The FACE Forum

Welcome to the 2024-25 school year! We hope you've had a chance to relax, recharge, and get ready for another exciting year ahead! As we reflect on last year's challenges and strengths, what were ways that you built community with your students, families, and colleagues? How can you leverage and expand on those practices for this upcoming year?

In this digital monthly newsletter for school staff and district departments, our Family & Community Engagement (FACE) team shares practical family and community building tips, high-leverage engagement strategies, upcoming family workshops, staff professional development opportunities, district and community resources, school shoutouts, and more!

Thank you for taking a moment to read our newsletter each month and please feel free to share it with your school/ department teams. While our FACE Forum monthly newsletter is an internal newsletter intended to only be shared with district staff, you are invited to take any applicable parts of the newsletter that may support your families and add to your own site/classroom newsletters and family messaging.

Please note that in an effort to create more accessible messaging for viewers, we will be limiting the amount of PDF flyers we digitally include in the FACE Forum newsletter and on our website. Instead, we will be creating simple graphics and content blurbs with accessible links that can be copied and pasted onto your own social media, newsletter, or any other forms of messaging you use for your families. Hard copies of flyers that we do include in the FACE Forum and our monthly mailers to sites are meant to only be used for physical displays at sites and/or handed out to families and staff. The flyers are not intended to be scanned and posted on websites or social media solely as a PDF or image, since the content on the flyers is not accessible to families with visual impairments. Instead, please visit our website or FACE Forum newsletter to grab the image and content for your postings and link families and staff back to our website for more details. Friendly links to our website are www.sanjuan.edu/face or www.sanjuan.edu/familyed.

Thank you for all you do to engage with and support our San Juan students, families, and community! Our FACE team is here to help you, so please reach out to us at any time!

Wishing you a great school year ahead!

The FACE Team

We're thrilled to congratulate two of our FACE team members on their new positions! Congratulations to Natalia Aguirre-Mazzi, our new Coordinator of Partnerships, Volunteers and Field Trips, and Kimber Rice, our new District Community Engagement Specialist! We're so excited to see all the great things they've got planned to continue supporting our students, families and school communities!

We also want to congratulate our team member Azadeh Khazaei who will be transitioning out of FACE into her new role as a counseling intern. While we'll miss Azadeh serving as our Parent Family Support Ambassador at Encina, we're thankful for all she's done on our FACE team and know what a great addition she'll continue to be to our students and families as a counseling intern!

Our team will soon be hiring for a Facilitator of partnerships and volunteers, as well as a Parent/Family Support Ambassador for Encina High School. Positions will be posted soon! Please reach out to our FACE department if you or someone you know is interested in joining our team!

DIRECT TO TEACHER GRANTS San Juan Education Foundation

Parent/Family hub www.sanjuan.edu/parents

Student hub www.sanjuan.edu/students

FACE Outreach requests (Face Mobile, mini clinics and more!) https://bit.ly/FACEoutreach

FACE Lending Library of Fun https://bit.ly/FACElendingfun

Staff Digital Resource Library (community/district flyers) https://bit.ly/FACEresource

San Juan Unified Volunteer information www.sanjuan.edu/volunteer

FACE department Intranet! (Field trip forms, volunteer flyers and more!) intranet.sanjuan.edu/face

Community Resources www.sanjuan.edu/communityresources

• Food

• Clothing

• Diapers

• Utilities & Housing

• Social & Recreational

• Academic

• Disability & Special Education

• Employment

• Mental Health

• Refugee, Immigrant & Newcomer Supports

• LGBTQIA+

• Domestic Violence

• and more!

Backpack Giveaway, Asm. McCarty & Mayor Pro Tem Talamantes at Northgate Park, Sacramento CA, Age-Specific (sacramento365.com)

Single Mom Strong's Backpack and School Supply Distribution - Single Mom Strong's Backpack and School Supply Distribution Tickets, Sun, Aug 11, 2024 at 11:30 AM | Eventbrite

Copy and paste Family Workshop info direct from www.sanjuan.edu/familyed for Smore, Social Media, Class Dojo, Talking Points and email messaging! Digital content is translatable and accessible for families.

Our free monthly family education workshops begin in September! Families and staff can scan the QR code or visit www.sanjuan.edu/familyed for details and registration!

Are you ready to grow your knowledge around family and community engagement, while also earning professional development hours? Our FACE Team's lineup of virtual workshops is now open for registration! The workshops take place on Zoom and are open to all certificated and classified staff members in our district. You can register directly on our FACE course page in the PL Tile (click “FACE” in the "Subjects" section on the Home page).

