“We, as parents, refuse to be plunged into chaos due to the incompetence and lack of planning.”
Keri Rodrigues — my friend, colleague, a partner in fighting for education justice, and founder of the organization I am proud to represent — captured precisely what millions of families were thinking as kids headed back to school.
Since the start of the pandemic, schools have asked parents for patience, for the benefit of the doubt, for trust, as they’ve scrambled to try to achieve two important goals at the same time: returning to the classroom safely and ensuring continuous learning without disruption. Parents have shown grace. We’ve been understanding, and in many cases tolerated utter incompetence.
In exchange? We’ve been met with silence.
How are schools going to keep children safe? What plans do they have for winter breaks? How will schools avoid learning disruptions and ensure students receive 180 days of in-person instructional time? How are schools using millions of dollars in federal funding to close a learning gap that disproportionately affects Blacks and Latinos?
These are questions parents are asking, and far too many schools can’t seem to answer. And so, we are right back where we were in the fall of 2020, wondering whether it’s because schools don’t have a plan, don’t care to be responsive to the parents’ concerns and if our schools will be safe.
Parents cannot and should not be expected to extend grace any longer. It’s the children who suffer most and are expected to play catch up as test scores continue to decline. Schools have had more than enough time to figure this out.
We’ve been warned by local and federal health officials that a fall COVID surge is coming. Yet far too many schools will once again be asleep at the wheel. One exception is Philadelphia, where education justice warrior Maritza Guridy tells me many parents welcomed the news that kids and staff will be masked up for the first 10 days of school.
But in talking to parents across the country in my role as director of Parent Voice and Outreach at the National Parents Union, the Philly Plan is a rarity.
It’s not just safety measures where parents are left in the dark. In the late spring, NPU released a poll of parents that found more than half have not heard anything about the federal funding being used in their child’s school to help address challenges related to the pandemic.
It gets worse. Not only are the schools not communicating with parents about how Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds are being spent, but more than 60 percent of parents say their children’s schools haven’t asked parents to give input or feedback on how the money should be used.
Every time schools closed and sent children home without a plan of action, the living rooms became classrooms, cafeterias and gymnasiums.
No more being polite. It’s time to fight. The grace we’ve shown, considering it is a pandemic, is gone. School leaders must have two goals this fall: keep kids safe in the classroom and keep kids learning. They’d have a much better shot at accomplishing both if they’d talk — and listen — to parents for once.
5 thoughts on “Opinion: Schools Must Regain the Trust of Parents – Inside Sources”
When I was in school in the 50’s there was a speaker-microphone in each classroom. The pledge and announcements were made each morning. And the teacher could talk back to the office. Those features should be in place today so the principal and say a parent, could listen in on a classroom where suspected inappropriate materials -subjects were being taught. If this is not in place today it should be reintroduced.
So, spying on teachers is your solution. All materials for a school are available for review the year before a school year. The board approves the materials in advance. That is when parents can see what their children will be learning. The school board approves the books, educational programs, and equipment needed to apply the learning materials long before each school year starts. An agenda is available before each school board meeting, then the school board accepts input on those materials before voting. Sloth is the reason parents don’t know what their children are being taught, parents don’t follow what the school board is doing and they are not asking their kids what they learned in school today. Spying on teachers couldn’t possibly have any negative consequences on teacher recruitment and retention…note: sarcasm flag is flying…
Part of the problem is that the parents of the students do not take an active role in their children’s schooling. I recently came across a video where the late Steve Jobs (one of the founders of Apple Computer) said in 1995 that parents stopped taking an active role in their children’s education. Too many parents have either viewed the public school system as a babysitter for their children when they went off to work or they simply trusted the education cabal to “do the right thing.” In the absence of any serious oversight by the parents the public school teachers and administrators were left to their own devices to do as they pleased. We now have school systems where the tail is wagging the dog. The “professional educators” believe that only they know what is right for the children and the parents can go pound sand. To view this video go to the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEyl-u2Zdmw.
The only way for the parents to regain control over their children’s education is to be proactive and find out what their children are being taught in the schools. Parents have to return to the role of the customer of the public school system. If they have an issue with the way that the education cabal is teaching their children they need to let the school board and administrators know there is a problem so that changes can be made.
Also, Steve Jobs said in the interview that the public school system has become a monopoly. That is dangerous. When the public schools fail alternatives need to be available such as private schools and charter schools. The public schools need to feel that they are in a competition with the alternative schools for students and that if the customers are dissatisfied they will go elsewhere.
Steve Jobs stated that the parents should fill the role as customer to the public (taxpayer funded) schools. Ultimately all of the taxpayers are the customers since they are the ones footing the bill. Not only parents but every taxpayer in the community has skin in the game.
Transparency is the enemy of the Radical Left Parasites that infest the American school system.
Transparency = more difficult to steal resources from students and good teachers.
What are you even talking about???
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