New FACE Center serves as umbrella for family resources
Rick Arce, director of first impressions and safety advocate at the Danbury Public Schools’ Family and Community Engagement (FACE) Center, gives a warm welcome – in English and Spanish – to every family that walks through the door whether to register their children for school, to ask about playgroups or to find out about the various resources available to district families.
The district recently redesigned its Education Services Center at 49 Osborne St. to help parents gather information quickly about the schools and related community services. The FACE Center is open Monday through Friday from 8 am to 4 pm. Arce helps families find their way to the appropriate office where their needs will best be addressed.
The FACE Center is comprised of several departments, including the Central School Registration, where all Danbury students register for school. The FACE Center has served more than 1800 families since February, and Central Registration has registered nearly 900 kindergarten students. Central Registration is open all summer and there is a nurse available twice a week to review immunization and physical records. This department also contains the “They are feeling more comfortable to come in now that we are open every day,” Maritza Thompson, senior bilingual secretary at the Center.
There are three staff members in Central Registration during the week and families can meet with someone who speaks English, Spanish or Portuguese. Families can also receive help with filling out paperwork and the staff can direct them to medical services, if children need physicals. Students whose first language is not English are also tested at the center for placement purposes and meet with either Gui Martins or Freida Soriano. “They both make students feel comfortable and then the students want to impress their tester,” Thompson said.
To register for school, parents and guardians can go to the DPS website to download the application, which also includes information on what documents to bring with them.
Isabel Varejao, a senior bilingual secretary who handles registration, said the new process has improved communication between the school district and the parents. Before the center opened parents used to go to the schools to register and often ended up at the wrong school without proper documents and the school was often not prepared. “You will see a parent come in nervous,” said Varejao, who also speaks Portuguese. “The difference from when they come in and when they leave is night and day.”
The FACE Center also includes the Danbury Family Learning Center (DFLC) whose mission is to improve educational experiences and knowledge of children birth through grade two and their parents, and to foster and encourage excellence and creativity in educational activities in the Danbury Public Schools and throughout greater Danbury. The DFLC offers Play-to- Learn Playgroups at the Center as well as other locations in the city, offers educational opportunities for parents such as Lee R Years and Supporting School Success, and Saturday Academies- Saturday morning programs that offer hands-on learning to compliment what children are learning during the day. More information call (203) 797-4734.
The Extended Learning Program offers the before- and after-school programs at the elementary and middle schools. Parents come to the FACE Center to register their children into the program. The fee-based program offers homework help, hands-on activities such as Legos, building, and chess, host field trips and special events on full days off from school. For more information call 203-797- 4733. Special funds promote additional afterschool services in some of the school through the 21 st Century Community Learning Program. For information (203) 731-8225. There is also information about playgroups for younger children and adult English-as- a-Second- Language classes.
The school meals program is also housed in the Center: School breakfast and lunch are an important part of the students’ day. Free and Reduced Lunch Applications are available from this office or from your child’s school. Parents are required to fill out a new application each year BEFORE Oct. 1 to continue to be enrolled in the program. Call (203) 797-4746 for more information. Sites and Facilities are also housed in this building. This department is responsible for the oversight of all district buildings.
For information on renting space, call (203) 797-4799.