*Note: If you are a school or department and would like to book a workshop for your entire staff, using your collaborative Thursday time or as part of your Staff Meeting time, please reach out to Amy Rovai Gregory to schedule. (arovai@sanjuan.edu)

Mark your calendars and share the information with friends and family! The FACE Families Matter Conference is coming up on Saturday, October 19 at Arden Middle School! This exciting conference has it all-- an inspiring keynote speaker, a variety of informational workshops to choose from, family-fun activities, and a large community resource fair to help you learn all about the helpful resources and supports available to you and our community! And did we mention free food, free childcare, free swag, translation support, and more?! You won't want to miss it! More detailed information is coming, but in the meantime, save the date, share with our San Juan Unified community, and stay tuned to our website for registration information! www.sanjuan.edu/face

Do you struggle with getting parents to attend your site events or participate in on-campus family meetings and volunteer opportunities? Are you interested in learning an innovative, highly-effective way to build trusting relationships with your families, while building community with your school neighborhood? Neighborhood Learning Project may be the perfect opportunity for you and your school!

The Neighborhood Learning Project partners with interested school staff and neighboring apartment complexes, community centers, parks, libraries and more to identify a space within the school community of our families, where we can bring fun learning opportunities, community resources and partners, caring school staff, and a service learning mindset for our students and their families.

Our FACE Department will fund this opportunity for interested school sites to participate, including the 1-hour training, time card pay, materials and supplies, activities, set up, community partners, and more! It's such a terrific way to engage families and build relationships!

Please click the link below to submit your interest form and a member of our FACE team will reach out to you with more information!

https://bit.ly/FACENLP

Are you looking for a way to build trusting, effective, positive relationships with your families beyond the traditional parent-teacher conference? We're excited to launch an incredible opportunity for our San Juan Unified colleagues to become trained on Parent Teacher Home Visits!

Parent Teacher Home Visits (PTHV) is a high-impact family engagement strategy designed to build trusting home-school partnerships centered on shared hopes and dreams. Recent studies reveal that PTHV’s model for relational home visits strengthens relationships, shifts mindsets, improves teaching, and bolsters student outcomes.

Through uniquely tailored sessions, teachers emerge with increased understanding of families and respect for their role as children’s first educators. They learn how to build trust with families, and they increase their capacity to better engage students in the classroom. PTHV trainings are interactive, dynamic, and essential to the start of an evidence-based home visit practice.

Reach out to Amy Rovai Gregory (arovai@sanjuan.edu) if you are interested in this training opportunity!

Did you know that FACE works with schools, local business organizations & community partners to create meaningful and sustainable partnerships? We'd love to help you and your team build relationships with the community and partner together to help improve outcomes for students!

Now is a great time to engage with your dedicated community partners and reach out to new potential partners. Share important dates with your partners and discuss what the partners work will look like this year. Include partners in your welcome back activities and celebrations. Partners love to engage with the families and students that they are serving!

To learn more about partnership opportunities or request assistance with your community partners, reach out to Natalia Mazzi-Aguirre, coordinator of partnerships, volunteers and field trips. natalia.aguirre@sanjuan.edu

The San Juan Education Foundation is revamping its Direct-to-Teacher Grant Program this Fall! Look for updates about grant program changes over the next few months including deadlines for Spring 2025 submissions. Be the first to get updates by signing up for our E-newsletter.

Make your first interaction with parents a positive one! We all know the power and impact of positive phone calls home. Find time early in the school year to have a positive interaction with parents. A simple, "I was happy to meet your child in class today" goes a long way and sets the tone for a positive school to home relationship. If you can't squeeze in a phone call, a talking points message or email will do. This is also a great way to introduce yourself and learn about the preferred methods of communication of your parents.

Research supports a correlation between direct family involvement and student success. Volunteers are a great asset to our school communities and now is a great time to recruit! As a reminder, all volunteers must complete the ONE TIME verification process found here: www.sanjuan.edu/volunteer. If cleared through our most recent online system (starting 2021), they do not have to re-do their application/prints each year. While volunteers can make appointments to be fingerprinted at our district office, we also offer after-hour fingerprinting clinics throughout the year. We are finalizing our after hour fingerprinting clinic schedule for fall and will share the dates and a flyer once finalized. Clinics will begin in September!

Volunteer tips for success!

• Advertise opportunities (and feel free to use the ready-made graphics we've created below!)

