When a family enrolls, it isn’t just the student who joins CAIS. Parents, guardians, and even grandparents also become part of a warm, tight-knit community with a myriad of ways to be involved and get connected.
Family School Alliance
The Family School Alliance includes all CAIS parents and guardians of students and is focused on supporting the school’s mission, values and programs through volunteer service, community building and events. All parents and guardians of students as well as all faculty and staff are automatically members of the CAIS FSA and are invited to attend general meetings.
Recaps of school year 2022-2023 include: hosting the Mid Autumn Moon Festival, There with Care Community Service Project, On Lok Community Service, Pomeroy Community Service, Community Hikes, Beach Clean Ups, Year of the Rabbit T-shirt Contest, Holiday Faire/Gingerbread Houses, Teacher/Staff Winter Appreciation Breakfast, Preschool Kite Day, Teacher/Staff Appreciation Week, Olema Spring Camping, and The End of Year Picnic Potluck! We also continuously run our Lost and Found Program, Lunar New Year outfit recycling program, CAIS Spiritwear Boutique and Hot Lunch Program!
All of this requires parent volunteers and community involvement! If you’d like to get involved, we’d love to have you! Please email fsa@cais.org.”
For more information about FSA programs, leadership, and how to support FSA
Preschool Family Alliance
PFSA (formerly PAECE) shares the same goal as the FSA of supporting the school’s mission, values, and programs through volunteer service and community building events and activities. PFSA group members meet monthly during the school year and all Preschool parents are welcome to attend.
Families of African Heritage Affinity Group
In 2016 with an identified need to support student life and engage school leadership, a group of parents, self-identified as families of African heritage began to meet monthly with members of CAIS’s administration to work towards shared goals of equity and inclusion.
Today, FAH (Families of African Heritage), celebrates and supports the diverse members of African heritage in the CAIS parent and student body. FAH works with the CAIS leadership team and Admissions to connect families and build community. Our goal is to create an environment where parents/guardians feel safe, seen and supported while our students learn and grow at Chinese American International School. The CAIS community group known as FAH partners with the school to benefit students of African heritage as well as the larger CAIS community. FAH is a voluntary group that invites all parents/guardians of FAH students at CAIS to participate and get involved! Meetings are monthly.
if you are interested in learning more about or participating in FAH please contact @ FAH@cais.org.
Room Parents
Serving as a Room Parent is a fun and rewarding volunteer position helping to organize the many classroom activities, field trips, and luncheons throughout the school year. In 2024-2025 a spectacular 99 parents are volunteering as Room Parents from Preschool through eighth grade. Room Parent Coordinators Eleanor Chen and Lidiya Lukashova are looking forward to working with this fantastic crew of volunteers!
SPEAK
CAIS is a member of Speakers for Parents, Educators, and Knowledge (SPEAK), a coalition of San Francisco K-8 schools that have joined together to enhance parent education. The group’s goal is to enrich the education and learning experience of our families, our children and our communities. Examples of the events hosted include presentations and discussions by experts such as:
Dr. John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist from the University of Washington and author of the New York Times bestseller Brain Rules and the national bestseller Brain Rules for Baby. Drawing from his latest research, he spoke about how to foster resilience in our children at this stage of the pandemic.
Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want to Talk About Race, led a candid discussion about race and racism in the United States. She shared the importance of self-care and provided practical tips for continuing these important conversations in our communities and homes.
Dr. Kristin Neff, acclaimed psychologist, author, and speaker, discussed why practicing self-compassion is a necessary precursor to happiness for all of us. During the presentation, she taught a practice to help parents and educators to be self-compassionate while maintaining a sense of balance in challenging interactions with our kids.
Dr. Sarah-SoonLing Blackburn, Learning for Justice Educator, and KPIX journalist and broadcaster Betty Yu held a discussion on the topic of “Building Upstanders and Resilience: How-tos for Parents to Address Anti-Asian Sentiment”