like that we do that but I will do it. So like every district PTA was going to work in their districts we started working and we did a workshop that we did in March to inform them it was a conference that we had to inform the community about what had happened in this community. We did that in March of this year and in August of last year was when we did the community. To inform the community Our district is a very difficult school district to work with. We had a new female superintendent that we were able to meet with her. She said the superintendent said I'm very busy to have a short meeting but once they were there they had a nice long meeting. In March the superintendent attended their workshop and gave the welcome. We like what we're doing We still have a lot of work to do. The superintendent wanted to communicate with the community in Spanish and they connected her to our radar program so now she's doing her monthly every week What are you going to do? Well, I'm like I'm like the co-leader of all the models. What happens is that as I work a lot on the radio I'm taking information of everything that's happening with our about education and other things as well but I wanted to invite her to come and talk about the interest with the students. A very simple person I liked it a lot and we achieved it because there's a problem in the district of Bromville that all the programs that are on TV that they give are in English. In the television all the programs are in English and so the school is not doing anything in their internal TV station for families in Spanish. They were invited to do a program in Spanish so that that could be aired on the TV station for that district. So I spoke I was interviewed and I spoke about the importance of parents connecting with families and counselors and to be there present for their kids. That we as parents are the key person in the education of our children. She says they keep replaying that interview and people come up at a carnival whatever she did. They're recruiting her for a telenovela. Once they teach all the superintendents several times and the superintendent was born in Mexico she knows Spanish, she's fully bilingual she said we need more programs in this TV station in Spanish for the families. She promised to do a session in Spanish on what classes the kids should take to be well prepared. Okay. They're already doing it finally on Sundays they're doing it. Okay. So that was the Brownsville follow-up and there were other things. Now we're going to talk about the FAR follow-up. What we did it with the FAR San Juan Alamo school district we said the two PTAs there, the two PTAs are the Arise PTAs Las Milpas and South Tower and they decided to have a Saturday workshop where the presenters would be students and parents not teachers, not professionals to show how you prepare for college but from the words of the students and the adults and so to speak about that experience we're going to have Fatima who is a student and was one of the she was mistress of ceremonies and we had a male student a female student and an adult who was part of the MC team. Hello. My name is Fatima Perez. I was invited to to go to this workshop because I am the dual language president in my school. They invited me to this event because I'm the president of the dual language program in my school. So they wanted to have me there and to talk to the parents as well as students to explain to them what the dual language program is. So they invited me to explain the parents and the students what the program is. There was a lot of students there. It was not only for the dual language program. There were a lot of students there and parents the event was not just for the program there were a lot of other things that they covered in that event. There was a lot more things that were covered in that event and for example we're explaining about the dual enrollment program, which is a program for students that are currently taking college classes. Por ejemplo, había otros programas como el programa de se llama dual enrollment que es un programa para estudiantes que están tomando clases de prepara de de colegio en la preparatoria. And so we had two preparation days, así que tuvimos dos días para prepararnos and we all went to a middle school to prepare ourselves and so we had like different tables where we had two different organizations, our RISE and IDRA, sorry. We also had parents going to that workshop because there were also these organizations, sorry, these organizations were there to explain to them requirements in order to continue their education because there was a lot of parents that didn't finish their high school career or even parents that wanted to continue with college. Entonces, cuando nos preparamos para esa workshop, tuvimos a María's mesas como ya les mencioné y cada mesa presentó, una persona en cada mesa presentó adelante de todas las demás mesas y fue como una práctica para que pudieran tener confianza y se prepararan para el día del evento. So we had different tables and each table had a different