'The Missing Link'

By Katherine Hooper-Briar

Roberta is a rainmaker. She is a parent who represents the many other low-income immigrant parents who are served by an urban Florida school community. Roberta's experience as a parent and a mother of several children helps her provide services and solve community and school problems. Rain stands for Referral And ZV)mation Network.

Roberta assists teachers in classrooms. She teaches children proper decorum in the cafeteria. She helps organize a lice-buster group, a homework club, an absenteeism outreach strategy, a job club.

She may even take on city hall by demanding greater representation for poor, Hispanic, and immigrant families. For this work, she...