Read the full article from the Montrose Daily Press here.
“When Bishnu Rai’s children started school at Aurora’s Crawford Elementary five years ago, she initially felt lost. She wasn’t very social and she struggled to help her children, she says.
But thanks to Crawford’s community school model, she’s been getting more involved, learning English, and now feels confident enough she’s helping come up with a plan for empowering other immigrant parents.
Crawford Elementary is one of six schools in Aurora that are using the community schools model. Five of them are part of the ACTION Zone, a group of schools near Denver’s border that have high levels of poverty and large numbers of language learners. The district grouped the schools years ago as part of a plan to better support the schools with similar needs.
At Crawford, some of the work has gone on for almost 10 years, but evolved as the zone schools committed to a “community schools” model in the past five years. The approach focuses on using community partners to address whole family needs, with the end goal of ensuring that children have fewer social and emotional barriers to learning.”