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Family liaisons and bilingual staff describe day‑to‑day work connecting families and classrooms
Summary
Liaisons and the district's family engagement specialist described concrete activities—home-language supports, listening conferences, academic workshops, caregiver academy and the Village program—that are being used to strengthen school–family ties across Cambridge Public Schools.
Marguerite, a family liaison from the MLK building, outlined the practical work liaisons perform: collaborating with academic coaches to translate curriculum for families, supporting English learners in home language, organizing family math workshops, coordinating parent‑teacher and listening conferences, and facilitating grade‑level outreach and newsletters.
"Liaisons collaborate with academic coaches to get curriculum information out to families like games, how to help at home," Marguerite said, listing translation tools such as ParentSquare and language‑line devices used for outreach. Debbie Bonilla, the district's family engagement specialist and McKinney‑Vento liaison, added that the office has four bilingual liaisons and runs the Village and Village Council, caregiver academies, affinity groups and summer scholarship outreach for families in need.
Both speakers emphasized that liaisons are already doing deep relational work in schools and that the district focus is on scaling and systematizing those practices.
