Srishti Prabha | The Sacramento Observer
The San Juan Unified School District has a new vehicle. The Family and Community Engagement (FACE) mobile bus is the first of its kind in Sacramento County.
As Assistant District Manager Melissa Bassanelli put it, “This seed has really sprouted. And so, what was a plain white van has become this beautiful blue bus, outfitted with tech, diapers, wipes, food and student games.”
Armed with culturally competent literature, fingerprinting services for volunteer parents, and laptops, the WiFi-enabled bus reinvents ways to embed multicultural student education support, health and wellness services, college and career planning, and more for the district’s communities.
Clarissa Alva, specialist in community engagement in the district, drives the bus and was one of the visionaries behind the idea.
“During COVID, many families just didn’t have access to school or technology or the schoolwork they were supposed to do online,” she said. “We really just need to be able to get to the families. And coincidentally, the district received a $50,000 micro-grant at the same time.”
Alva and the bus, along with bilingual student interns, will serve portions of Arden-Arcade, Carmichael, Orangevale, Citrus Heights, Fair Oaks, Rancho Cordova and Sacramento three times a week. They have set themselves the goal of reaching all 64 schools in the district by the end of 2022.
San Juan Unified has developed partnerships with local libraries and housing complexes to reach families, and parents can keep up to date with the bus’s location by checking the calendar.
Amy Gregory, director of family engagement at San Juan Unified, said she envisioned this project to improve the lives of youth in her district. Last week at the ribbon cutting ceremony that saw the debut of the mobile bus, the excitement of community stakeholders was palpable.
Parent Erica Greene says the existence of the mobile bus felt meaningful.
“To see an idea come to fruition where Miss Amy is helping not only me but the people throughout the county is just a beautiful thing. And I couldn’t see myself anywhere but here to support that,” Greene said.
Greene says she moved a few times, but she and her son ended up back in the San Juan area. She says she was moved by Gregory remembering her and her son at the grocery store.
“It just made me feel like we had someone in our corner, not just educationally, but as people,” Greene said. “And any time she could see that I was struggling as a mother or just as a person, she was always available for advice.”
Research shows that meaningful family involvement contributes to better student achievement, fewer disciplinary issues, strong parent-teacher and teacher-student relationships, and a positive school environment.
“We know that in the midst of every crisis lies a great opportunity,” Gregory said. “Rather than address the challenges the pandemic has brought, our team has focused on what we call the ‘positive impacts of the pandemic’ – one of which is the opportunity for districts, schools and community partners to be more innovative in the way they support families.”
And the FACE mobile bus is one of those possibilities.
“Dreams are the seeds of change. Nothing grows without a seed. And nothing changes without a dream,” said Gregory.
