One of the online tools, ATLAS Connect, is a protected messaging system capable of directly translating messages into the user’s preferred language, making communications easier between English-only speaking teachers and non-English speaking parents.
“Teachers can send announcements to their classrooms. It’s kind of like Facebook Messenger for your class. You can also securely connect one-one with your teacher,” Superintendent Bob Nelson told reporters at a news conference Friday.
The announcement was a part of the district’s overall goal to engage families in student learning.
“We share with families the joint burden of raising our youth within our community. All of the resources we’re highlighting today provide our families with the opportunity to do more for their kids and to increase opportunities for them to be engaged,” Nelson said.
Nelson acknowledged the challenges teaching during the 2021-2022 semester has been.
“It’s no great secret that the last year and a half pandemic educating has just been hard,” Nelson said. “2020 was rough. We thought 2021 might be a little bit easier, but it’s actually probably proven as hard or harder than 2020 given staffing gaps.”
Nelson acknowledged “everybody lost ground” due to the global pandemic and said the district needs to do more to get “kids caught up because they lost a significant amount of instruction.”
Nelson highlighted three other resources for parents to engage in student learning: Clever, a portal where students can access math and English supports such as Tutor.com; the district’s digital library, Sora; and Exercise Your Brain, a section on the district’s website that provides further at-home learning resources. It allows parents to print lessons and includes skill-building exercises students can complete side by side with a family member.
Nelson also said the district provides learning opportunities for parents through Parent University. Parent University offers resources for helping parents learn how to transition their child from middle school to high school, the college application process, and learning and what leadership opportunities are available for parents to further engage in a student's school.
All the resources are available in three languages: Spanish, English and Hmong.
“A lot of these opportunities leverage technology to help us do more with our kids,” Nelson said.
DIGITAL LITERACY FOR PARENTS
Digital literacy and access to quality Internet remain challenges for families across Fresno. FUSD installed 15 private LTE towers across Fresno to provide faster and free Internet service for FUSD families.
Trustee Veva Islas acknowledged the digital literacy gap among families in Fresno.
“I believe we need to be fully conscious of that, and that’s why we do things like parents university where parents can not only call, but they can come in person and get some hands-on support,” Islas said.
Previously, The Bee reported Parent Institute for Quality Education surveyed Californians in English and Spanish and reported that nearly 30% of respondents across the central San Joaquin Valley didn’t even have an email address.
“I can fully understand how overwhelming this is for parents and how kids growing up in this generation with parents who have no digital literacy, to them having to be the digital literacy experts in their families, what a tremendous disadvantage,” Islas told the Education Lab.
Nikki Henry, FUSD’s chief communications officer, provides support to “help parents utilize devices,” and classes are offered “on using specific digital resources like Microsoft Teams and Atlas.”
Henry also said Fresno Adult School is a good place for building digital skills. Other resources for learning digital literacy include Fresno State’s Parent University and the Parent Institute for Quality Education.
©2021 The Fresno Bee (Fresno, Calif.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
