What is the role of parents in collective impact?

Too often parents are seen as the problem instead of as partners in finding to the solution to student academic success. We make assumptions about parents instead of giving them a voice to explain their hopes and dreams for their children.

From the beginning of Edgewater Collective, parent engagement and empowerment have been an important part of our work in the greater Edgewater area.

Thanks to a Denver Foundation Strengthening Neighborhoods grant, we were able to focus on investing in parents at Lumberg Elementary School. We worked with parents to form a Parent Leadership Team that met regularly with school leaders. Spanish speaking parents and English speaking parents came together to give input on parent concerns and strategize how to get more parents involved.

The language barrier is a road block to unifying parents and empowering Latino parents but it can be overcome. Cultural differences can also create barriers to bringing parents together. Our hope is that we can create a unified parent group that listens to all voices and finds the common ground across different languages and cultures.

As we move deeper into collective impact and creating a cradle to career pathway, parents will be important partners in this work. Their voice and engagement is very important for this pathway to be successful.

We are excited for the next step in engaging and empowering all parents this next school year!