Building strong connections between school and home
Janice Raymond
Janice supported the creation of Cajon Valley’s family community engagement program, which aims to better connect refugee families with schools in California. Janice and the teachers visit homes to build relationships, understand family aspirations, and align efforts between home and school. This approach has improved the involvement of parents in their children’s education, and also improved student attendance and classroom behaviour. One parent was given a meaningful role in the school’s food distribution program, then became more engaged in the school and more supportive.
Listen to Janice
“The relationship is built in the community just by reaching out and making that first step. It is really quite astonishing how that ripple effect works. You don’t need to visit every single family to have an effect on every single family.”
Janice Raymond
Janice Raymond
Janice Raymond has been a teacher in the Cajon Valley Union School District for over 40 years. She began her career as a special education teacher and expanded to facilitator and support teacher at a school that was highly impacted by immigrant and refugee students. Her Master’s degree in parent education showed her the importance of working with parents in partnership. Janice’s current role as Teacher Facilitator in the family and community engagement department is to support district staff with strategies and practices that promote and encourage family engagement.
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Janice Raymond