Family Engagement in Action: Springboard Collaborative

Helping educators and families build a relationship, set a goal, and make a shared game plan for increasing daily reading at home

By Alejandro Gibes de Gac June 22, 2021

Family & Community Engagement

This essay and video are part of a series that supplement Embracing a New Normal: Toward a More Liberatory Approach to Family Engagement by Karen L. Mapp and Eyal Bergman, a report commissioned by Carnegie Corporation of New York that explores the dynamics and barriers that stand in the way of effective family-school partnerships and outlines how to reach a more liberatory, solidarity-driven, and equity-focused family engagement practice that supports educational excellence for all children. The essays and videos highlight five grantee partners of Carnegie Corporation of New York that are innovating and leading in the field of family-school partnerships and are rethinking their family engagement practices amid the COVID-19 pandemic and a renewed national reckoning on systemic racism.

As soon as schools closed, Springboard Collaborative sprang into action to help parents and teachers make distance learning a fruitful and sustainable experience. We pivoted on a dime to launch virtual programming, and we open-sourced Springboard’s recipe for impact — a method we call Family-Educator Learning Accelerators, or FELAs. FELAs are five- to 10-week cycles during which teachers and parents team up to help kids reach learning goals. In the beginning, educators and families build a relationship, set a goal, and make a shared game plan. Over five to 10 weeks, they convene weekly or biweekly to share skills and strategies. On a daily basis, children work toward their goal by practicing with their teachers, with their families, and on their own. The cycle concludes by measuring progress and celebrating together. Small wins lead to big wins and lasting behavior change.

Springboard is now serving more than three times as many children — and 10 times as many schools — as we had ever reached in person. Families have been averaging 26 minutes of daily reading at home, an increase from pre-COVID numbers. An analysis of nearly 10 million students found that 15 minutes seems to be the magic number for substantial positive gains in reading achievement. Across DC Public Schools, Springboard’s virtual family workshops averaged a record-breaking 99 percent parent attendance.

Closing the digital divide is a step in the right direction, but technology’s potential to help children learn will never be fulfilled if we don’t simultaneously invest in realizing the teaching potential of their families. Academic disparities aren’t widening because privileged kids have access to superior screen time. They’re widening because of all the things their parents are doing off-screen. Frankly, teaching has always been the province of parents. COVID-19 simply put this into stark relief. What matters most in a child’s life is their family — not their school, and not their technology. Connections matter even more than connectivity.

Alejandro Gibes de Gac is founder and chief executive officer of Springboard Collaborative, a nonprofit organization that works with educators and family members to close the literacy gap.

Photo Credit: Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images | Video Credit: Carnegie Corporation of New York