PhD student Patricia Fuentes Acevedo leads a Family Math Leadership Team (FMLT) including  caregivers and teachers at two elementary schools serving a large majority of Latinx students in the Buena Park School District. The FMLT meets monthly to co-design mathematical supports for children’s learning and elevate families’ voices in improvement efforts. The team is supported by project coordinator Isabelle Acosta, and undergraduate research assistant Ashley Hernandez as well as PhD candidate Christina Kimmerling and Professor Rossella Santagata.

These efforts are part of a larger project, Reducing Inequalities in Students’ Opportunities to Learn Mathematics through Adaptive Teacher Professional Development, funded by the William T. Grant Foundation. The project examines how schools can design teacher professional development to incorporate asset-based, culturally relevant approaches to math instruction for Latinx students. Through a Research-Practice Partnership, the project supports two schools in the adaptation of a Cognitively Guided Instruction to their local context, including families’ and teachers’ perspectives, and builds capacity towards continuous improvement.

The FMLT is a solidarity-driven partnership between caregivers, teachers, and researchers that seeks to challenge traditional deficit perspectives on nondominant communities and transform how schools collaborate with families for children’s mathematical success. It draws on literature on critical family and community engagement and culturally relevant mathematics education.

This past school year, the FMLT hosted bilingual English/Spanish Math Night events at the schools, where students and their families were able to engage in experiences to use mathematics in fun, creative ways, centering their funds of knowledge.

The next steps for the FMLT work include continuing to co-design and facilitate math events for each school community and offering workshops for caregivers. Fuentes Acevedo and Santagata were awarded a new $60K WT Grant Foundation Networking and Mentoring grant to support the partnership this coming school year and Fuentes Acevedo’s dissertation study. Patricia will examine the redistribution of mathematical epistemic authority among FMLT members in the multilingual space, as well as the development of culturally sustaining teaching practices with the FMLT teachers.