As PTHV celebrates its 25th anniversary, we are taking some time to reflect on key turning points in our history. Today, we look back on the home visit pilot project that took place in eight schools in Sacramento, California, and that launched the relationship-building home visit movement that we know today. According to Yesenia Ramirez, PTHV Founding Parent and Senior Advisor, that first year was filled with excitement, fear, and many heart-warming moments. Upon reflection, she recognized that there were three key levers that ultimately contributed to the success of the pilot project.  

 Leadership: Dr. Jim Sweeney, the superintendent of schools for the Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD), though initially skeptical, agreed to go on 20 home visits in one week to experience the practice firsthand. After the first five, he was convinced of their value and was supportive of funding it. He approved $100,000 for a year-long pilot, but questioned whether other key leaders, such as the teachers’ union and school board members, would get behind the idea.  

As it turned out, the teachers’ union was already supportive. The union leaders appreciated two core values of what would become our enduring model: visits are voluntary and teachers would be compensated. So PTHV founding parents and teachers mobilized more than 2,000 community members to garner commitments from school board members to fund the one-year pilot. Leaders at all levels – from the superintendent to union leaders to parent and teacher leaders to school board members – played a critical role in creating the conditions for our founders’ vision to take shape.  

Training for Educators: PTHV founding educators were clear: they wanted to set up their colleagues for success as they embarked on the new home visit practice. They and their founding parent partners set out to develop a training module and related materials to prepare educators to conduct relationship-building home visits. While they were eager and excited, there were also moments when their confidence wavered.  

“We didn’t know if we could convince schools and educators to step out and do visits. After each training, we debriefed. Sometimes we cried at some hurtful things that were said about our community. Sometimes we cried happy tears because teachers shared such moving stories. We were both excited and afraid. What if it didn’t work?” recalled Yesenia.  

They soon realized, however, that they were actually engaged in an act of co-creation, as educator trainees offered ideas to make the training most effective. The training content ultimately created space for educators to learn new ways of understanding and valuing families and the community, to share their excitement and fears about home visits, to problem-solve, and to encourage one another along the way. It honored them as professionals who were eager to stretch themselves in new ways to best serve their students and families.  

Telling the Story: Stories move people. The pilot year set the stage for PTHV’s future growth in part because of some powerful storytelling among PTHV practitioners. One SCUSD principal held monthly meetings for her principal colleagues to share the effect of home visits on educators, families, students, and the entire school. Parents shared their home visit stories with one another to spread the word that these were positive visits and to encourage participation. Parents and educators alike shared their home visit stories in the larger community to celebrate the new sense of partnership between them. Local and national media outlets responded to these compelling stories and amplified them throughout the country. As word continued to spread, requests from school districts within and outside of California began pouring in for support in replicating the Sacramento home visit model.    

Although the pilot year was filled with a flurry of activity, these three factors stand out as having had the most impact on the success of the pilot home visit project. They propelled our founders’ vision forward – even in the face of many challenges.  

According to Yesenia, these three factors resulted in a shared, “understanding about what it really meant to be co-educators, to trust each other, and to be in a relationship. This is what got us through that first pilot year. The trust was unbelievable – the understanding of who we were as parents and community, the understanding that we had hopes and dreams for our children. And the understanding that our educators were doing the best they could and so were we as parents.”   

Over the subsequent 25 years, these factors have continued to play an important role in developing relationships of trust between families and educators in schools all across the country.