LUMIN EDUCATION
A Montessori Community
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Programs and results
What we aim to solve
The goal of Lumin Education is to give children the best start in school and in life through two initiatives: home visiting/parent education (ages 0-3) and high-quality Montessori classrooms for children, beginning at 18 months. In home visits, the parent educator creates a "mini" Montessori environment for the parent educator to model activities that the child and parent can do together, and shares personalized child development information and resources. Parents also attend group meetings to learn more about child development and network with other parents. In Montessori classrooms, highly trained teachers create beautifully equipped, inspiring environments for children to learn and grow.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Home Visiting
Our need-based, Pregnancy to Age Three home visiting programs are available to qualifying families based on income, developmental risk factors, and residential service area.
Developmental information and parenting strategies provided by the nationally recognized Parents as Teachers curriculum and implemented at home in alignment with Montessori principles.
Currently, these programs are offered to qualifying families in Dallas, Texas zip codes in Bachman Lake or in East Dallas/Fair Park.
The program includes:
• Regularly scheduled screenings to check for developmental milestones
• Visits every two weeks (twice a month)
• Creative toy-making lessons and fun activities
• Regularly scheduled parent group gatherings with guest speakers
• Every pregnancy and every child are different. Our home visiting programs are designed to support you wherever you are in your parenting journey.
• Bilingual (Spanish) home visitors available
Lumin Beginnings
Our fee-based, in-home Montessori Parent Coaching program, Lumin Beginnings, is designed for the parent or caregiver interested in raising confident, joyful, responsible, lifelong learners.
Lumin Beginnings introduces caregivers to basic Montessori concepts and presents a variety of ways to implement them at home by creating beautiful learning spaces, predictable routines that foster autonomy and self-regulation, and positive parenting strategies that align with your family dynamics and values.
Multiple packages are available - find details at https://www.lumineducation.org/programs/lumin-beginnings.
Toddler Classroom
Our Montessori Toddler class offers a curriculum that supports each child’s unique skills and interests. Based on daily observations, teachers introduce new materials and activities that pique curiosity and stimulate learning.
Primary Classroom
Lumin Education’s Primary Montessori classrooms are designed to inspire children to take initiative, make choices, and learn through hands-on experiences. The 3 - 5 year old child is a sensorial learner who is passionately interested in everything.
Elementary Classroom
Lumin's Montessori Elementary Classrooms are designed for students ages 6 - 9 (first - third grade) and encourage leadership development, active learning, and exploration of the world outside the classroom.
ABC - After and Before School Care
Lumin's After and Before School Care Program (ABC) provides care for students before and after the school day. ABC offers opportunities for active play, social engagement, learning, and exploration. We have two after-school classrooms – one for Primary students and one for Elementary students.
Fatherhood Program
The Fatherhood Program is a supportive community dedicated to empowering fathers of all ages and those fulfilling the father role at home. Our program offers a unique blend of virtual and in-person weekly meetings, where members come together to connect, share experiences, and grow as fathers. Whether a first-time dad or a seasoned pro, every father plays a crucial role in shaping their children's lives.
"The Fatherhood Podcast" & "El podcast de la paternidad" hosted by Jonathan Avila is available in both English and Spanish on major platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Podcasts. These insightful podcasts delve into a wide range of topics, from parenting tips and strategies to self-development and building strong, loving relationships with our children.
Play Therapy
A key to our students’ success is the emphasis on social-emotional well-being. Children will face many challenges in their growing years, some being adverse childhood experiences, which may be traumatic. A child may be affected by the birth of a sibling, separation from parents, and the death of a parent or grandparent. Any of these stresses may then manifest themselves in poor academic performance, social withdrawal, or other challenging or disruptive behaviors.
Our playtimes program addresses these emotional stresses through the relationship with an interested, empathetic, and specially trained adult who utilizes evidence-based strategies. During playtimes children have the opportunity to communicate their feelings and concerns in a safe and supportive environment. As children explore and express feelings and experiences, they begin to accept themselves and gain self-esteem. Children are better able to succeed in all aspects of their life.
Mindfulness
Lumin uses Mindfulness as a response that addresses the overall health and sustainability of our learning environments. It supports the well-being of every educator, student, and member of our school community. Our staff is trained in mindfulness practices in order to implement effective ways to help our students develop awareness of their emotional process and explore different tools and practices to nurture their emotional life while providing them with supportive relationships and positive learning environments.
Where we work
External reviews
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Evaluation documents
Download evaluation reports90 percent of the parents in the home visiting program will agree through a year-end survey that their parent educator helped them understand how to help their children grow and learn.
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Home Visiting
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
99% of parents in the home visiting program agreed through a year-end survey that their parent educator helped them understand how to help their children grow and learn.
80 percent of students will be evaluated as on track or advanced in the school readiness domains or subject areas assessed.
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Home Visiting
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
92% of the children in each age category in Lumin’s Montessori Home Visiting Program were at the intermediate or advanced level for school readiness according to the Galileo Child Assessment.
80 percent of parents in the home visiting program will show improvement in family functioning as demonstrated on the Life Skills Progression or Florida Family Outcomes Matrix.
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Home Visiting
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
89% of the parents in home visiting program showed improvement in family functioning as demonstrated on the Life Skills Progression or Florida Family Outcomes Matrix.
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Lumin Education's mission is to provide an outstanding education to children from diverse backgrounds by starting young and involving parents. We operate early childhood learning centers in the East Dallas and Bachman Lake areas of Dallas with programs to meet the needs of children and their parents from pregnancy to age nine.
