A PS3 Parent's Perspective on Bancroft

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a thread awhile back that praised the new principal. This goes to show you a reality check. Glad to hear an honest opinion about the school.

It's one person's opinion and doesn't mean the entire school is like this. If OP feels like she could, I'd recommend she email the principal her concerns as I know she'd want to improve upon the school's PR. Perhaps OP's teacher is new to teaching and/or new to DCPS. I'm not going to excuse not sending home artwork and communicating about school events, but with feedback, she and the principal can improve.

If you read her post the principal said it was due the the demographics of the school for not having electronic communications. Maybe the principal needs to wake up its 2013 for goodness sake. I'm sure parents would adapt and I'm sure many parents have a gmail account.

[Anonymous]

I've heard of something with a name like ConnectEd

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When we were at Thomson, parents said they had email but did not feel comfortable signing up for email blasts. Communication was a nightmare of translation and paper. I would say in some communities and I would include Hispanic parents here, having a smart phone does not mean they feel that it is how they should get information from the school. Also middle class/ electronically driven parents are not really the priority issue for meaningful engagement even if it is the way you want it. The key issue with so many of these parents is to get them to own some role in their kids education beyond bringing them to school. The issues are just different.

Actually proliferation of mobile technology in the US is highest amongst low income Hispanics. They are more "electronic driven" than middle class parents.

[Anonymous]

Almost EVERYONE has a mobile phone, and there are tons of mass text messaging services out there. When our school has a major event coming up, or school is canceled for weather, etc., they send a text. I think they could use it more often, personally, but they do use email a decent amount and I'm glad they at least have something in place. SMS is much more reliable than email as far as actually being seen/read.

[Anonymous]

Sorry that you have not had a positive experience. I am another Bancroft parent. I agree - communication could be much better but our experience has been a little different. It may be the class (we received a class list with contact information a couple of months into the school year, I have gone into my child's class to do an activity a couple of times) or my neurotic and nosy nature (I routinely check the school's website and noted the assembly a couple of weeks before, I go to PTA meetings which I find very informative, volunteer at PTA events to meet other parents and staff). There is a Bancroft family listserve which I believe started earlier this year too.
I don't know how many non English speaking parents have email but they are much more likely to give their phone number and not their email address.
Room for improvement.....but I think there has been some progress.

[Anonymous]

Our school's Facebook page had more likes than emails were offered up for parent contacts, I think. So there are some social media things that people might want to consider.

[Anonymous]

I agree connect ed and texting will get school wide events announced. However I can tell you being at one of these schools and then at a ward 3 school that you need email to do a lot of things. Class party, field trip volunteers, share what is going to happen over the next month on a project. This is where the communication gets to be a nightmare. It is also where those of us that live and die by email just want to pull our hair out .

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your thoughts. We were in teens for WLAN, called several times and told. "No movement."
Hmm. We had similar experience at Barnard(teens) and west. (30s) though so we assumed it was true.

[Anonymous]

I took my child out of Bancroft. I had similar experiences. I hated that place. I put my child in private school. I am so happy with
that decision. Bancroft is a mediocre school.

[Anonymous]

It does seem weird that teachers would be against email blasts since that takes less work than making copies and distributing them to student backpacks.

I also find it a bit weird how many EOTP schools have no website. Some schools just use facebook for updates to parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It does seem weird that teachers would be against email blasts since that takes less work than making copies and distributing them to student backpacks.

I also find it a bit weird how many EOTP schools have no website. Some schools just use facebook for updates to parents.

I'm not a Bancroft parent, but if these are teachers and administrators (aside from the new Principal) who've been around a loooong time, they are often resistent to doing anything differently, even if it would actually take much less work once they got the hang of it. It's human nature for the most part.

Not making excuses at all - that to me is what Principals are for, to set standards for things like school-wide communication and structures for class-level communication. There is no excuse for poor or non-existent communication, no matter how veteran the teachers are. But I think that is most often what is going on when teachers just seem clueless or refuse to try something new.

[Anonymous]

If you have not tried to put one of these lists together at a title one school you need to stop responding. Yes it seems obvious, but I can tell you from trying at Thomson, we never got more than 5 email addresses in each class. It takes a lot for a parent to trust you with their email in these situations. Too often they don't speak enough English even to read the email if they do get it. I would not try it if I were a teacher either. I would rather spend my time actually preparing to teach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have not tried to put one of these lists together at a title one school you need to stop responding. Yes it seems obvious, but I can tell you from trying at Thomson, we never got more than 5 email addresses in each class. It takes a lot for a parent to trust you with their email in these situations. Too often they don't speak enough English even to read the email if they do get it. I would not try it if I were a teacher either. I would rather spend my time actually preparing to teach.

At Powell the email is in both English and Spanish

[Anonymous]

Do Powell teachers organize class email lists? When you say email does it come from the school or is it a self organized yahoo like list?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do Powell teachers organize class email lists? When you say email does it come from the school or is it a self organized yahoo like list?

Sorry about that, it's from the school. From this tread Bancroft can't even get that together