Can anyone provide nuts & bolts advice how parents have gotten together to improve their local DCPS?

[Anonymous]

Does anyone on DCUM have personal experience or know any parents who have banded together and successfully improved their local (under-performing) DCPS elementary?

I live in City Vista (Chinatown), local school is Walker Jones. There has recently been an active and very positive thread about parents getting together to improve WJ.

Since this kind of parent driven effort has been successful in similar schools in recent past, it seems like no one is trying to reinvent the wheel here.

SO: What's the best way to tap into the collective wisdom here????

It seems like it would help a lot of families if a kind of How Parents Can Improve Their Local DCPS: A DIY Guide of sorts (perhaps webpage) could be developed with:

-Effective Strategies for organizing parents, communicating with the school/DCPS,

-Realistic Goals

- Names/Contacts of experienced parents who have been there/done that

-open to more ideas!!


Any insight/information greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks,


Jen Eaton
[e-mail]

[Anonymous]

This is a wonderful question, and I thank you for asking it. ANY parent wants to improve certain aspects of a school, and it's puzzling to figure out how.

I wish the Washington Post would provide some specifics when they write about how parents improved, say, Brent Elementary School on Capitol Hill. Caryn Ernst wrote a column about this called, "A recipe for more choice schools in D.C." published on Sunday, April 4. I clipped it (it's in a for-pay archive now or I'd link to it.)
It's filled with generalities and no specifics. After describing how "dreary" Brent was in comparison to its stately neighorhood, she writes;
"But Brent has become the school of choice in the neighborhood in the past few years. It's been a fascinating process to watch. A group of parents came together and decided it was time for change. They had vision. They got organized, led fundraisers, applied for grants [FOR WHAT?] and worked with the school [WITH WHOM AT THE SCHOOL?]The school now has an innvative playground, beautiful gardens, and more important, new leadership [PARENTS GOT PEOPLE FIRED? DID THEY LOCATE THE NEW PEOPLE AND GET THEM HIRED? HOW?] and climbing test scores."

So I'm sorry I can't help. But I notice the test scores at Brent aren't so great--56 percent in math, 56 pecent in reading--and the school hasn't made AYP two years in a row, according to:
http://dcps.dc.gov/DCPS/Learn+About+Schools/School+Profiles/School+Profiles+-+Elementary+Schools

Thank you for raising the topic. An article in the DC City Paper about efforts to improve Francis-Stevens is online at:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/777/diy-charter-school

[Anonymous]

Sorry--I posted the wrong link. THe article about improving Francis-Stevens is:

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/39647/michelle-rhees-campaign-to-diversify-dc-public-schools-means-wooing/page1

[Anonymous]

you might contact West Elementary where there has been a group that seems to have infused new energy into the school.

It is difficult to do in DC, as everyone has the lottery option to go charter, OOB, and my experience at a school that was already pretty good was that every year a few more parents would move their kids on to a new better place. .. .

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks to everyone who has posted so far!!

I really hope the replies keep on coming. I'm going to email Caryn Ernst and Bill Turque at the Post right now and ask them for a) insight and/or b) to write more about this topic.

Jen

[Anonymous]

I live in Brookland and have been wondering the same thing. I haven't heard much about our inbounds school (Brookland-Bunker Hill) that is inspiring. I have been wondering how it all works -- how to improve the schools.

I'd like to thank the poster with the two links. I'd read the recent City Paper piece but not the earlier one about starting a charter. That was interesting reading.

Jen, I do hope the Post decides to write more about it.

I also hope for more responses -- especially from Cap Hill parents!

[Anonymous]

Some of the JKLM's use PTA money to pay classroom aides to help with classroom management etc. Seems to help. Maybe if your PTA can't fund this b/c of the high cost, you could partner with a PTA from West of the park to help your school.

[Anonymous]

First thing you do it meet as many parents in the same school as you with similar aged kids. Preferably before PS or PK starts. Talk to them, organize, try to commit to all send your kids to the local school. Most of what halts school improvement is that the middle class parents do not want their kid to be the "experiment". If you have a cohort of 6 or 8 other kids in a similar situation you (the parent) will not feel so alone -- the kids are probably fine, 3 and 4 year olds are not wasting a lot of time worrying about skin color or household income.

