Parents who have completed the Parent Training Institute can join the Parent Leadership Team. The purpose of the Team is to build the capacity of parents to become leaders in their school community and to teach them how to pursue action to improve their local school and school system. The Team meets for one year of training, support and community action and is typically comprised of 10-12 multi-cultural parents.

How the team works
The Team is usually comprised of a group of ten to twelve minority and immigrant parents.  Meeting twice a month for three hours in the evening, the group. At every meeting, two parents participate in planning and facilitate the session with IMPACT’s facilitator.

The group meets regularly for individual and peer support and for training by staff using a meeting format adapted from the Transformation through Education and Mutual Support model based in Oakland, California. Parents are trained in a wide variety of topics such as:

• Effective communication,
• Team building and collaboration,
• Setting and reaching goals,
• How to plan and implement a project and
• Handling differences between people.

At every meeting, two parents help plan and facilitate the session with IMPACT’s facilitator.

Throughout the year, parents on the Team pursue specific community action projects in their neighborhood and in the schools. Examples of these projects include:

The after school homework club started last spring by a group of African, Latino and other immigrant parents helped parents help their children with homework.

• Family Event: where families created introductory packages with pictures and letters to give to their child’s teacher on the first day of school;
• Homework Club - After-School Program: An after-school homework club that meets once a week from 6:30pm to 8:30pm where parents, teachers and tutors support children’s learning; and
• East African Parent Forum: This forum, created last year by parent leaders, meets once a month to give East African Parent a place for peer support, discussion and to share resources.