Promoting Full Participation by Immigrant Parents
New York City’s Department of Education has responded to our participatory action research, direct action and strategic policy advocacy by issuing new Chancellor’s regulations that require translation services at all New York City schools and by investing over twelve million dollars annually in a new Translation and Interpretation Services Unit to ensure that hundreds of thousands of New York City parents with limited English can participate meaningfully in the education of their children.

Last February, immigrant parents and advocates joined with Mayor Bloomberg, Chancellor Klein, Speaker Quinn and City Council Members to announce the expansion of language assistance services for limited English proficient parents.

This expanded initiative to ensure meaningful parental participation for hundreds of thousands of immigrant will benefit one out of every four New York City schoolchildren.

Catalina Martinez, a Make the Road New York Parents in Action member and an immigrant mother, spoke at the press conference. She said, "I am a mother of a boy who is in seventh grade at IS 93 in Queens. I value education a lot and I want the best for my son. I want to help my son succeed at school. I want to collaborate with his teachers to be sure that he is doing his homework and making academic progress.

"Today, I feel very happy that Mayor Bloomberg and the Department of Education are taking steps to eliminate language barriers and to guarantee that every parent in the city has the opportunity to support their child to succeed at school."

Although we applaud the Mayor’s commitment to translation services, actual change is lagging behind. In September 2006, Parents in Action and allies held a press conference to bring attention to the fact that schools are still not providing translation services even though there are new Chancellor’s Regulations in place. In response, the Department of Education has scheduled the first meeting of a new Taskforce–on which Make the Road New York will have a representative--to make sure that schools are providing these services to parents.

Parents In Action Advocate for Better Schools and an Expanded Role in Their Children’s Education
Members of Make the Road New York’s Parents in Action committees in Brooklyn and Queens helped found the Brooklyn-Queens 4 Education Collaborative (BQ4E), a new voice for students and parents in Region 4 of the New York City school system. The neighborhoods represented by BQ4E are among the most ethnically, linguistically, and economically diverse in the United States (Bushwick in Brooklyn, and Woodside, Jackson Heights, Corona, and Elmhurst in Queens), and have some of the highest percentages of immigrant students in New York City. BQ4E has focused its initial organizing efforts on increasing funding for after-school programs that serve the region’s students. Availability of these programs is a particularly acute need for immigrant parents, who not only work long hours, but also often do not have the English skills to help their children with homework. At current levels of funding, only one in five Region 4 students can get access to after-school programming. BQ4E has allied with citywide advocacy groups to demand that the city increase funding for after-school programs citywide by $100 million over the next three years.

Youth Power: Changing high school policies
In 2005, Make the Road New York’s youth members secured a number of significant transformations in the policies at area high schools. After months of negotiating with Department of Education officials, Bushwick High School campus, where approximately 1500 area teenagers go to school each day, opened a second entrance, cutting wait time to enter the building in half. Although students continue to be subjected to scanning and metal detectors when they arrive at school, they are no longer forced to wait in line for as long as 30 minutes to get into their first period classes.

The Urban Youth Collaborative
In collaboration with other youth organizing groups, and with support from the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, Make the Road New York continued to build a voice for students in educational decision-making through the development of the Urban Youth Collaborative. In October 2005, the UYC hosted a citywide convening which drew nearly 800 high school students, and brought them into dialogue with educational policymakers about how to enhance supports for students in communities like Bushwick in getting access to college. The convening prompted a series of meetings with regional superintendents throughout the city, and promises to lead to the investment of increased resources in college access programs in Bushwick and throughout the city.

In 2007, youth members secured a commitment from the New York City Department of Education to open a pilot Student Success Center in the Bushwick campus. This new center, the first of its kind in the city, will be operated by Make the Road New York, and will offer college counseling and academic support, along with other services. Youth members continue to advocate for the proliferation of these centers in high schools throughout New York City.

Partnering with teachers and administrators to engage youth in community issues
At the Bushwick School for Social Justice (which opened in 2003 with the support of Make the Road New York) our staff continues to play an important role in bringing social justice issues and activities into the classroom, and supporting teachers in building their capacity to address these issues. All BSSJ students develop community action projects with the support of teachers and Make the Road New York staff, and ninth graders participate in "Town Hall", a program which engages them in dialogue about central social justice concepts such as identity, democracy, and community organizing.

Adult Education: Breaking down barriers to success
Nearly 600 students in our extensive English as a Second Language classes learned the critical English skills necessary to navigate a complex city and secure a decent job. These students learned how to communicate with their doctors, how to tell time and make appointments, how to ask for help from 911, how to talk about their families, share personal information and prepare for a job interview. In our computer classes, students obtained and used email accounts and learned how to use the internet for work searches.

We continue to focus on Spanish language literacy. As one of only a handful of programs in the city that provides adult Spanish speakers the opportunity to develop basic reading and writing skills in their native language, we are an important resource for this service, and have begun integrating English language content into these classes in a way that provides students desperate for this knowledge opportunities to develop it, while prioritizing their literacy needs.

Make the Road New York’s values of respect, collective action, and community leadership influence our adult education classes. Teachers in the program construct their curricula with a student-focused approach, engage students in dialogue about issues central to our organizing campaigns, and encourage students to become members of the organization.

Our classes are offered in partnership with the Consortium for Worker Education, which we hope will be a sustainable source of support for this highly effective program over the long term.

Youth Development: A Holistic Approach
Each year, core youth participants receive sustained academic support, opportunities to engage in a range of after-school programs, and extensive training and hands-on experience in civic action projects at Make the Road New York. Hundreds more youth were involved in short-term projects or events. With the recent opening of the Bushwick Futures Lab, a homework help and college exploration center, we look forward to enhancing our supports for students in achieving academic success.

Earlier this year, the Bushwick Social Justice Theatre Collective rehearsed and performed Where Has My Soul Gone?, the dramatic script that emerged out of youth participants’ individual tales of surviving domestic violence, rape, teen pregnancy, drug abuse and suicidal depression. Participants also learned about history and public policy that relates to the script (e.g., the history of the Rockefeller Drug Laws in New York state and federal policies on teen reproductive rights).

Over 20 youth were involved in all aspects of this very moving production, which was staged twice in Manhattan at Café WOW and twice in Bushwick. The Theatre Collective is already at work on a new piece for the 2006-2007 school year.

The growth of our youth program has entailed a restructuring — we now have four leadership tiers, and celebrate youth who meet the requirements for graduating from one tier to another three times per year. We also host an annual program of leadership development retreats and are building a program of curriculum and other resources that expands on our particular organizational strengths. We are well-poised to impact the lives of more young people in the years to come.

Expanding Civil Rights | Promoting Health | Improving Housing | Winning Workplace Justice | Improving Public Education