What do UMC Black Families Want (and sometimes not get?) vs What White Families Want and Get?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:respect
benefit of the doubt
credence
attention

white lives - even to many black people - have greater value/importance than black lives.

school leadership sometimes responds accordingly

I’m an UMC AA woman, and my children attend their IB WotP school. We receive all of those things from teachers and administrators at my children’s school. At my request, my oldest child (who is very academically advanced) has received differentiation EVERY YEAR both inside and outside the classroom. Any concerns that we have voiced have been respectfully addressed.

I don’t think that our experience is isolated, but it probably depends on the school (and the parent).

It probably helps that you are WOTP at a school that is largely filled with White UMC students.

+1000

When the schools are diverse, AA parents have a better chance at their voices being heard. This is one of the reasons that I refused to send DC to our EOTP IB school.

I think there's something to this. Teachers and staff are used to dealing with less educated AA families, and so tend to be somewhat dismissive or even disrespectful, while taking white families more seriously.* We've since moved to private, but we found this to be true for a couple staff at when we were at our majority minority DCPS.

*I think families should be treated with respect regardless of income level; the above is just an observation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

We were in a Capitol Hill school with a mix of UMC white families and LMC black families and there were certainly many white parents who were surprised or taken aback at how strongly some of the black parents advocated for resources - like before-school and after-school work sessions, access to online resources, and mentoring.

Thanks for this. This is the kind of stuff OP was asking about.

Do you think white parents just expect that these things we be on them?

Also, are you talking about out of school or in-school mentoring?

[Anonymous]

UMC Af-Am family here. One kid is slightly academically advanced, the other is average. We are NOT WOTP and do not want to be -to us, diversity means more than a few brown kids in the class or neighborhood. That said, we absolutely get NO attention for either kid in the schools. This is in STARK contrast to the similarly-situated white kids at the school - some of whom are given enrichment activities and others who are “average”who are given focus because they might be able to help with PARCC scores. Nobody in the schools sees our kids as anything since we are not low-income, there are no special needs and we are not white. I have been sick to my stomach for two years about this. What do we want? A good education for our kids and schools that are as committed to our type of family as any other type of family. And we do not think we should have to go WOTP for that.

[Anonymous]

UMC Af-Am family here. One kid is slightly academically advanced, the other is average. We are NOT WOTP and do not want to be -to us, diversity means more than a few brown kids in the class or neighborhood. That said, we absolutely get NO attention for either kid in the schools. This is in STARK contrast to the similarly-situated white kids at the school - some of whom are given enrichment activities and others who are “average”who are given focus because they might be able to help with PARCC scores. Nobody in the schools sees our kids as anything since we are not low-income, there are no special needs and we are not white. I have been sick to my stomach for two years about this. What do we want? A good education for our kids and schools that are as committed to our type of family as any other type of family. And we do not think we should have to go WOTP for that.

Are you in regular DCPS or a charter?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:respect
benefit of the doubt
credence
attention

white lives - even to many black people - have greater value/importance than black lives.

school leadership sometimes responds accordingly

I’m an UMC AA woman, and my children attend their IB WotP school. We receive all of those things from teachers and administrators at my children’s school. At my request, my oldest child (who is very academically advanced) has received differentiation EVERY YEAR both inside and outside the classroom. Any concerns that we have voiced have been respectfully addressed.

I don’t think that our experience is isolated, but it probably depends on the school (and the parent).

It probably helps that you are WOTP at a school that is largely filled with White UMC students.

It probably also helps that:
We live IB
My husband and I are both lawyers
We are active in the school community
We contribute to the annual fund and auction
Our children are at the top of their classes, bright and (generally) well behaved

Ultimately, who knows the exact combination of things that has caused this school/DCPS to work very well for us. I’m just telling you that it works and we’re happy with the results.

I have doubts about this entire list and whether it indicates anything more than some wild inferences:

We live IB How in the world do you know this helps or matters? At this point almost everyone at a WOTP ES (except for Eaton) is IB or at least using an IB address.

My husband and I are both lawyers This is hardly unusual in a WOTP ES and I'm not sure why it helps to be a lawyer - are people suing to make sure their kids have the right teachers or coming into parent teacher meetings and mentioning where they went to law school and magically getting better service?

We are active in the school community Also not unusual WOTP

This We contribute to the annual fund and auction had better not matter - I'm curious if you think it does and if so which WOTP elementary school is catering to folks who are donating money and how that connection is even being made?

Our children are at the top of their classes which DCPS ES is measuring this? I'd love to know where my child ranks in his class. You can sort of infer their relative standing from the PARCC scores but standardized tests are an imperfect measure and almost all of the WOTP elementary schools score very high on national PARCC measurements with a large number of high performing students.

