Officials at Lincoln elementary schools have a problem: How to find enough money to keep alive a successful program with proven results.

The Family Literacy Program, available at nine Lincoln-area schools, strives to promote student growth in an unexpected way—by educating parents. In this case the parents and their children are immigrants who speak little, if any, English. And in some cases, they are refugees, many of whom fled their home countries for their very lives, usually carrying little more than what could fit in carry-on baggage.

The program acts on the theory that reaching out to the parents will improve immigrant and refugee students’ achievement. It helps the parents not only get more involved with their children’s education but also function within the community as a whole, said Arnold Elementary principal Kathy Honeycutt.

“It’s a community program,” she said. “It’s new, and I think it’s extremely powerful. And it needs to be supported by the whole community because the whole community benefits.”

Funding for the program is in doubt, however, and could disappear or face dramatic reductions within two years if LPS and school officials can’t find the necessary funds to keep it alive.

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