The Family Services Office supports school/home connections, connects parents with essential community resources, helps families to be more involved in their children’s education, encourages daily school attendance, and assists children with transitions.
Family Services Coordinators provide support to families. Their work focuses on improving student attendance, assisting parents to be educational partners, connecting families with community resources, breaking down barriers to student success and supporting families to access support and services.
The Newport Cares Program, funded by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act supports homeless students in Newport. This federal legislation ensures that all children and youth experiencing homelessness have the opportunity to enroll in, attend, and succeed in school. McKinney-Vento legislation requires school districts to ensure access to the same free, appropriate public education, including a public preschool education as is provided to other children and youth for students experiencing homelessness and to support them once enrolled. This includes choice of schools, comparable services, the right to attend school, and the right to not be segregated. Through the Newport Cares Program, Family Service Coordinators provide support to homeless students to ensure that they receive necessary supports to keep them in school. Activities focus on securing food and clothing, assisting with personal hygiene, mental health supports, goal setting, obtaining literacy support, communicating with teachers, obtaining school supplies, assisting students with after school programs, and administrative duties.
The Family Office operates under the Newport Family and Child Opportunity Zone which is a division of East Bay Community Action Program. This allows us to connect you to a comprehensive array of health and social services in the community.
We are here to support you and your family to have a successful school year. Our office is located on site at the Pell Elementary School in the Family Office and we are here daily to help families, students, teachers, and other staff.
Our team consists of:
Taylor Ardito, Family Services Manager, taylorardito@npsri.net, 401-842-1925 x3
Mark McKenna, Family Service Coordinator, markmckenna@npsri.net, 401-842-1925 x4
Taylor and Mark have extensive experience in supporting and providing resources to families to ensure a successful school experience. They work in partnership with Newport Schools, parents, EBCAP, and the community to support overall student success.
We look forward to meeting and working with every family at the Pell School. Please stop by our office to let us know how we may best assist you.
