Building Skills Partnership
Project Title
For project support of Carnegie Scholarships for undergraduates and vocational ESL training for immigrant and newcomer workers in the Los Angeles area
Date
Sep. 12, 2024
Duration
24 months
Description
California’s janitorial workforce, predominantly composed of immigrants, faces significant economic and educational challenges including low wages, minimal benefits, and limited career advancement opportunities under subcontractors. These difficulties are compounded by language barriers that hinder both professional growth and parental engagement in their children’s education, perpetuating a cycle of intergenerational poverty. Since its inception in 2007, Building Skills Partnership (BSP) has been dedicated to leveling the playing field for these workers by providing essential job skills through workforce development programs, facilitating integration into American civic life with immigrant inclusion initiatives, and fostering community partnerships to address educational needs.With Corporation support, BSP will expand its impact by providing traditional and vocational ESL instruction to at least 500 workers. This will scale their traditional ESL by 329 percent and vocational ESL by 233 percent. Additionally, they will offer college access support services for workers’ children, $80,000 in Carnegie scholarships, and paid internship opportunities. This holistic approach aims to empower individual families and promote lasting social and economic mobility across immigrant communities in California.
Website
Project Title
For project support to increase parent communication with schools and educators, RFP Yr 2
Date
Sep. 14, 2023
Duration
12 months
Description
All stakeholders, including parents and educators, need to be involved to achieve student success. However, many Latino parents face barriers to engaging with their children’s educators. Work schedules, especially for families with low-paying jobs, often prevent them from attending school events, and when they can attend, teachers are typically busy teaching. Additionally, many parents need help understanding how the education system works. Building Skills Partnerships (BSP), a nonprofit founded in 2007, addresses these challenges by serving Latino immigrant parents in partnership with janitorial and airport service workers’ unions. With funding from the Corporation’s RFP on family engagement to support student learning, BSPprovided workshops to help parents better understand the education system and encourage school completion and college attendance. With renewed support from the Corporation, BSPwill evolve its partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUD) and seek to collaborate with school districts with a significant presence of parent workers from the Service Employee International Union-United Service Workers West. This approach will prepare BSP for program expansion beyond LAUD.
Website
Project Title
For project support for Innovative Approaches to Strengthening the Home-School Connection to Support Educational Excellence for all Students
Date
Jun. 09, 2022
Duration
16 months
Description
For the overall school success of students, all stakeholders need to be involved including parents, and educators. Many Latinx parents are not able to engage with their students’ educators for a variety of reasons. Often their work schedules, especially for families with low paying jobs, prevent them from attending school events. Furthermore, many immigrant parents do not understand how the education system works. Founded in 2007, Building Skills Partnerships is a nonprofit serving Latinx immigrant parents. They work to overcome the challenges facing immigrant workers and their families in realizing the benefits of social, civic, and economic integration. With the Corporation request for proposals on family engagement to support student learning grant opportunity,Building Skills Partnerships will (a) update their Parent University curriculum and facilitate the curriculum to parents, (b) determine the schools where the children of family members attend in order to expand support(c) establish a partnership with Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) so support school-family partnerships that better alignswith parent needs.