I was the first in my family to graduate middle school, high school, and college. My friends inspired me to go to college but I had to navigate the process on my own. I started at community college and found mentors who helped me navigate the system.

Executive Director, Modesto Regional Office

What is one final piece of advice that you would like to share for someone like me, a teacher? What can I do to help? &gt;&gt; [LAUGH] Get involved. I think a lot of educators think that their job is from 8 to 3 and that's it, right? It's after class, I'm done, I'm going home. There's a lot of opportunity outside the classroom. In the Central Valley, most of the facilitators that collaborate with us are retired teachers, former teachers, current teachers, counselors. That once they see the program in their schools or school districts, they often approached me and ask, how can I help, I wanna be able to facilitate those classes. So it's a very rewarding program, and anyone can be part of it. So giving back to your community, it's a great way to do it, especially if you're in education. Because you know how to do public speaking, and doing it with parents is easier than doing it with students. And trust me, I did that. I was a high school teacher and it was very difficult to get the students' attention. To get your parents' attention, they're so respectful. They're so grateful that you're spending that hour and 30 minutes with them that they'll be thankful with you for the rest of your lives, that's really meaningful. Plus on top of that, you get to learn new ways of engagement that you could take those back to your school and implement that at the school. So giving back is one of the things that I always encourage teachers and educators to get involved. We're not only changing the life of that students or that school, we're changing the trajectory of our country, and we can do it together. We actually offer our program to around 18,000 families a year. And every year, it gets bigger and bigger. And we need more people that really wants to get involved and help us with our mission to be able to push our students to their maximum potential. 

Support & Encouragement

Advice For Teachers

One of the biggest characteristics that I have is that I'm a very positive person. I think if you ask any person that knows me, they're like, she's gonna make it into a positive note. But the pandemic, I think, was the biggest and the most difficult moment for my life. Early in the pandemic, the first cases of coronavirus here in the Central Valley, we were one of the first families that got COVID. My father-in-law and my mother-in-law lived with me. And my father-in-law got really sick and passed away due to coronavirus. So one thing that I wanna highlight that I think still keeps me with is that it's a family for me. The whole organization came up to me and said, Gabriela, don't worry about it, take care of your family. And they would reach out to me every day, how are you doing? We're here to support you. So not only that we provide support to families that we serve, but people that work in the organization really cares about you. That very difficult moment, due to the job that I had it made me realize that it was not only my problem, it was the whole community. And I had so many friends and parents and teachers that came up to me and helped me overcome that difficult moment. 

Community

Family

Struggle

Community Support During Difficult Moments

My job is to collaborate with different school districts or schools to provide a meaningful parent engagement for families. It's very different from school to school even from district to district depending on how engaged are the schools, the principal, and the whole personnel. I'm the first generation in my family to become an educator having no role models to follow. I was the first one not only to graduate from middle school, first one to graduate from high school, and the first one to graduate from college. I did it with the help of friends and mentors. And for me, having a job like this one to lead the Central Valley in family engagement, it means a lot. Every time I go to a graduation because for many of the families that we serve, this is their first graduation ever. So for me coming from that tiny little city in Mexico and making it all the way over here, it's huge. And I think I have to give back to my community. I always tell my friends, you have to give back because we're not gonna change the world if we don't go back into our communities and provide a support that one day somebody gave it to us. 

Gabriela Rios Highlight

What I do for a living it's I engage with families and different school districts. My job is to collaborate with different school districts or schools to provide a meaningful parent engagement for families. It's very different from school to school even from district to district one. One the biggest things that we do is that we have our signature program focused 100% on navigating this coastal system in California. The amazing thing about it is that we get to do it in different modalities. Nowadays, family engagement is gonna look different in every school, especially how you mentioned that depending on how engaged are the schools, the principal and the whole personnel. Osamation program is an AWE program that meets with families once a week for an hour and 30 minutes providing them from how the school system works. Also provided them with social-emotional component than to they more than ever is needed for a family and also providing them with computer literacy. 

Focus

Helping Parents Navigate The School System

I think schools, they have to have a deep understanding that families are part of the solution. Many times schools and school staff, they see families are outsiders. They only see their families when there's something wrong going on with their students. Because they put a meeting together and only five parents show up, they stop providing options for families to come into the campus and be part of planning, part of working together. It takes more than one person to make sure that students not only make it through elementary, middle school, and high school, and then eventually going to college. We have to work together, teachers need to work together with parents. We have to work together with community agencies to make sure that we have all the tools available for our families to accomplish that dream that we have, whatever the dream looks like for each student. So they need to understand that investing in their families, it's a win-win for the school, for the students, for our future. We know that it happens very often that when we have our program at the high schools, we encourage our parents to talk to the counselors, right? To go and ask what classes the students are taking, are they on the right path? Are they taking the A through G classes? So our families or their families are making those appointments with counselors. And then we often get an email from the principal saying, well, counselors are asking why there's so many parents now asking- &gt;&gt; [LAUGH] &gt;&gt; For that meeting. They're so busy. They have to follow the protocols and all that. You were asking for parent engagement, they wanna be engaged. So I think we want our partners to really understand that families are part of the solution, and they have to include them in every single project they have. First of all, involve them in allocating the funds, and then have families' voice on deciding what extracurricular activities. And then having families being part of creating the graduation ceremony, we have to be part of that. And once they do that, the life of the teacher is gonna be easier, students are gonna be on task. One amazing thing that I always get is that our families, when they talk, especially with their high school students, once they go back and ask them, I wanna know if you are taking your A through G classes. There's a deep connection between the mom and the students because now they have a common language. They understand GPA, they understand about financial aid. It's like, okay, my mom knows now. And now since she knows, I better act up, and I better get good grades because she's gonna know that that 2.0 GPA, it's not good enough for me to go to college. 