subject and a person from every table presented in front of everyone else in order to prepare themselves and to learn what they needed to say the day of the workshop. Entonces, el día de, fue un sábado, el día de la mini mesa comunitaria, tuvimos a muchos padres de familia, estudiantes de todos los grados y fue una muy bonita experiencia porque realmente sí se vio la necesidad que hayan los padres de familia para informarse de cosas que no sabían. So the day of the mini mesa comunitaria, it was really nice because you could see that there's a lot of people that were actually very engaged in the subject and the topic and they wanted to know about all of these opportunities that they really didn't know about as well as students and there was people there from like all the ages and students from all levels, it was really nice. Entonces, ese día yo presenté a padres de familia sobre el dual language program, el programa dual y les estaba explicando sobre como que son los requisitos para que sus hijos se graduen del programa dual. So, in that day I presented to parents and explained to them the requirements to graduate from the dual language program y pues fue una muy bonita experiencia y pero sí me sorprendió bastante que muchos padres no sabían absolutamente nada de estos requisitos y yo siempre ya le empezaron a una, porque eran diferentes teorías muchas horas para presentar y cada vez que empezabas yo les preguntaba, saben cuáles son los requisitos que se necesitan o tienen alguna idea y todos me decían que no, entonces eso realmente sí me sorprendió bastante y yo sé que ese día fue muy bueno porque aprendieron cosas que no sabían absolutamente nada. So that day I was very impressed because each presentation that I had I would ask them first if they knew any requirements of their, what their children needed to graduate from the dual enrollment program from the dual language program and every single time I will ask them the same question every single parent in the room they will tell me that they didn't know anything. So it was very very surprising but I'm glad I was there because I was able to explain to them the requirements where and to bring awareness to them. Thank you, gracias. I know you want to keep her in front. I want you to see the complete cycle this is. The community started with some concerns. ¿Qué sabe la comunidad? Cuando esta ley se pasó, when this new rule was passed, these families were saying are we going to go back to to vote get and our kids in a limited track. Vamos a regresar cuando los niños no estaban preparados para el colegio que dicen que nomás son buenos con las manos que son buenos para hacer mecánicos o albañiles pero para la universidad no tienen esto. And so they were concerned that the children from these barrios from these neighborhoods were going to be seen as non-college material but they didn't know, no sabían. So entonces se juntaron and they said let's do a survey. Vamos a hacer, vamos a buscar la data que necesitamos. I tell you if a college professor was writing a dissertation and he got 1600 surveys, he would have five dissertations. Si un profesor estaba haciendo un estudio y salía en ese lugar con más de 1600 entrevistas, tuviera información para escribir cinco libros. Y estas señoras todas, muchas con poca educación, no sabían mucho inglés, sabían las preguntas and because of who they were they got the information porque eran las vecinas. Oiga señora, oiga doña Chole, ¿Qué sabe usted esto? Hey comadre, what do you know about this? They got the answers. Está ahí escrito, no sé nada, muy poco. You can see the handwriting del pueblo. I don't know anything. I know very little. But you could also see that these were important questions. Preguntas muy importantes para la comunidad. These were very important questions. And it was una comadre asking another one. Una señora del barrio ir a las casas de sus vecinos. They were going to their neighborhood. It wasn't the college sending researchers or Yale or anybody. It was the grassroots looking at itself. La comunidad, viéndose a sí mismo y queriendo saber, ¿Qué saben mis vecinas? ¿Qué saben las comadres? Once they put all the data together, of course we helped them. Nosotros ayudamos que hicieran un reporte que se mirara bonito. We helped them make it look good. But esto vino de trabajo de ellas. This came from their work. Do you know what it takes to visit even 10 families? Nomás lo que se iba a visitar 10 familias, visitaron más de 1600 casas home to home. Entonces, once we put the report together, ¿Cómo le vamos a hacer? La podemos llevar a televisión. We can give it to the newspaper. No, vamos a tener una junta. Let's have a meeting. So they got the college to give them a free space. They invited everybody. Y fuimos a Hueslaco en August, el agosto pasado. Les ayudamos prepararse, pero iba importante, le quedó importante era que tuvieran diálogo. They wanted not just somebody like me talking up here. No era nomás alguien predicando. So en las mesas le dimos mucho tiempo a la conversación. Dos conversaciones. La primera, ¿Qué