An Introduction to Us and Our Podcast

Melissa and Mars introduce themselves, talk about their experience in family and community engagement and what you can expect from the podcast.

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Music by prazkhanal from Pixabay: Whip

Transcript

Marissa  00:04

Hello and welcome to The Family and Community Engagement FACE in Action podcast. I am Marissa Lazo-Necco and I'm Mars Serna. And we are excited to be introducing our new FACE team podcast. But before we introduce our podcasts, we would like to take a few minutes to introduce ourselves and Mars will get us started.

Mars  00:24

Thank you Marisa. So just to give you a little bit of background of me 38 years in public service, half of my time in human services the other half in education. I currently serve on the school board at Fontana Unified School District. And I get the chance to work here in San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools serving 33 school districts across this great county, supporting, mentoring, coaching individuals, parents, community partners, and family and community engagement. Much of the work revolves around just building capacity and how to engage each other, creating partnerships creating relationships and I say trusting relationships. I also serve on a couple of boards, the San Bernardino County gangs and drugs task force the Inland Empire father involvement Coalition and the San Bernardino County mentoring Advisory Committee, along with the Loma Linda University Health Community Benefit Advisory Council, which is a new council for Loma Linda, I have a Bachelor's Degree in Public Administration and a master and a master's in management. So that's a little bit about me.  I remember that, 

Marissa  01:29

Well, that's a lot a bit about you Mars I'm excited that I get to do this with you, you know, we work together for a while. And so I'm excited that we're going to start doing this work together. And so I like to introduce myself a little bit. And I want to say that I want to go back to 1998 When I started in preschool in a preschool classroom, and so I fell in love with being in the classroom with children. I wanted to become a preschool teacher than a kinder teacher, but you know, life throws it's interesting expense just to help us walk in our purpose. And so I transitioned from elementary world to the front desk as a classified staff in high school district in Victor Valley High School District. And from there, I was under the comp ed department, which had all the assessments. And it was through the assessment touching point that I started working with CELT administration. So administering the California English language development test. It was through this touching point that I got to support families, and help them understand what did that mean for their students and for them, and I really enjoyed working with families. And that is how I landed in family and community engagement really. I started working with families and I, every time I helped a parent, or a student, I couldn't help but to think of me my own journey, as an English learner, and how my parents struggle with a lot of information that they had no access to, in their own language. And so every time I helped a student or a parent, I felt like I was helping my own parents in some way, and what I wish they would have received. So that was around 2000. And in 2006, I came to county office, I got to meet you around that time, when you were in San Bernardino City, yes. And since then, it's just been an honor to really to grow in this work, because the work has evolved so much, in a way that when we started doing this work, it was family involvement. And here we are calling in our family and community engagement. So it's evolved a lot, I've grown a lot. I feel like you, you know, I'm really engaged in the community in different ways. So I get to serve also in a CABE board. Because of that English language, language learner background that I have, that really inspires me to serve the community through that capacity, and recently become became a member in the excellency Latina board. So I'm excited to be able to also support our county and our region through that work. And of course, the work that we're doing, which is not work, it really is a service, Ministry of love of heart work. In our county, we get to serve our 33 school districts and our families. And I'm honored that remember when you used to say, Marissa, you're always asking me to do favors and present with you. And I'm not even at the county. And now here we are working together at the county. So it's an honor to be able to partner in this journey together.

Mars  04:32

Yeah, it's been a great journey. And I remember that time when you came to the county and you didn't have any kids. And we were talking about perspectives and just saying, you know, wait till you have children because your life is going to change. And I think that that's added another value add to your work as being a mom now. And, you know, for me, it's always been about being an active father in the education of children, which is one of the things that sometimes doesn't happen a lot. Mothers are always at the forefront of educational events and parent conferences and things that happen at schools and dads are usually at work and, you know, being the breadwinners, but I always felt like as dads, we also have to be a partner at home, and make sure that the dads are involved. And so I've been actively involved, you know, as a father being on PTA, and coaching, you know, youth sports and those kinds of things. And I think that's helped me and, you know, I have four children, three are grown ones, 17 year old senior and, and my wife and I have decided to, we had to raise our niece because of family challenges. And so she's 13 Now at in eighth grade, and, you know, just flourishing and growing as an individual. And so that's the perspective that I bring to as a family and community engagement professional, is that male perspective that sometimes you don't get. So it's been an honor working with you as well, because the partnership together and getting to know each other, getting to know our families together, you know, our families are always together in different ways, whether it's events, or at parties, or those kinds of things. It's been nice to, to get to know you more, not only on the professional side, but even on the personal side. 

