California

Partnering With Parents for Academic Success in the Latino Community

State Farm’s Agency Field Office in Bakersfield is partnering with the Parents Institute for Quality Education (PIQE) to have a positive impact on the Latino community by preparing low income students for academic success in high school and college.

PIQE’s objective is to encourage and support low income, ethnically diverse parents of K-12 students to take an active role in their children’s education. State Farm’s AFO’s donation of $3,500 will offset the cost of materials for multiple parent education classes at Stiern Middle School, where the student population is over 80 percent Latino.

“We want to help parents enhance their children’s educational experience and position them to succeed in high school,” said State Farm Agency Executive Preston Love. In addition to the financial contribution, his office donated several cases of book bags for parents to carry their training materials or to pass on to their students.

A variety of parental education programs are taught by PIQE staff members at local public schools. They cover topics like how to create a learning environment at home, navigating the K-12 school system, and promoting high school graduation and qualifying for college.

Over the past 21 years, PIQE has graduated over 450,000 parents from their programs, impacting an estimated 1.5 million students throughout 461 K-12 schools in California and five other states.