Families Need To Be Part Of The Solution

How'd you get there? What made you decide to go into this as a profession? &gt;&gt; I'm the first generation in my family to become an educator, Mexican from Guanajuato Mexico. I always tell my family that Guanajuato is the most beautiful city in Mexico. Coming from a big family of six, second to the last, and my parents went to school only to third grade. And I migrated to United States when I was in elementary. Having no role models to follow, I was the first one not only to graduate from middle school, the first one to graduate from high school, and the first one to graduate from college. So it was quite difficult to make that journey. The main reason why I ended up as an educator, it's three things. First, that my family, even though they didn't have any source of educational background, they always push me to keep moving. I remember my mom telling me you're the one who's gonna change the story of this family, so that was one. And then in high school, I made a group of friends that had a little bit more of role models to follow, and they inspired me to go into the educational field. They were making plans in high school, they were applying for FAFSA and they were applying for college and I was like, well, I wanna do that too. And I just follow their steps and I have no idea whatsoever about what to do, how to do the FAFSA, how to apply so I just copycat everything that they were doing. &gt;&gt; You navigated that pretty much all by yourself then with no support. &gt;&gt; All by myself. &gt;&gt; Wow. &gt;&gt; So I didn't have the grades in high school to go straight to college so I ended up passing high school with so many sacrifices. And I made it to a community college, and there I met a very good mentors that helped me finally to understand the system. So I did it with the help of friends and mentors. And then later on in life I transferred to a Huiya college, I obtain a bachelor's degree in Spanish with a minor history. And I was a high school teacher for a while. Very quickly I realized that I was not meant to be in a classroom. I have a free spirit, so I had to be out and about, sharing my story with people, getting to know a lot of people. So one day I met a former executive director for Parent Institute in the Central Valley. And she saw me when I was sharing the work that I was doing at that moment with families and she invited me to be an associate director. So that was probably like 11 years ago. And then whenever she retired, I took over for the position of executive director, and now I ran the whole Central Valley. &gt;&gt; Wow, that's fantastic, that's a great story, I love to hear that. 

My Career Path

What are some of those challenges of trying to get people to come and join those meetings and engage in this whole process? &gt;&gt; Yeah, that's the most difficult part. When I meet with principals or superintendents, I often ask them so how many parents do you guys get in your parent meetings, like your back to school night or any parent coffee chats that they have? And they often tell me like five, ten. And the average class that we have it's in the 30th, 30, 40 we have classes that are whole 100 and 150. So, we have to break a lot of areas for them to make it to class. It's an eight week program, it's a big commitment, we have to provide families what they really need at that moment. And we have to understand the holistic well being of our families for example, any financial concern they have, the language, childcare, transportation. And even if we are gonna provide a program in through this new modality soon, we have to provide them with training in zoom for them to be able to adapt. So it's very challenging. We spend most of the funding that we receive from schools and from foundations on our recruitment process, and how we do it. It's that we understand family struggles, so whenever we communicate with them first of all we communicate in their own language. So if we're reaching out to Spanish speaking families there's gonna be a Latina that speaks like me, sounds like me. And then if we're reaching out to English speaking family, it's gonna be an Anglo person that doesn't have an accent like me, that families on the other side are like, okay, he knows my struggles. Here in the area of Sacramento, we have provided a program in Punjabi because we want families to come and be able to feel comfortable. We wanna be able to connect and to establish a trust in one's family come into the first we call them an orientation, once they come to the first orientation, and we explain to them why being engaged will make a big difference for them and for their students, they'll come back. Because every single parent that I know, once their students to be successful, they just don't know how. 

