Early Edge California Parent Advisory Groups
In April 2022, Early Edge convened parents of children ages 0-5 statewide to share their children’s educational experience and discuss the policy initiatives they would like to see Early Edge California continue to pursue.
Early Edge hosts two Parent Advisory Groups, one in English and one in Spanish. During the meetings in April the parents discussed the needed resources to continue to develop their children’s education.
The Parent Advisory Group shared they would like to see:
- Bilingual and dual language immersion programs offered in their schools, including an expansion of more languages, aside from Spanish.
- Additional funding for:
- more dual language immersion programs in schools
- access to affordable child care services and programs
- home visiting services
- More information about home visiting services including how to access them.
Parents whose home language is a language other than English share they would like to receive more resources to help develop their child’s home language and encourage bilingualism in the home. Parents also shared in both groups that they would like more supportive services to help bridge the gap in learning due to the pandemic. Parents mentioned they would be interested in accessing tools that could help them complement their child’s writing, reading, and math skills.
Parents feel as if the implementation of these resources will continue to help their children develop their learning skills. They are very interested in having bilingual programs become a part of the school’s curriculum. During the meeting, a parent shared “A mí me gustaría que apoyen económicamente para implementar en más escuelas el programa completo de español.” I would like to see additional funding to implement Spanish programs in more schools.
Early Edge will continue to convene the Parent Advisory Group throughout the 2022 year. This will help inform policy and advocacy initiatives for the upcoming year.