Liaison Inspiring New Community (L.I.N.C.)
New families may wish they could turn to “Google” for answers to questions about San Francisco Day School.
What is the SFDS drive-thru procedure?
What happens at Back-to-School Night?
How do I get involved?
The SFDS Parent Association, however, knows a search engine is no substitute for veteran SFDS families that provides that all-important personal touch.
As a result, the Parent Association utilizes its very own matchmaking tool: the Liaison Inspiring New Community (LINC) committee. LINC, chaired by Janet Hall and Anne Salinas, sets about each spring pairing returning families with families who are new to SFDS.
Families are matched in the spring so that initial contact can occur during the summer. Organizers believe the host family role is vital to creating a welcoming community for new families joining the school.
Thirty-four new children – 22 of whom are kindergarteners – will join the student body this September. Committee chairs matched incoming kindergarten families with returning families who also have a kindergartener. LINC chairs take gender and grade level into account when making matches.
Under LINC guidelines, each host family is asked to welcome its buddy family to the School (and to San Francisco if the family has relocated), facilitate introductions to others in the community and serve as a resource regarding volunteer opportunities, sports, and school functions.
While host families are free to achieve these goals as they choose, Hall and Salinas recommend that, at a minimum, they email or call the buddy family in the spring and again just before school begins when handbooks and class assignments are mailed home. Face-to-face meetings that fit the style and schedule of the host family during the summer are encouraged as well. It is the committee’s hope that host families check in on their buddy families throughout the school year because “families are new for the entire year.”
Hall’s current involvement with LINC stems from her own experience with it as a new SFDS family three years ago. In fact, she helped get the program back on its feet beginning last school year when she realized it had lapsed in the time since her arrival.
“It was a great experience for us,” said Hall, whose two children are at SFDS. “It helped us integrate into the School that much more quickly and that much more quickly to San Francisco.” Her host family organized a dinner for the Halls prior to the first day of school, made countless introductions and answered questions – big and small – throughout the year.
And while Hall’s host family and her family happened to “click,” Hall notes that enduring friendships are an added benefit of the program, not the goal. “Buddies don’t have to be best friends; they just need to be a resource,” she explained.
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