Marissa  06:04

Yes. and, you know, it really speaks to it takes a village to raise our children and you spoke truth to me. I always had a passion for kids and for serving the parents, the families, that community. I did that before. And you know, through church ministries, when I started working, I did that through that lens, but you spoke truth, because absolutely my world changed when I became a mom, my perspective change, even the way I served families change because I put my self in those shoes of while as a parent, now you how to squeeze different times of your own schedule to be able to do this after school before school. So how do I how do I schedule things differently. So it works for the young moms for the single moms for the single dads. So it's been a shift, even in my own journey, through my own parent life and growth. And I understand you now more even with after school programs that my kids are in, it's it really is that it's a balance. And so I think of all of our FACE partners, right? Our Family Community Engagement Partners who do this work and their parents, and the balance that it also requires between your work. We can't say no, we love doing this work. But our own families, how do we make that balance? And how do we serve the community? But like when we're flying the plane? How do we serve the community without forgetting that we have to take care of our own self, or mental health or well being because we serve better when we are doing better ourselves? So let's talk a little bit about what can we expect here because I know our friends, and our audience is going to know a little bit more about us each time that we get together. But what can they expect? Do you think in through these podcasts? 

Mars  07:50

Well, we hope that we can give some perspective around the work in education, how parents, how our community partners, and those who just have touchpoints in education can can support our schools, that'd be one area, right? How can they advocate to if there's areas of focus that need to be changed, whether it's in the policy area? Or in practice? How can we take what we know and what we're learning through our work? Because, you know, we didn't even talk about the work that we do statewide with the community engagement initiatives. So we'll be bringing that perspective into the world of this work. So that we can just help improve outcomes for kids at the end of the day, the work that we do even though people don't really consider it, you know, the the the nuts and bolts of Curriculum and Instruction and first instruction in a classroom. But the work of family engagement and bringing partners to the table in the work of education, because we can't do this all by ourselves is how do we bring all those to schools into districts into this county office? In the work that we do? So we are at the end of the day, like I said earlier, supporting kids and their families? 

Marissa  08:57

Yes, I agree. And I feel like through each one of these podcasts, we'll bring from state level partners to local partners, local districts are doing excellent work around engaging families, engaging students, and engaging the community to fill that gap between the resources that we have locally at our school sites, and the need, right, how do we bring that community partners to do that? So if you're a family, community engagement staff, you can tune into this conversation and just learn how you can improve or partner and grow the work that you're doing. And if you're a parent, we're going to have some excellent, I feel like we have so many parent partners in the community. Mars, aren't you excited about that the level of engagement will have in that part? 

Mars  09:43

Oh, absolutely. And my goal too, because of the role of governance that I play and also want top level leaders, you know, those that are also on school boards, superintendents, individuals that really have influence and changing policy and practice in their schools to also listen in because I think we're going to bring perspectives around that as well. We'll have invited guests we hope around, you know the policy and practice pieces. That then higher level leaders can also be a part of and, and everyone that has a touch point in education, like I tell people all the time, the goal is to lead from the seat that you sit in, right, if you're a parent, you lead from that seat, if you're a superintendent, you're leading from that seat. We all have different positions, but the role is the same. It's to advocate and work on behalf of students. And so that's what we hope to bring through this podcast.

Marissa  10:32

Yes, so please tune in. We have FACE in Action, the different faces of face, family and community engagement from parents, students who are part of families, right. We are here for students. So the family members tuning in staff tuning in our leaders, educational leaders tuning in because it really requires all of us coming together and having that focus around our children to be able to do the work better across our county and region and state. So we're going to have FACE in Action. Please join us and please spread the word because from families, students, community partners, educators, we all need each other to continue to do better for children.

Mars  11:14

I'm excited Marissa, this is gonna be fun.