The Avonworth BRIDGE Builders

Over the past school year, a team of LSX Fellows—principal Scott Miller, researcher Susana Beltrán-Grimm, journalist Tara García Mathewson, assistant superintendent Tabitha Marino, social entrepreneur Miroslava Rodríguez-Sanchez, principal Erica Slobodnik, and children’s book author Sheila Thomas—engaged in deep listening and feedback sessions with parents to design new tools that strengthen communication and relationships between families and schools.

At Avonworth Primary Center, families who moved to the school mid-year expressed a desire to connect with other Avonworth families in their new neighborhoods. To meet this need, Miller and the team of fellows developed a program called the Avonworth BRIDGE Builders—Building Relationships, Inspiring Dialogue, Growing Education—connecting families who transition mid-year to family representatives from each of Avonworth’s five neighborhoods. When new families arrive at Avonworth, they will receive a flyer with the contact information of their local family representatives, along with suggestions about the type of support they can provide.

In addition, listening sessions with families revealed that they found Avonworth’s black-and-white school calendar difficult to understand. Miller and the fellows worked with a graphic designer to create a color-coded, user-friendly version, which will be used school-wide in the coming year.

Read more about the design process behind these innovations in our blog, "Designing Tools to Strengthen Communication and Relationships Between Families and Schools," and explore the policies that enable this type of collaboration in our brief, "What Parents Want: How Policies Can Spur School-to-Family Connections and Build Trust."