Second, in addition to #1, don't for get about the parents already in the school who do care about their kids education and are already trying hard to make the school good. You can not just swoop in as a bunch of white parents and "fix" everything, there are already people there with the same goals. Don't act like your PhD or Law degree means you are the savior of the school.

Third, work with the principal. If you are a SAHM/D be available, help out, be someone they can count on.

Fouth, form a PTA/PTO, get non-profit status, and fundraise like heck to get as much money as you can to help the school. One important thing is field trips. DCPS charges schools something like $400 for a school bus for a trip. Sure that is only about $10 per kid, but if half the school is FARMs kids the school can't really expect parents to pony up. So there will only be one or two field trips per year. If the PTA can hand over money for field trips that means more trips, and better education for the kids. In doing this, you must recognize that money raised is going for all the kids in the school, not just your 4 year old.

Form and "academic excellence" committee or something similar to focus on ways to help the 3-5th graders improve reading and math skills so they'll do better on the CAS (e.g. reading tutors or reading partners) The principal will love you, the test scores will go up, and that will make more middle class parents willing to send their 3-5 year old to your school.

Aftercare!! Research ways to improve after care for the PS-1st graders. Currently, those little kids often end up watching TV or running wild on the playground. JUMPSTART, Music Programs, anything that puts in place organized programs for little kids will benefit the entire school and will have the added benefit of making the dual income middle class parents in your neighborhood feel better about enrolling their children.

Oh, yeah, and forget having any none school free time.

[Anonymous]

Get yourself a partner in your principal or get a new principal.

[Anonymous]

First, get more middle class people with college degrees or higher to move into your neighborhood. You'll need an overwhelming surge of these people to offset the losses to charter schools, Stoddert/Eaton/Hearst, and parochial choices.

This is the "secret" of the "good" schools West of the park and I think one of them on Cap Hill. It's pretty basic. It's not like they have magic principals and teachers and unique curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone on DCUM have personal experience or know any parents who have banded together and successfully improved their local (under-performing) DCPS elementary?

I live in City Vista (Chinatown), local school is Walker Jones. There has recently been an active and very positive thread about parents getting together to improve WJ.

Since this kind of parent driven effort has been successful in similar schools in recent past, it seems like no one is trying to reinvent the wheel here.

SO: What's the best way to tap into the collective wisdom here????

It seems like it would help a lot of families if a kind of How Parents Can Improve Their Local DCPS: A DIY Guide of sorts (perhaps webpage) could be developed with:

-Effective Strategies for organizing parents, communicating with the school/DCPS,

-Realistic Goals

- Names/Contacts of experienced parents who have been there/done that

-open to more ideas!!


Any insight/information greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks,


Jen Eaton
[e-mail]

Wow, you're trying to do this the hard way.

The historically easiest path is to recruit a group of parents with a shared vision for a unique high quality charter school.

Instead of trying to cobble together a group of a dozen parents who will collapse when they actually come face to face with the horrors of HD Cooke or Shepherd or Ross, put your energy into a school where you can make a difference in the quality. You'll be following the tradition(s) of: Cap City, Two Rivers, Yu Ying, and others.

There are 3 new charters opening next fall. Register for one of them before you kill yourself over a local DCPS. You don't owe it to society at large to sacrifice your child to the "Lord of the Flies."

[Anonymous]

If the charters are so great, then why do so many families leave in the grades 3 ands up? They wind up leaving to go to privates or the burbs too. Let's not fool anyone.

[Anonymous]

Aftercare now goes through a centralized vetting process. The person to talk with would be Daniela Grigioni at DCPS's Office of Out of School Time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the charters are so great, then why do so many families leave in the grades 3 ands up? They wind up leaving to go to privates or the burbs too. Let's not fool anyone.

Families are staying in Cap City well beyond 3rd, thank you. There was so much demand they had to open a high school. As for Yu Ying, I'm pretty sure it doesn't even go past 3rd yet. A Two Rivers parent would have to chime in, but I think they're strong all the way through the E.S. grades. That's the school so many Hill families leave the cluster for.

[Anonymous]

I have a friend (college professor) whose kids are at Two Rivers and the oldest is staying through the end of middle school.

re working to improve your neighborhood DCPS. Given your downtown location, you might look for institutional support (from agencies, businesses, museums) in various forms -- financial, programmatic. I think this was one of Ross's strong suits.