Thank you for participating in our August $100 sweepstakes! Check out what parents learned from the August newsletter.
Congrats to Our August Sweepstakes Winner,
Francisca Alvarado-Lopez!
Francisca Alvarado-Lopez a native of El Salvador, is a proud mother of four and is currently completing the program for three of her kids. Her eldest graduated from KIPP Lynn but she wasn’t part of the program before he graduated. Her sons Maurio and Salvador (twins) are in 10thgrade and Brian is in 5th grade. She learned about Inversant when her eldest child was attending high school. At the time she wasn’t fully convinced to join the program because there wasn’t much information in Spanish. However, later she was able to connect with a Spanish speaking staff member who helped her understand and learn about the benefits of joining.
Francisca has always wanted her kids to go to college, “that’s what most parents want for their kids” she says. She understands the value of education because she went to college herself in El Salvador, where she got a Bachelors degree to be a kindergarten teacher. She is a firm believer that “life is a bit easier when you have an education. Without an education, it’s harder to get a job”.
But before Inversant, Francisca had not taken the steps to start saving for her children’s education. When her eldest graduated, she had to take care of a lot of expenses that she wasn’t prepared for. This helped her realize that she needed to save aggressively because her twins were graduating next and that meant double the expenses. For example, she learned that most scholarships didn’t cover the whole tuition so she would have to save as much as possible to cover the rest.
Although she mentions she is already getting a lot from participating in the Inversant program, she still hopes to continue to learn more about how to better guide her kids through this process. She believes most students don’t know what they should be doing, which is why she finds Inversant very helpful because she believes it is important for parents to receive the resources they need to guide their kids when they are not sure what they would like to pursue.
One of those helpful resources for her has been the information she receives at the Inversant Learning Circles. One of her favorite Learning Circles is “the one that talks about how I should be monitoring my children academically – for example monitoring their grades and GPA. I liked that Learning Circle because now I know how important it is to monitor their grades. Now thanks to the Inversant, I am more engaged and I know what each letter grade means. I have become more open to talk to their teachers – now I am able to figure out if they missed a homework and what I can do at home to help them out with a specific class or in general.”
Francisca recommends other parents to “save some money to motivate them to look forward and accomplish their dreams no matter what. I would advise them to educate themselves and learn about programs like this so they can start the saving process at an early stage in order to feel better prepared when their kids graduate from high school.”
When asked about her proudest moment thus far, she says that without a doubt it was seeing her eldest graduate from high school. And her proudest moment in the future will be seeing all her kids graduate from college.
Don’t miss your chance to win the next $100 sweepstakes! You have until October 31 to submit your answers to October’s survey. E-mail [email protected] if you have not received our newsletters or sweepstake surveys. For more details please visit www.inversant.org/sweepstakes.