Research on Diverse Users at Evergreen Public Schools
The problem: At many schools across the country and at Wy’east Middle School in Vancouver, Washington, Spanish-speaking parents have far lower engagement with school staff than English-speaking parents. This engagement gap is accompanied by lower achievement metrics for these students, who make up over a third of the student body. Administration had guesses at how to support these families, but hadn’t asked in any formal manner.
The process: This project took four months to organize and implement. It involved collaboration with over a dozen internal stakeholders and outreach to around 200 families.
I started by completing a comparative analysis of focus groups where school leaders interview specific communities for how to better serve their needs.
Next, I developed interview questions and tested them with diverse peers. With each question, my goal was to invite vulnerability and storytelling among participants so that we could gather information about their experiences in the school system, barriers to engagement, and overall needs.
I helped develop a marketing plan to support attendance at the event. I arranged incentives and advocated for times that worked with families’ lives.
I arranged for live translation/transcription during these sessions, so that we could evaluate the sessions and track trends in the stories.
The result: A quarter of all invited participants shared their stories and allowed decision-makers to uncover themes within this community: lack of tutoring, insufficient translation at all levels, and no trusted Spanish-speaking advocate at the school. These insights led to more outreach about ongoing tutoring, the creation of a new Spanish-Speaking Family Liaison position, and more training for all staff in digital translation tools.
