fSTAR

Family, Student, and Teacher Academic Resilience (fSTAR)

Overview

The Family, Student and Teacher Academic Resilience (fSTAR) Pillar of NCEED recognizes the power of partnership between schools and families, and networking with community-based organizations to elevate students’ academic performance. fSTAR supports equity from a community assets perspective that recognizes the strengths and value of families, indigenous institutions and the history of local communities.

fSTAR utilizes the history and cultural capital of Morgan State University as an anchor institution in Baltimore City and the third largest historically Black university in the nation by employing a transdisciplinary approach that takes advantage of scholarship and intellectual capital across academic disciplines and the power of an alumni network to create conditions and opportunities for success for school children.

By combining community participatory research and traditional scholarship, fSTAR seeks to craft effective interventions using an equity lens that will improve three facets of schooling: 1) Student Academic Achievement 2) Parent/Family Engagement and 3) School Building Climate.

Impact

Our community engagement and research directly impact students’ self-awareness, goal setting and academic performance to improve student outcomes while also assisting families in recognizing practices and resources that can be helpful in aiding their student’s success.

Goals

  • Encourage Student Academic Achievement: Use the standing, cultural capital and resources of Morgan State University to inspire and nurture the intellectual curiosity, academic growth, resiliency and citizenship of elementary and middle school students.

  • Build Parent Capacity: Utilize the Dual Capacity Building Framework (MAPP) to increase parental awareness and familiarity with school district academic goals and rules, school building procedures and teachers’ expectations of students’ classroom participation, performance and behavior.

  • Change School Climate: Tear down barriers to parent-school partnerships by assisting school leadership and develop processes that embrace transparency, open communication, constructive feedback and outreach with parents and caretakers.
  • Support Evidence Based Policies: Advocate for policies rooted in evidence that support equity through innovation, healthy school climate, diversity in teaching corps, culturally responsive pedagogy, and family engagement.

Strategies

  • Build Communities of Interest: Develop community champions for public schools through relationships with trusted and recognized community, faith-based, and civic leaders.

  • Programming: Sponsor programs and events that are designed to boost student confidence, supplement classroom learning, expose children to a range of career possibilities, and recognize the importance of parents and caretakers as the ultimate source of students’ success.
  • Community Participatory Research: Recognize the expertise of community assets by partnering with community groups, civic organizations, schools and peer research centers to conduct studies aimed at creative solutions and interventions to improve students’ academic achievement, school building climate and parent/caretaker engagement.

Recent images from fSTAR