Kairospdx

Programs: Learning academy:kairospdx is a non-profit education organization supporting family engagement, early learning, advocacy and a public school chartered by portland public schools. The charter school, kairos learning academy, is our largest program to date. The learning academy opened doors in august 2014 with 43 students and began our 4th school year in august 2016 with 86 kindergarten through 3rd grade students. Our students represent both racial and socioeconomic diversity. In the 2016-17 school year, 75% of our students were children of color, 16% were students with special needs and and 51% qualified for free or reduced lunch. In this school year 92% of our kindergarteners finished the year at benchmark for reading, a significant indicator of future schooland life success. The mission of kairospdx is to eliminate prolific racial achievement and opportunity gaps by cultivating confident, creative, compassionate leaders. Kairos is greek for "the supreme moment, a moment when something special happens. " kairos learning academy is seizing this special moment with a child-centered, inquiry-based, multicultural curriculum. We are collaborative, creative and passionate about being voices for change in our city, believing that attacking systemic racism is foundational to our work and that considering our own identity, biases and experiences is a necessary step toward igniting change. We offer a year round program to work to eliminate summer learning loss and attend to students academically, socially, emotionallyand culturally. We are intentional about family programing believing that families are their children's first and most influential teachers. Over the course of our work, we have become ever more convinced of the revolutionary power of love to transform education. We have sharpened our trauma informed lens and developed our own specific school culture known as kairos love. We very specifically define kairos love as care (i care about you in this moment) + commitment (i am committed to your long-term success). We have developed a behavior approach anchored in mindful practice, empathetic response and positive identity development that has led to new practices in our building and opportunities to provide professional development thereby impacting the system at large.

kairospdx family engagement program (15% of program revenue & expense)this program recognizes that success begins at home and that families are the first and most influential teachers. Our family engagement program services include the early learning network, family connections events, family gatherings and culturally specific play groups. Family connections events involves partnering with outside agencies to provide opportunities for children and families to learn together. This includes partnerships with organizations like the children's museum and omsi to bring quality activities to underserved communities (children ages 0-8). Culturally-specific play groups were born out of a partnership with the black parent initiative to create a community of parents to learn about key social-emotional, behavioral and academic skill-building critical to supporting children as they grow. Our family gathering bring together our learning academy families to dive deeper into conversations started in the classroom, with topics including race and building strong brains. We take what we do in the classroom and support families to effectively bring that into the home environment. In 2016-2017 we hosted 4 family connections events, 8 family gatherings, and 14 play groups. Up to 50 families attend the events, and about 5 families have attended play groups. The early learning network (eln) is designed for african-american caregivers of children 0-5 that fall mostly into the "family friends and neighbor" categorization of caregiving. These are providers who are largely disconnected from the larger policy dialogue and yet serve the majority of our target demographic of children. The eln exists because we believe that creating a network for in-home providers and friends/family/neighbor caregivers will greatly benefit the system of early childhood, both enhancing the quality of early childhood but also expanding the policy and practice dialogue. By strengthening the service delivery within the network, we will strengthen the system itself ensuring more of our kids are in fact ready for kindergarten and life beyond. Our early learning network (eln) meetings range in size from five to 15 participants for each meeting, including family, friends and neighbor caregivers. This year our network is focused on advocating for children of color and ensuring that our community received the resources we need in a difficult political climate. We give families the tools to make their voices heard and inform them about important political goings-on. We are hosting 4 early learning network meetings this year, serving over 35 caregivers whose reach on children impacts over 100 lives through our early learning network and have provided direct service to 86 unique children and families/extended families.