There’s a saying Springboard has that’s behind all of our programs: “Families are the experts on their children; teachers are the experts on their students.”
Springboard was originally founded in Philadelphia in 2012 by our CEO Alejandro Gibes de Gac. Alejandro had recently worked as a first-grade teacher, and he grew discouraged that it took until Thanksgiving for his students’ reading levels to finally catch up to where they had been before the summer. Growing up with immigrant parents who did everything they could to provide educational opportunities for their children, Alejandro saw his parents in his students’ parents. He learned firsthand, as a teacher and as a child, that parents’ love for their children is the single greatest — and most underutilized — natural resource in education.
Motivated by his upbringing and his dedication to his students’ success, Alejandro created Springboard Collaborative to bridge the literacy gap by bridging the gap between home and school. The “collaborative” portion of our name is intentional. We believe that one of the best ways to help children thrive in their learning is by building on the already available supports within their lives and within their communities: their families and their teachers.
At Springboard, we envision a world where all children have the requisite literacy skills to access life opportunities. And we’re marching toward that vision with a laser-like focus on the millions of marginalized children who are reading below grade level at fourth grade. Programs can only grow so big; ideas, however, have limitless scaling potential.
FELAs (Family Educator Learning Accelerators) are 5-to-10-week cycles during which educators and family members team up to help kids reach learning goals. In the beginning, families and educators build a relationship and set a goal during an initial team-building huddle. Over the program cycle, kids practice with their educators in the classroom, with their families at home, and the whole team practices together during five weekly/bi-weekly family workshops. The cycle concludes by measuring and recognizing progress with incentives and an end-of-program celebration.
Ultimately, we seek to make family-educator collaboration standard practice in the American education system. This will measurably reduce opportunity gaps that have persisted for the better part of a century and make schools more equitable places that value marginalized parents as assets and invest in them as partners.
Back in 2012, Alejandro saw the power of connecting families and teachers and made it a reality. Now through Springboard Collaborative, he’s seen thousands of students reach reading goals through the power of family-educator partnerships.