“Parents want to help their children. When they receive help that is non-threatening, they are open to receiving that help and then taking it and working with their children.”
- Anjohnette Gibbs, an original SPARK MS planner

What SPARK MS Does for PARENTS

  • Supports learning in the home by providing feedback, resources and organized educational opportunities.
  • Links families to opportunitives for early screening and affordable health care
  • Offers home visits by Learning Advocates
  • Assists parents and children with the transition from early childhood settings to public school

SPARK MS organizes parent workshops with free child care, parent resource fairs and hands-on learning in the form of parent/child activities and field trips. The parents of SPARK MS students complete skill-building workshops that equip them to take on the role of their child’s first teacher. They work with Learning Advocates who assist in parent-teacher conferences and provide home visits, ensuring that parents are able to strengthen the skills of their children so that they are ready for school.

7,500

home visits (three per year per SPARK child over three years)

3,000

individual child assessments conducted

1,500

parents/guardians involved

of parents said that home visitations provided them with a service or linked them to a service that was otherwise viewed as unattainable

of parents said that without SPARK Learning Advocates they would not have known about Common Core Standards