está pasando? La comunidad dando evidencia. The first conversation was a lady saying, this is how they treat me at school when I went to find out about my kids credits. Or me trataron muy bien. It wasn't a matter of just criticizing, it was just that the community was sharing its experiences. Do you know what it takes to get school people to listen to families? ¿Saben lo que se lleva para que la escuela escuche estas familias? So you organize organizes para que pase eso. La segunda conversación, ok, tenemos este reporte, nos escuchamos. Then they got together by affinity groups. Los comunitarios aquí, las escuelas acá, con los que trabajan o están unidos. ¿Qué vamos a hacer? What are we going to do? Plan of action. Y cada que nos quiera juntamos los planes de acción. No eran perfectos los planes, unos estaban generales, pero había creo 15 planes, 15 plans of action came out of that mesa comunitaria, 15 planes de acción. And then every month the committee that she co-chairs checks que están haciendo. That committee says what is everybody doing? Are you doing the follow-up? Because they knew a good meeting is a good meeting, but then vámonos. No, no, no, follow-up. Every month I just went to the meeting last month. And they want to have other follow-up. They want to set up a research design to pick six or eight students that are in the middle school and follow-up until they graduate to see what happens to them. I don't know if we can pull it off. No sé si podemos hacer ese estudio, pero ellas quieren saber que está pasando. So entonces en Brownsville tuvimos esa conferencia en un sábado on a Saturday at the clinic. We filled up the room. The superintendent said hello, gave the welcome and then left. But the ladies presented, there was a presentation this morning that they did over there. The graduation requirements. Que son los requisitos de graduación hecho por amas de casa que se prepararon para esto? No es el profesor Montemayor, son las ellas, la comunidad. So the community is informing the community. And then in far we decided let's not just tell them what the graduation requirements, let them hear examples of students that are getting those kinds of courses and those kinds of credits. But not only the students like her, she's one of the top ten percent, she's brilliant. But we had some students that had dropped out of school five years before. The school brought them back. Se habían alejado de la escuela, los trajo para atrás y le dijeron no te vamos a traer para tu GED, ni tu diploma de high school. Vamos a traerte porque vas a ir a la universidad. We're recruiting you come back to school because you're going to go to college. The drop out recovery program in that school district is to bring them back to connect them either to south Texas college, but they're going to get college credit before they get their high school diploma. They don't care about GED, they don't care. And the superintendent says we're not going to send them back to the school they dropped out of because they're going to last a month and they're going to leave. And that district is set as a goal that they will have zero dropouts and every student will graduate with at least six hours of college credit. The community wants more education even though there's no money for adult education. Every campus has a parent learning center where they have English as a second language, GED, all kinds of courses. And last year they said every school employee, janitor, secretary, who you are, you can access training to. We want you to go back to school. So in this community there was this little girl, this little girl, giving evidence of what it's like to take college credit courses, how to be fully biliterate and take biology in Spanish. Another presenter, and they had 20-minute sessions and the parents were taken around to all the sessions, and they were just like that listening to high school kids talk about they never heard about this, and they were the ambassadors and they got involved in the conversations. We had over 180 adults, we had about 30 children in childcare that they were providing there, and we had about 30 to 40 students. And there was a lot of competition because there was a fiesta going on and stuff like that. But this mesa comunitaria is a perfect example of the community doing research, following up on the research, and figuring out how to do follow-up. We know that a lot of kids might leave school, might drop out, and we, all our kids, all our students have to be well prepared, so we need to have that happen. Questions? Anybody? Comments? So this process all began through your PTA? We started working with the PTA, and it was like we started in a rise, and it was a model of the PTA, which was in Alamos, Texas. We were invited to... A community. A community. A community. No, it's a community. The school's PTA is very different from the community, because we are doing it to educate our parents, not for money, we don't charge anything, we don't make funds for anything, so we are working with our parents so that they can learn how