Challenges We Face In Family Engagement

What I do for living, it's, I engage with families in different school districts. My job is to collaborate with different school districts or schools to provide a meaningful parent engagement for families. It's very different from school to school, even from district to district. One of the biggest things that we do, is that we have our signature program focused 100% on navigating the school system in California. The amazing thing about it is that we get to do it in different modalities nowadays. Family engagement is gonna look different in every school, especially how you mentioned it depending on how engaged are the schools, the principal and the whole personnel. Our signature program it's an eight week program that meets with families once a week for an hour and 30 minutes providing them from how the school system works. Also providing them with social emotional component that today more than ever is needed for our families and also providing them with computer literacy. &gt;&gt; How did you get there, what made you decide to go into this as a profession? &gt;&gt; I'm the first generation in my family to become an educator, Mexican from Guanajuato, Mexico. I always tell my families that Guanajuato is the most beautiful city in Mexico. Coming from a big family of six second to the last, and my parents went to school only to third grade. And I migrated to United States when I was in elementary. Having no role models to follow I was the first one not only to graduate from middle school, first one to graduate from high school, and the first one to graduate from college. So it was quite difficult to make that journey. The main reason why I ended up as an educator, it's three things. First, that my family even though they didn't have any source of educational background, they always pushed me to keep moving. I remember my mom telling me, you're the one, you're the one that's gonna change the story of these families, so that was one. And then in high school, I met a group of friends that had a little bit more of role models to follow, and they inspired me to go into the educational field. They were making plans in high school, they were applying for FASFA, they were applying for college. And I was, well, I wanna do that too and I just followed their steps. And I had no idea, no idea whatsoever about what to do, how to do the FASFA, how to apply, so I just copycat everything that they were doing. &gt;&gt; You navigated that pretty much all by yourself then with no support, [CROSSTALK] wild. &gt;&gt; So I didn't have the grades in high school to go straight to college. So I ended up passing high school with so many sacrifices, and I made it to a community college. And in there I met very good mentors that helped me finally to understand the system. So I did it with the help of friends and mentors and then later on in life, I transferred to a four year college. I obtained a bachelor's degree in Spanish, with a minor in history, and I was a high school teacher for a while. Very quickly I realized that I was not meant to be in a classroom. I have a free spirit, so I had to be out and about, sharing my story with people, getting to know a lot of people. So one day, I met a former executive director for Perini Institute in the Central Valley. And she saw me when I was sharing the work that I was doing at that moment with families and she invited me to be an associate director. So that was probably like 11 years ago and then whenever she retires, I took over for the position of executive director and now I ran the whole Central Valley. &gt;&gt; Wow, that's fantastic, that's a great story, I love to hear that. What would be some general advice for someone interested in a career that contributes to solving the issues of family engagement and learning? &gt;&gt; This is not an easy job, this is not an easy job, but it's a job that is very rewarding. We need more educators that really invest their time in learning the different ways we can engage families. Many times we think that teachers making that phone call just to let the mom know that the student is not completing the homework it's good enough. So we want our teachers or administrators to understand it's holistic approach. We need to understand our families have financial struggles, we need to provide programs in their own language. And not only that, once we're ready to engage our families we need to provide additional support, for example, childcare for students. So they could take care of the kids while mom and dad understands how the school system works. And then if we're using the new modalities like these ones, don't assume that every single family has a computer or has access to Internet. Or even if they do have, they know how to jump into a conversation like the one we're having. I've been using this modality for over three years, and we were having trouble trying to figure it out. So our families need to have additional support. It's not a simple job, it's very complex. But at the end of the line, it's one of those jobs that gives you the feeling of I did something that is gonna change people's lives. And for me, having a job like this one, to lead the Central Valley in family engagement, it means a lot. Every time I go to a graduation, because for many of the families that we serve this is their first graduation ever, so it's a big deal for them. They dress up, they invite family, they do a party after that. So for me, coming from that tiny little city in Mexico and making it all the way over here, it's huge. And I think I have to give back to my community. I always tell my friends, they're all educators, I always tell them you have to give back. Because we're not gonna change the world if we don't go back into our communities and provide the support that one day somebody gave it to us. 

Interview

What would be some general advice for someone interested in a career that contributes to solving the issues of family engagement and learning? &gt;&gt; This is not an easy job but it's a job that is very rewarding. We need more educators that really invest their time in learning the different ways we can engage families. Many times we think that teachers making the phone call just to let the mom know that the student is not completing the homework it's good enough. So, we want our teachers or administrators to understand it's a holistic approach. We need to understand our families have financial struggles. We need to provide programs in their own language. Not only that, once we're ready to engage our families, we need to provide additional support. For example childcare, for students so they could take care of the kids while Mmm and dad understands how the school system works. And then if we're using the new modalities like this ones don't assume that every single family has a computer or has access to internet or even if they do have, they know how to jump into a conversation like the one we're having. I've been using this modality for over three years and we were having trouble trying to figure it out. So, our families need to have additional support it's not as simple job, it's very complex but at the end of the line, is one of those jobs that gives you that feeling of I did something that is gonna change people's life. And for me having a job like this one, to leave the Central Valley in family engagement, it means a lot. Every time I go to a graduations because for many of the families that we serve, this is the first graduation ever. So, it's a big deal for them. They dress up, they invite families, they do a party after that. So, for me, coming from that tiny little city in Mexico, and making it all the way over here, it's huge. And I think I have to give back to my community. I always tell my friends, they're all educators, I always tell them, you have to give back, because we're not gonna change the world we wouldn't go back into our communities and provide a support that one day somebody gave it to us. 

Gabriela Rios

Executive Director, Modesto Regional Office

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Gabriela Rios

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My work combines:

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First-Generation College Student

Gabriela Rios

Executive Director, Modesto Regional Office

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Gabriela Rios

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Education

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Career Roadmap

My work combines:

My work combines:

Education

Non-Profit Organizations

Helping People

Recommended Education

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