Family and Community Engagement

The Family Institute for Student Success (FISS) is a statewide initiative spearheaded by the Family Engagement and Student and Family Support offices of the MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (MA DESE). Humanity Advanced, LLC is the principal developer and implementer of FISS and works directly with districts interested in integrating comprehensive evidenced-based family engagement frameworks that maximize student outcomes.

  • The mission of FISS is to expand and enhance the capacities of families and school staff to build strong, positive, and effective partnerships to promote family well-being and the healthy development and academic success of children and youth. As a capacity building initiative, FISS offers a portfolio of workshops to parents, caregivers, school staff and community-based providers to positively influence the growth of children and youth, improve academic achievement, and support their life-long success.

  • The FISS Lead Team from Humanity Advanced, LLC and MA DESE’s Office of Family Engagement, work with committed districts for three years to provide training, coaching and technical assistance to launch FISS as a high impact family engagement and student outcome strategy. Interested districts submit applications for consideration in the Fall. Selection of districts is released in early winter, with subsequent execution of Memorandum of Agreements by February-March. The FISS onboarding process begins in March-April to support the readiness of districts to launch FISS the following Fall.

  • Districts currently implementing FISS include, Lowell Public Schools, Fitchburg Public Schools, Worcester Public Schools, the Springfield Empowerment Zone Partnership and Atlantis Charter School.

    For more information about FISS please contact,

    - Olga Lopez, MA DESE Family Engagement specialist at olga.m.lopez@state.ma.us, or

    - Bertha-Elena Rojas, FISS Team Lead at bertha-elena@humanityadvanced.com