Centro Rendu: The Road Map Project

In 2013 SVdP began implementing a strategy to move services to our network of five thrift stores. The first initiative was Centro Rendu, which opened in 2013 at our Kent thrift store. Centro Rendu is a Family Adult Learning Center committed to educating Latino adults as a way out of poverty; and as a channel for developing skills for community engagement.

Students in this program receive educational training in both Spanish and English. They also receive culturally-appropriate services to help them join the labor force and overcome self-sufficiency barriers. We will expand this program, where the need exists, to other neighborhoods in King County in the coming years.

Our Hispanic Outreach program, of which Centro Rendu is a key initiative, has spent thousands of hours connecting and networking with community groups, school districts, institutions of higher education and businesses working on strategies to assist the Hispanic population get education and support services.

A couple of years ago, Centro Rendu was asked to be a key partner in the Road Map Project, a community-wide effort aimed at improving education to drive dramatic improvement in student achievement from cradle to college and career in South King County and South Seattle. The project builds off of the belief that collective effort is necessary to make large-scale change and has created a common goal and shared vision in order to facilitate coordinated action, both inside and outside school.

Parent and family engagement is a key strategy for reaching Road Map Project goals. This seven-district region includes 120,890 students, of which 59% are low income, 67% are students of color, and 16% are English Language Learners. The Road Map region includes Auburn School District, Federal Public Schools, Highline Public Schools, Kent School District, Renton School District, Seattle Public Schools (South Seattle schools only), and Tukwila School District.

The Road Map Project is supported by the Community Center for Education Results (CCER), a nonprofit organization. The User’s Guide for the Road Map Family Engagement Survey outlines a process of data inquiry for equitable collaboration between families, schools, and communities, based on our work with Road Map partners (7 districts and communities in South Seattle and South King County).

The guide provides recommendations for using the Road Map family engagement survey, a tool developed in collaboration with CCER, district administrators, and community leaders based on a set of 3 common family engagement measures (plus optional additional measures).