In an effort to empower parents to learn English and be more involved in their children’s education, the Houston Independent School District has partnered with AVANCE in Houston to offer free English as a Second Language (ESL) classes online through the district’s website and public access TV channel.
“Parents play a critical role in ensuring the academic success of each child,” HISD’s Parent Engagement Senior Manager Kelly Cline said. “It is our responsibility to help parents be more involved in their child’s academic life and that includes helping parents understand the language.”
The ESL classes ‘Avanzando con HISD’ are 15 minutes long and provide a new lesson every week. In addition, each class includes a segment on the importance of parental involvement and features a representative from HISD’s Parent Engagement Department who provides a brief lesson on how parents can become more involved in their children’s school and provide the proper support their children need academically.
“We’re excited to be working in partnership with HISD,” said Jose Villarreal, executive director for AVANCE in Houston. “We feel this joint effort will contribute to a highly effecting parent engagement strategy.”
The ESL classes are taught by an educator from AVANCE and feature two actual students who have been with AVANCE for about five years.
The ESL classes are available online at houstonisd.org/avanzando. In addition, they are broadcast three times a day on HISD’s public access channels (Comcast, Ch. 18 and AT&T U-Verse, Ch. 99).
About AVANCE: AVANCE(A-vahn-ceh), the Spanish word for “advance” or “progress,” has been serving thousands of low-income families since its founding in Texas in 1973. AVANCE-Houston offers parent-Child education, Head Start, Early Head Start, healthy marriage, fatherhood, ESL, computer training and a GED program that features additional resources designed to fully prepare students to transition to college.