By Valle Dwight

When his eldest son was four, Antonio Robles, Sr., moved to Holyoke, Massachusetts, from Puerto Rico. That child is now 49; Robles, 70, is the father of seven boys altogether, the youngest 11 years old. In 1998 Robles and his wife adopted twins that had bounced around foster homes for six years. Earlier they had adopted a two-day-old baby boy.

In the 45 years that Robles has been raising his family in Holyoke, the city has changed. Many of the mills that had earned it the title of “Paper City of the World” grew silent as manufacturers moved south or overseas or were bought out by multinational corporations. The mill closings robbed Holyoke residents of many entry-level positions that have historically benefited new groups moving into the city. Holyoke, created to be a model of industry, now struggles with poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, and crime. At the same time, it is striving to encourage and benefit from the unique vigor of the emerging Latino community.

“The city is looking at new strategies for economic revival, and that’s grassroots economic development and community empowerment,” says UMass Amherst sociology professor Agustin Laó-Montes. For the past three years, UMass Amherst, UMass Extension, the Holyoke Planning Network, and community organizations have been working together under an initiative supported by a federal Housing and Urban Development grant: the Holyoke Planning Network Community Outreach Partnerships Center (HPN/COPC).

One of the key components of the grant, “Families and Parents: Leaders in Education,” is a program that aims to help families become advocates for their children in the schools. Holyoke has one of the highest dropout rates in the state, so providing information and tools to parents there to boost their children’s educational success empowers at least two generations.

As a first step, Laó-Montes and graduate students working with a team from the city’s Community Education Project surveyed families to find out what information they needed. Then they developed a workshop series that ran at two city schools. The first 12-week series, which took place last fall, set out to familiarize parents with the school system and services available to them and their children. Among the topics covered were special education, Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, and No Child Left Behind, as well as the role of the school committee, parents’ rights, and public safety.

“It’s straightforward. There are many parents here who need to know how the PTO works, how the school works,” says Eduardo Suarez, community coordinator for the COPC project. “They need to know the resources available to them. If they don’t know these things, how can they help their kids take advantage of the educational services?”

Robles was one of the parents who wanted to know these things. Robles felt that raising children had changed a lot since the days when his eldest children were young. He came to every workshop at his twin sons’ middle school and found them invaluable. “I learned what’s available at the schools to help me as a parent,” he says, “and I learned a lot about how to handle my kids.”

For example, Robles had always assumed that he should keep the twins together in school, but after the workshops, he realized that one of the boys was relying too much on his brother, to the degree that he was copying his brother’s work. Now the boys go to different high schools and each is doing well.

“I learned how to deal with teenagers,” Robles said. “When I was growing up, it was different. I learned how to let up on the pressure.”

The program’s ramifications go beyond the 40 or so families who attended the workshops, says Suarez: “Parents pass along the information they learned, or they turn around and help another parent.” Robles has made a point of it. “I like to see the Hispanic community get involved with the schools,” he said.

“People in the community have the ability and the desire to help, but they don’t know how to,” says Marisol Fontanez ’07, a parent trainer with Community Education Project who participated in the workshops. About 20 parents started out in the first workshop series, with a core group of eight coming each time. “It was hard at the beginning,” she said. “Many parents were a little skeptical because they didn’t really understand the purpose.”

Once she got them talking, they revealed their heartfelt reasons for being there: to help their children stay in school, to get help with the language barrier, to find out how to work with the school, and to find ways to help their children with learning disabilities. The first workshop series concluded with two sessions on basic leadership and advocacy skills. This spring the project ran a second workshop series on topics that included discipline, homework, tenant rights, and special education.

Helen Wolff, the mother of an eighth-grader at the middle school last year, said the leadership sessions were the ones that resonated the most with her.

“It’s important to teach our children to be part of the community and to take part in activities in the community,” she said.

Aida Gomez, family liaison at John J. Lynch Middle School, where the first series took place, says that the workshops have made a difference. One parent who attended them now serves on the school council; another has started coming to council meetings. Many come into the school more often than before.

The success thus far of the “Families and Parents: Leaders in Education” program is just what its creators were hoping for. It confirms for Suarez and Laó-Montes their belief in grassroots efforts as the most organic way to find and support the city’s next leaders. Saurez says, “This is the way to go. We don’t identify the community leaders. The parents do it. They can begin to have a conversation using facts and knowledge.”

Families and Parents: Leaders in Education, the subject of this article, is just one piece of the HUD grant of which there are four key components: Education (Family Literacy and College Preparation); Economic Development and Community Planning; Fair Housing and Lending; and Capacity Building. Leaders in Education is just one example of the positive work being done in Holyoke for many years by many people, including members of the UMass Amherst community and the extensive Holyoke Planning Network comprising local community organizations and area colleges. To learn more, visit www.holyokepn.org.