to help their children. This survey and this action did come from the PTA comunitarios, but they are part of a larger network of 11 organizations in the valley. These organizations that look at health, housing, but all of them have put education on the front burner in what they do. So this whole thing did stir from the comunitarios, because these are the education working groups, but also from other organizations that are involved in civil rights. It's a large network, and they all see the comunitario as the education point for their work. This is the United Voices Network. It was how we organized it, and we chose the issue of education, because we know that education is very important to our children. My question is, in our district... At my school, we do not have a PTA. So for example, if I go back to our community and say, I would like to have a round-top conversation opposing the questions that you put before us, can just from our community and our school, our parents, do you all recommend that? They say they don't have a PTA in their school. What can parents do to have these conversations if they don't have an organization? You have to organize yourselves. If you are very interested, you can start talking to the parents of the school to see what the way they are going to organize themselves. And of course, talking to the director, right? And tell him about the concern he has. So it's made up of parents, administrators, and business owners. So it's somewhat like a PTA. No, their organizations are community-based. Their family is coming together, and that's what's important. Others can be members, but the power comes from these families connecting with families about education. She works for Mano a Mano. They're part of the network of Equal Voice. They heard about one of the organizations as part of that network that eight years ago had formed this community. And they heard about it and said, we want that. We were interested, and that's where it came from. They talked to their boss, they're sponsored by a clinic, the Brownsville Community Health Cleaning, and they talked to the people in the clinic saying, we want to start a comunitario. Even though they're doing health outreach, they wanted to have an education project. And that's how they started. No, they are a PTA. No, this has nothing to do with the school PTA. They are an official PTA, but it's a different model. It's a community PTA in the community, not in the school. Yes, ma'am? You have a president, and you have a vice president. They have that, but they're not in a school. Yeah, but PTA, you do have to report like if you do get funds and things like that. Right. They don't raise funds. Okay, the comunitarios are official PTAs. I'm a member of seven PTAs. I'm a card carrying member of all these PTAs. These are comunitario PTAs. They're not based in schools, no principal tells them what to do. And they have some educators that are members, but these are based in community organizations, like a RISE, like mano a mano, a pata pata, whatever the organization is, they're based in an organization in the community. And it's almost 12.20. Anybody else have another comment or question out here? Who? David? Wait, wait. PTA comunitarios siempre son en las casas de alguna de ustedes, o se puede hacer también en la escuela? Bueno, se puede, si usted está dentro de una escuela y no hay uno formado, pues se puede formar dentro de la escuela. Pero en otras nuestras reuniones hacemos una ahí en el saloncito que tenemos de la clínica. Ahí nos permiten. Y ahí hacemos nuestras juntas del PTA souls, y también nos prestan en una iglesia para el área de que formamos el galaxy. También ahí nos prestan para hacer las juntas. Okay, it's very important you understand that even though it's called a PTA, these are very different kinds of animals. These are based in the community. We got the bare bones official what it needs to become a PTA. So we follow all the rules. They have officers. We send dues to the state and the national, but they are not on a campus. They're not in a school, and they are their own bosses. I just wanted to say I am an administrator for a school district, and we are partners with these PTA comunitarios because they help us a lot. They're a big asset to our program. So whenever we can, we lend them facilities to hold meetings. They come into our schools and they hold meetings, but we're partners with them because they're extremely useful and they make many more home visits than we do. So we always work together. So they are a big asset to a school district. So it's a good idea to partner with them. As she said, that particular school district is a partner. This mini mesa comunitaria was a partnership of that school district, Arise, the sponsored organization, and IDRA, my organization, because they form partnerships as equals. So that's where it stands. It's 12.20. Son las 12.20. Let's give them a hand, please. And lunch will be in this room. Aquí va a hacer la comida. Van a abrir las paredes y aquí vamos a comer. La grande se está comiendo la chiquita.