I'm hoping some folks will post some more substantive examples of things that they aren't able to get - there is this big misconception in DC that people living WOTP are getting some magical level of services that no one EOTP can get. The reality from my perspective is there are a lot of frustrated residents WOTP, often about the same issues.

[Anonymous]

This thread is stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UMC Af-Am family here. One kid is slightly academically advanced, the other is average. We are NOT WOTP and do not want to be -to us, diversity means more than a few brown kids in the class or neighborhood. That said, we absolutely get NO attention for either kid in the schools. This is in STARK contrast to the similarly-situated white kids at the school - some of whom are given enrichment activities and others who are “average”who are given focus because they might be able to help with PARCC scores. Nobody in the schools sees our kids as anything since we are not low-income, there are no special needs and we are not white. I have been sick to my stomach for two years about this. What do we want? A good education for our kids and schools that are as committed to our type of family as any other type of family. And we do not think we should have to go WOTP for that.

+1 At the coffee shop directly across the street from my in-bound ES we overheard two white teachers excitedly talking about getting four white students in the testing grades next year and that there was a white family touring fourth grade and how that was going to help the school's test scores and I thought it interesting that they automatically correlated white students, sight unseen and knowing nothing about their backgrounds with being good for the school and the school's test scores; if your perception of white students coming into the school is--YAY good test scores, what might your perception be of Black students coming in? Does it depend on what school they are coming from? What you perceive their likelihood to help your test scores to be? What would you base that on, the parent's income? Teachers would not have access to the student's prior test scores or academic achievement until the week before school starts so at this point it's just speculation. Anyway, at my school I too see this catering and clamoring for the attention and approval of the White families and giving them and their children a LOT of privileges that are just not offered to other families...it's no surprise that at schools like this the majority of the PTO/PTA tends to be White UMC parents with young children even though that population is the least represented in the school's larger population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is stupid.

Yeah I started this thread and it’s got very little of the insight I was hoping for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:respect
benefit of the doubt
credence
attention

white lives - even to many black people - have greater value/importance than black lives.

school leadership sometimes responds accordingly

Ding, Ding, Ding

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UMC Af-Am family here. One kid is slightly academically advanced, the other is average. We are NOT WOTP and do not want to be -to us, diversity means more than a few brown kids in the class or neighborhood. That said, we absolutely get NO attention for either kid in the schools. This is in STARK contrast to the similarly-situated white kids at the school - some of whom are given enrichment activities and others who are “average”who are given focus because they might be able to help with PARCC scores. Nobody in the schools sees our kids as anything since we are not low-income, there are no special needs and we are not white. I have been sick to my stomach for two years about this. What do we want? A good education for our kids and schools that are as committed to our type of family as any other type of family. And we do not think we should have to go WOTP for that.

Are you sure about this? We are a white family in a EoTP school and it’s clear that white families are routinely sly ignored. The assumption being that all white kids are UMC and will “be fine” anywhere and aren’t going to bring the PARCC
Scores down. Any hint at differentiation or tracking is shot down. Also no extra stuff in aftercare that would
Cost money since that might leave some
Families out (the implication being families of color).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UMC Af-Am family here. One kid is slightly academically advanced, the other is average. We are NOT WOTP and do not want to be -to us, diversity means more than a few brown kids in the class or neighborhood. That said, we absolutely get NO attention for either kid in the schools. This is in STARK contrast to the similarly-situated white kids at the school - some of whom are given enrichment activities and others who are “average”who are given focus because they might be able to help with PARCC scores. Nobody in the schools sees our kids as anything since we are not low-income, there are no special needs and we are not white. I have been sick to my stomach for two years about this. What do we want? A good education for our kids and schools that are as committed to our type of family as any other type of family. And we do not think we should have to go WOTP for that.

Are you sure about this? We are a white family in a EoTP school and it’s clear that white families are routinely sly ignored. The assumption being that all white kids are UMC and will “be fine” anywhere and aren’t going to bring the PARCC
Scores down. Any hint at differentiation or tracking is shot down. Also no extra stuff in aftercare that would
Cost money since that might leave some
Families out (the implication being families of color).

This has been our experience. I am ok with it. My kid is scoring very high and having fun. Sure I would love more acceleration/differentiation but it isn’t going to happen. The school only has time for the low scoring kids. In the meantime, we buy a ton of books, do enrichment activities, and travel. Assume MS will be more challenging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is stupid.

+1.

And racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UMC Af-Am family here. One kid is slightly academically advanced, the other is average. We are NOT WOTP and do not want to be -to us, diversity means more than a few brown kids in the class or neighborhood. That said, we absolutely get NO attention for either kid in the schools. This is in STARK contrast to the similarly-situated white kids at the school - some of whom are given enrichment activities and others who are “average”who are given focus because they might be able to help with PARCC scores. Nobody in the schools sees our kids as anything since we are not low-income, there are no special needs and we are not white. I have been sick to my stomach for two years about this. What do we want? A good education for our kids and schools that are as committed to our type of family as any other type of family. And we do not think we should have to go WOTP for that.

Are you sure about this? We are a white family in a EoTP school and it’s clear that white families are routinely sly ignored. The assumption being that all white kids are UMC and will “be fine” anywhere and aren’t going to bring the PARCC
Scores down. Any hint at differentiation or tracking is shot down. Also no extra stuff in aftercare that would
Cost money since that might leave some
Families out (the implication being families of color).

God, the stupid PARCC scores.

Make the freaking school better and forget about stupid tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UMC Af-Am family here. One kid is slightly academically advanced, the other is average. We are NOT WOTP and do not want to be -to us, diversity means more than a few brown kids in the class or neighborhood. That said, we absolutely get NO attention for either kid in the schools. This is in STARK contrast to the similarly-situated white kids at the school - some of whom are given enrichment activities and others who are “average”who are given focus because they might be able to help with PARCC scores. Nobody in the schools sees our kids as anything since we are not low-income, there are no special needs and we are not white. I have been sick to my stomach for two years about this. What do we want? A good education for our kids and schools that are as committed to our type of family as any other type of family. And we do not think we should have to go WOTP for that.

Are you sure about this? We are a white family in a EoTP school and it’s clear that white families are routinely sly ignored. The assumption being that all white kids are UMC and will “be fine” anywhere and aren’t going to bring the PARCC
Scores down. Any hint at differentiation or tracking is shot down. Also no extra stuff in aftercare that would
Cost money since that might leave some
Families out (the implication being families of color).

This has been our experience. I am ok with it. My kid is scoring very high and having fun. Sure I would love more acceleration/differentiation but it isn’t going to happen. The school only has time for the low scoring kids. In the meantime, we buy a ton of books, do enrichment activities, and travel. Assume MS will be more challenging.

Why are ok with this? And middle school will be worse. More behavioral issues and even bigger achievement gaps without tracking. I never u defeat and the mentatioitybof families just letting things slide because they value diversity over academics and good class management.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UMC Af-Am family here. One kid is slightly academically advanced, the other is average. We are NOT WOTP and do not want to be -to us, diversity means more than a few brown kids in the class or neighborhood. That said, we absolutely get NO attention for either kid in the schools. This is in STARK contrast to the similarly-situated white kids at the school - some of whom are given enrichment activities and others who are “average”who are given focus because they might be able to help with PARCC scores. Nobody in the schools sees our kids as anything since we are not low-income, there are no special needs and we are not white. I have been sick to my stomach for two years about this. What do we want? A good education for our kids and schools that are as committed to our type of family as any other type of family. And we do not think we should have to go WOTP for that.

+1 At the coffee shop directly across the street from my in-bound ES we overheard two white teachers excitedly talking about getting four white students in the testing grades next year and that there was a white family touring fourth grade and how that was going to help the school's test scores and I thought it interesting that they automatically correlated white students, sight unseen and knowing nothing about their backgrounds with being good for the school and the school's test scores; if your perception of white students coming into the school is--YAY good test scores, what might your perception be of Black students coming in? Does it depend on what school they are coming from? What you perceive their likelihood to help your test scores to be? What would you base that on, the parent's income? Teachers would not have access to the student's prior test scores or academic achievement until the week before school starts so at this point it's just speculation. Anyway, at my school I too see this catering and clamoring for the attention and approval of the White families and giving them and their children a LOT of privileges that are just not offered to other families...it's no surprise that at schools like this the majority of the PTO/PTA tends to be White UMC parents with young children even though that population is the least represented in the school's larger population.

This thread is about race but the issues are much more about class than race. It's just that in this city class is very closely correlated with race. Are the teachers excited to get white kids?? Or are they excited to get kids from higher income families who are much more likely to be on or above grade level? The reality is that the median income for white families in this city is over $150,000 while it's about $45,000 for blacks. Higher income = higher education = kids who come to school with more skills, less stress, and more outside experiences that contribute to their learning. All kids can be equally bright and talented when they are born, but they are not equally developed by the time they arrive at school or during their time in school. That's generally a function of parental wealth and opportunity. That's what the teachers are responding to -- it's not right. It's very wrong and racist but IMO the worst is not how UMC blacks are sometimes treated but how lower socio-economic class residents are treated.