• Share mutual expectations

• Support volunteers through process

• August and September is the best time to outreach to TK & Kinder families who are most likely new to our system

• Consider having a table to support volunteer sign ups at kinder testing, orientation, meet and greet, back to school nights!

Please download and read the Volunteer Info Sheet attached as a PDF below and feel free to use the digital graphics we created for website and social media use.

We are always working on improving the field trip process to make field trips more accessible for our students and schools. This summer, our team has been working on updating the field trip packet to match our district's design standards as well as making improvements to the packet, per your feedback. Once approved, this packet will launch on the new intranet under the Family & Community Engagement Department (intranet.sanjuan.edu/face). In the meantime, please continue to use the field trip packet that is currently on the intranet and we'll swap out the new and improved one on there once it launches!

When you're ready to submit a field trip request, please send them to fieldtrips@sanjuan.edu. If you have any questions about field trips or need any additional support, please reach out to Emily Red, our field trip facilitator (emily.red@sanjuan.edu).

We're looking forward to an enriching year ahead for our students, families and school communities!

Having a family engagement event? FACE offers items for checkout at no cost to support family engagement efforts! Staff and volunteer leaders (PTO/PTA, etc) are welcome to request items on behalf of school family engagement events. We will follow up and confirm in 2-3 business days. Pickup and return of items is at the San Juan Unified District Office during pre-scheduled hours.

For more information, visit our Lending Library of Fun Catalog!

The FACE Mobile has had a busy summer visiting summer school locations and helping bring at-home learning and resources to families all across our San Juan Unified community. It's gearing up to visit every school site again this fall and will be making special appearances at many family engagement events, as well!

To request a FACE Mobile visit for one of your events, please click the link below:

https://bit.ly/FACEoutreach

To check out where the FACE Mobile is headed to next, visit our family education website at www.sanjuan.edu/familyed and click the FACE Mobile tab!

Huge thanks to the Kiwanis Club of Carmichael and their Aim Higher Aktion Club for donating socks and undergarments to the FACE Mobile for our students in need this back-to-school season! Sponsored by the Kiwanis Family, the Aim Higher Aktion Club is a service club of differently-abled adults that love to do community service. This Aktion Club is led by elected officers and administered by Aim Higher, Inc. and program directors, Krystal and Morad. We are so grateful for our incredible community partners and all that they do to support our students, families and community! Thank you Aim Higher Aktion Club and our Kiwanis of Carmichael!

We know how challenging and time-consuming it is to search for resources for families, so our team has been building a Digital Resource Library for all sites and departments to have access to. In this library, you'll find flyers and links for district and community resources to assist with housing, clothing, food, health, special education, college and career, community service partners, and more. We'll be adding to this library regularly, so keep checking to see what's new! The link allows anyone in San Juan to view the resources, so please feel free to share the link with your site/ department team members!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12Roaab9q0nSbMBTZ6Ef3nzVJ8BRxtgPj?usp=sharing

San Juan Central Food Closet

The San Juan Unified food closet is located at the Central Enrollment Center (3700 Garfield Ave. in Carmichael) and serves families who are in need of non-perishable food items.

Hours:

Open year round, Monday through Friday (8:30 am - 2:00 pm)
Closed on non-school days and holidays. If you are unavailable at these times or need further assistance, please email Veronica Allen (veronica.allen@sanjuan.edu)

At the beginning of each month, every site will receive a package from our team with the new monthly Family & Staff professional development calendar, resources, and a monthly Morale Booster idea that administrators can opt to do with their own school community. We hope this FACE Fan Mail helps remind you how much we appreciate you and all you do to help build family and community engagement!

Check out this adorable Welcome Back to the Grind pdf! Here are some fun ways to incorporate this morale booster into your kickoff to the school year:

Frame it and put it next to your Staff Room coffee maker and fill up the K-cups as an added treat for your dedicated school team.

Print it out into thank you cards and include a coffee gift card for your hardworking office team as a thank you for all they've done to get the office ready to welcome families!

Turn it into a gift card holder and place a $5 coffee card inside to use as a raffle item for your upcoming professional developments with your staff!

Add it to a ziploc bag with a coffee pod and some chocolate and give as a thank you to someone who's helped you get ready to have the best school year ever!

Welcome back to the grind! It's going to be a great year!

