Barbara Mason

WETA Hometown Hero February 2008. Barbara Mason is the founder and executive director of the Child & Family Network Centers, which provides education to young underpriviledged children and job training to their parents.

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Barbara Mason, founder and executive director of the Child & Family Network Centers (CFNC), is the focus of a month-long WETA Hometown Heroes profile airing in February on WETA TV 26.

WETA selected Mason for her strong dedication to the education of underprivileged children in Northern Virginia.

CFNC was launched in 1984, after Mason responded to a newspaper ad in search of a preschool teacher. The ad was placed by mothers in the Cameron Valley Housing Project in Alexandria, Virginia, who were upset that their kindergarten-age children had flunked their grade. Initially, only six kids attended Mason's preschool; those children were later identified as gifted and flourished in school.

Since that time, CFNC has grown considerably. The organization now has an enrollment of approximately 200 young students, has expanded into Arlington, Virginia, and is free to low-income families. CFNC concentrates on families living in poverty who are ineligible for childcare programs and now offers education, family, and health services available to entire needy families. Offerings include speech and language services; dental, hearing, and vision screenings; and parenting classes, financial literacy workshops and job training.

Mason created a comprehensive model program and adopted the nationally accredited teaching program, the High Scope Curriculum, for CFNC. The program has been shown to be effective for low-income kids in multicultural environments. At-risk students have a considerably higher overall achievement rate in the classroom compared to their peers that receive a traditional educational curriculum. CFNC also has a Paid Parent Assistant Program, bringing parents to help as aides in the classroom.

Many of the current CFNC teachers started out in the Paid Parent Assistant Program. CFNC provides programs that support their mission "to provide caring, high-quality, free education and related services to at risk children and families in their own neighborhoods in order to prepare and empower them for success in school and life."

Although Mason considers CFNC to be one of her proudest accomplishments, one of her most rewarding moments occurred years ago in a kindergarten classroom. The students were asked to draw a community helper. Most of the children drew firefighters and policemen, except for one little boy. When showing the class his community helper, the little boy explained, "This is Mrs. Mason. She's my teacher and I love her."

Along with working closely with families in CFNC, Mason operates with various outreach organizations, including Alexandria's Special Education and Preschool Intervention Advisory Boards, Virginia Preschool Initiative Planning Committee and the Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington.

Mason's belief of high-quality education accessible to all children has created a large organization that counteracts many stereotypes about disadvantaged children. CFNC has grown from a preschool of only six students to a multimillion dollar organization that helps and encourages entire families.

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