Friends Of The Rafael Hernandez School Inc

Causes: Education, Parent & Teacher Groups

Mission: The Rafael Hernández School is the first Spanish-English, two-way bilingual school in Boston. It was founded in the 1970s, when many Puerto Rican families were migrating to Boston. No schools in the city, during this time, were equipped with the necessary tools to provide the students of these families with the appropriate education they needed. Fortunately, community activists responded by petitioning the school committee to establish a school (the Rafael Hernández School), where Latino students’ educational needs could be met. Today, the Rafael Hernández School is an institute for students of varying backgrounds, which has dedicated itself to developing courageous learners, effective communicators, and responsible citizens. The school is strongly committed to creating a diverse and nurturing learning environment that provides support to each of its students. The Hernández After School Program (HASP) was developed as an extension of the school day and its mission. The program seeks to provide quality, holistic, accessible, and affordable, out of school time programming that is linked to the school community and learning, for all Hernández families. A fundamental component of our program is that all staff are bilingual, in order to support both English and Spanish learners with their bilingual homework, which additionally supports ELL families. Furthermore, our program strives to provide a large array of programing opportunities for students. By providing programs that support the arts and literacy development, leadership, life, and athletic skills as well as social/emotional skills, we hope to help graduates, of our program, go on to achieve long term outcomes that will positively impact their and their communities’ futures. FOH collaborates with other recreational, cultural, human service entities, public service agencies, nonprofit organizations and local businesses to the extent necessary to expand the services offered to the organization's community (i.e. the school and after school program).