Also coming to your sites in your FACE Welcome Back mailer are language badges to help families find others who can assist them in their primary language. The badges say, "Need Help? I speak ___." They are perfect to give to your BIAs or other bilingual staff (or bilingual parent volunteers who can assist!) to wear during arrival and dismissal to assist families, especially the first weeks of the new school year. We've included the PDF below if you'd need extra to have on hand. (Use with Avery 3"x4" badges- template 5390)

Our FACE team has created a Student/Family Survey that schools can use to welcome new families and get to know new students joining their school site. This survey not only provides important logistical information for school staff, but also includes helpful getting-to-know-you information to quickly start building positive relationships and provide any needed supports. It's a great tool to add to any of your welcome packets or any upcoming meet-and-greets with new families! The English pdf is below and translations will be added here as we receive them back.

Going back to school and adjusting to new routines can be tricky for kids who learn and think differently — and for their families. But having the right tools can make it easier. Use these back-to-school downloads to start the school year off right.

https://www.understood.org/en/articles/printable-back-to-school-downloads?_sp=99a9c3fd-6be2-4a58-9234-5a0da1504c99.1659371280942

A practical digital guide for educators - 50 Really Good Ideas For Back-To-School-Night (dkc1jod44tx5p.cloudfront.net).

Blurb: As we prepare for the start of the school year, planning for family events such as back to school nights, meet the teacher events, new student orientations, meet and greets, etc can feel like an overwhelming task on top of the dozens of other tasks we are juggling. However, these family events can pay huge dividends in establishing positive connections and collaborative partnerships with families and students. As we know, family engagement can be a huge contributor to increased student success, and it all starts with authentic two way partnerships with families.To help you and your school team, we’d like to share this digital guide that contains 50 different tips and practical strategies to help you plan an impactful and effective back to school family event. In this guide, you will find ideas on ways to invite families, decorate a classroom or office space, engage and interact with families through activities and active participation, provide some family friendly takeaways and tools, and much more!

As a thank you for taking the time to read our back-to-school FACE Forum S'more and get up to date on all the resources and supports available to our students, families and school communities, we'll be giving away some S'mores Party Kits to some of our lucky readers! Click the link below to enter your name, school site/department and email address on the quick entry form and we'll notify the winners whose names are drawn in the September FACE Forum S'more! Winners will receive an indoor tabletop S'mores maker, graham crackers, chocolate, marshmallows and roasting sticks... everything you need for an ooey gooey delicious team treat!

Enter for your chance to win here: https://forms.gle/uNPfgpRwdSPcGoZDA

There are so many wonderful student, family and community engagement highlights happening around the district! We'd love to spotlight any of those efforts that your site, department, or another team is doing! Send us an email at face@sanjuan.edu and we'll highlight your shoutout in the next FACE Forum newsletter!

Huge shout out to some wonderful partners who helped make this summer such an enriching one for our students and families!

Aerospace Museum of California, who hosted 160 of our students for summer STEAM camps!

NFL player Arik Armstead and his Armstead Academic Project, which partnered with Teach for America, Zenni Optical, Sacramento Republic FC, Atrium 916 Art Cart, Core Power Yoga, and 916 Imaginarium to bring a comprehensive summer literacy program to students at Dyer-Kelly Elementary!

Sierra Nevada Journeys and Crocker Art Museum, who hosted more than 100 district families at our FACE Family Fun Fridays, where families got to spend some Fridays exploring enrichment opportunities together in Sacramento-- including outdoor nature fun at local river parkways, as well as the Crocker Art Museum downtown!

Superior Sports, who joined our FACE team to lead another exciting Family Leadership Camp at Camp Winthers! Over 20 families joined us this year to spend a weekend together camping and participating in a variety of fun camp activities, including hiking, campfire, challenge course, boating, team sports, swimming, arts and crafts, archery, and more!

We're so thankful for our community partners and all they do for us not only during the school year, but summer time, too! See all of these great partnerships in action by visiting our San Juan Unified School District's facebook and instagram channels!

Want to receive the monthly FACE Forum newsletters directly to your email inbox during the school year? Our newsletter is now being emailed directly to recipients who have opted in to receiving the monthly newsletter. For those who choose not to opt in to receiving the newsletter via email, you will still be able to access the newsletter in Behind the Scenes (all SJUSD employees), Leadership Reflections (administrators), Secretary Scoop (secretaries), and Elementary/Secondary Updates.

To opt in to receiving The FACE Forum newsletter directly to your Inbox, please complete this brief opt-in here: https://forms.gle/3DQ62CUCZy4HjzGt6

Email: face@sanjuan.edu
Website: www.sanjuan.edu/face

Intranet: intranet.sanjuan.edu/face
Location: 3738 Walnut Avenue, Carmichael, CA, USA
Phone: (916) 971-7929

Facebook & Instagram- @SanJuanUnifiedFACE