May is the traditional month of commencement, but a pair of first-of-their-kind ceremonies in the waning days of April got the 2019 season underway at DMPS.

On Monday, April 22nd and Saturday, April 27th at Grandview University, a total of 57 parents became the district’s first cohort to complete and graduate from the Family Leadership Institute (FLI), a five-week program designed for families new to this country.

The FLI was established in 1998 and was originally designed to assist Hispanic families of primarily Mexican origin. Its model was adapted to serve a wider population by an unsung but vital cadre of the district, 23 Bilingual Family Liaisons (BFL) who build bridges across linguistic chasms.

Jennifer Shedd is one of the BFLs and she coordinated the recent graduation ceremonies. Based at Hoover, which was one of the sites for the Saturday FLI sessions (Edmunds was the other), her expertise is in Vietnamese, one of the 16 “low-incident” native languages spoken by the graduates who hail from 10 different countries.

“Eleven BFLs are for low-incident languages and 12 are Hispanic,” she said. “Some of the BFLs speak as many as five languages. These FLI workshops were for low-incident families only…and were conducted in English. There are members of the low incident groups who speak English as a second language. As we were planning our FLI workshop, we targeted those who speak English and committed to attending five weeks workshop. ”

Lessons include a college tour and “provide parents with skills and attitudes to enhance their own personal success so they can serve as better role models for their children. Workshops include lectures, discussions, storytelling and role-playing. We think our parents learn a lot from the workshops and they are looking forward to more training,” according to Shedd.

This is above-and-beyond sort of work, teaching parents (on Saturdays) in addition to their children.

“I think it is simply wonderful,” said Hoover principal Sherry Poole, who spoke at the April 27th ceremony.

She knows how helpful this type of outreach is in a community as culturally diverse as Hoover’s. For students to thrive and succeed in a foreign environment, whole families require some level of assimilation.

“Our next FLI training will be conducted in different languages, so that parents who speak no English can have equal access to FLI training,” Shedd explained. “These trainings will be held on a monthly basis throughout the (2019-20) school year.”

Before this year is over, eight more traditional commencement exercises will take place, each of them representing accomplishment of the district’s primary objective; graduating students from high school, well prepared for the next stage of their lives. That is any public school district’s assigned task. But worth noting, too, is the successful completion of an extra, important one that DMPS took upon itself, one that most districts do not face.

Congratulations to the FLI/BFL Parent Class of 2019!