As the child reaches the age of completion in our program, we help families transition to other quality early childhood education programs. This process gives our families the best opportunity to maintain the school readiness skills achieved during Lumin’s program, being prepared to succeed in school and beyond.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
On all campuses, Lumin offers the home visiting P-3 (Pregnancy to Age 3) Program which addresses the need for parents with young children to have the knowledge, support, and resources to be their child's best, first teacher. Through parent empowerment, children receive a strong foundation early in life that benefits them throughout their school careers and beyond.
Both children and parents benefit from parent education programs. Research shows that these programs reduce negative emotions in children such as anxiety, depression, and emotional and behavioral problems. Parents benefit from increased knowledge, improved self esteem and better emotional communication with their children.
Lumin utilizes the PAT (Parents As Teachers) curriculum for the P-3 Program, and Lumin incorporates the Montessori approach to learning, developed for young children by Dr. Maria Montessori in the early 1900s. Dr. Steven J. Hughes, Professor of Pediatrics and Neurology at the University of Minnesota Medical School, describes Montessori education as "a brain-based developmental education method that allows children to make creative choices in how they discover the people, places, and knowledge of the world. Montessori emphasizes hands-on learning, self-expression and collaborative work in a beautifully crafted environment of respect, peace, and joy." During home visits, the parent educator creates a "mini" Montessori environment in which the parent educator models activities that the child and parent can do together, and shares age-specific child development information. The parent educator models and teaches parent(s) these developmentally appropriate activities in order to promote their child’s fine and gross motor development, cognitive development, language development, and social-emotional development.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Lumin operates a Montessori campus in Old East Dallas. Lumin Education was founded in 1978 by a group of committed parents and teachers determined to transform education for low-income students. Now, Lumin Lindsley Park Community School provides on-site Montessori education for students, age three to nine, and operates as an AMI Accredited Montessori school, teaching students in primary and elementary classrooms.
Both East Dallas schools offer After and Before School Care (ABC), and Playtimes. One key to student success is emotional well-being. Children may face many challenges in their growing years, which may be traumatic. A child may also be adversely affected by the birth of a sibling, separation from parents, or the death of a parent or grandparent. Any of these stresses may then manifest themselves in poor academic performance, social withdrawal, or other challenging or disruptive behaviors.
Our playtimes program addresses these emotional stresses through the relationship with an interested, empathetic, and specially trained adult who utilizes evidence-based strategies. As children explore and express feelings about themselves, and their experiences, they begin to accept themselves and grow in genuine self-esteem. Maladaptive behaviors begin to lessen and children are better able to succeed in school.
In 2009, Lumin Education expanded to provide resources to a community in need. In collaboration with Bachman Lake Together, Lumin Bachman Lake Community School focuses on early childhood education by offering resources to help children and families grow mentally, socially, emotionally, and physically.
Funded by a combination of public grants (Early Head Start and Maternal, Infant, Early Childhood Home Visiting) and private donations, Lumin Bachman Lake Community School offers home visiting parent education from pregnancy through age five, as well as toddler classrooms for 18 months to age three, in a Montessori setting.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Lumin earned a Parents as Teachers Blue Ribbon designation for our home visiting family educators. To achieve this designation, an affiliate must meet or exceed all 17 Essential Requirements, and also meet at least 75% of the additional Parents as Teachers Quality Standards. Lumin's program met or exceeded all 17 Essential Requirements and met 87% of the Quality Standards.
Lumin, in partnership with the Simmons School of Education and Human Development at SMU, was awarded a three-year grant from 2019-2021 that established guidelines for collection of data and long-term measurable results by tracking the progress of Lumin graduates. This brought academic rigor and neutrality to the evaluation of Lumin's endeavors and provided solid evidence we can use to advocate and promote the Lumin model.
We learned that Lumin’s approach had influence on student performance years after the students left Lumin’s programs. Researchers identified two areas where data show statistically significant differences.
Research documented that the average math score for 4-year-olds was higher for children who had participated in Lumin’s Pregnancy to Age 3 home visiting program, compared with a matched sample of other 4-year-olds who had not had the Lumin experience.
In a second research project, SMU researchers compared Lumin students who had attended Lumin classrooms for three years or more with a matched sample of other students. Lumin’s program ends at 3rd grade. Students were matched for the following demographics: gender, race, English Language Learner status, socio-economic status, gifted and talented status, special education status, and at-risk status – to ensure that the control group (Dallas ISD students who had not attended Lumin) was as similar as possible to the treatment group (DISD students who had attended Lumin.)
SMU researchers concluded that “Lumin students performed better than their matched Dallas ISD peers in 5th grade reading, math, and science STAAR tests, ”having “consistently higher average scores than their matched peers with similar demographic characteristics."
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We share the feedback we received with the people we serve, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
We don't have any major challenges to collecting feedback
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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LUMIN EDUCATION
Board of directorsas of 09/06/2023
Mr. Michael Giles
Mike Birrer
Partner and Employment Practice Group Chair at Carrington Coleman, LLP
Michael Giles
Managing Principal at Right Management Consultants, North Texas Region
Amrit Kirpalani
CEO and Co-Founder of DenouSource and Nectar Online Media
Mary Caroline Parker
Director of Development, Montessori Institute of North Texas
Kelsey Bridgewater Clark
Partner at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
John H. Fullinwider
Board Member/President of Teatro Dallas; Co-Founder, Mothers Against Police Brutality
Carolyn Sells
Associate Head of School for Elementary at Alcuin School
Jeff Sullivan
Senior Director at Child Poverty Action Lab
Ericka Ventura
Board Member at Bachman Lake Together
Rosa M. Hernandez
Former teacher and director at Mi Escuelita and Anita Martinez Recreation Center
Bob Marshall
Board of Trustees, Executive Committee, Chairman Finance & Budget Committee at Parish Episcopal School
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
No data
Gender identity
No data
Transgender Identity
No data
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 09/01/2023GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.