UMC parents in low income schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Agree. I work at a high FARMS school where the PTA president refuses to spend PTA money on interpreters to attend the PTA meetings, which essentially keeps the Spanish speaking majority away from participating in the PTA. When we looked closely at the budget and expenses, we saw that the amount of money spent on book fair decorations would pay for the interpreter for the whole year but the president still wouldn't budge. They said that if a staff member would volunteer their time to interpret then they would be ok with it. Staff members ended up finding high school students needing SSL hours. The PTA serves the interests of the English speaking UMC minority, and not the majority of the school's population.

The PTA President doesn't get to make all the decisions. Even the Board doesn't get to make all decisions. Votes should be open to members at meetings to vote on budget items. Anyone can propose an amendment on the floor for a public vote. Get more involved in your PTA and more educated on how PTA is *supposed* to work, then you can effect change. If there is an issue with the PTA board at your local school, go to your Cluster Coordinator or Area VP for support. Contact the MCCPTA if you don't know who your cluster coordinator or Area VP are.

I suggest you read the article. You can't expect poor, non-English speaking parents who barely have a high school education if that to walk into a PTA meeting and take on the 4-5 mothers with advanced degrees who are controlling everything by calling for a floor vote and an amendment to get interpreters. The point of the article is that the low income parents are intimidated by them and have neither the time nor debate skills to prevail.

I’m sorry. You don’t give immigrants enough credit. They traveled half way around the world, sometimes in harrowing conditions, without much money and safety net and built a life in a country where they don’t speak the language

Those PTA SAHMs would wet their pants if dropped into the home countries of these immigrants.

Not hardly! I would simply check into their best hotel, book a plane ticket home and maybe pay for a couple high priced call girls while enjoying a fine dinner. If I got in over my head I would call the Consulate. And if something did happen to me it would make national news. Are you starting to see the difference. You over estimate those immigrants, going without food and a bath for weeks at a time doesn’t make you impressive, it makes you vulnerable

But I would never send my kids to the silver spring schools in the OP so I am not exactly the same as those parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree. I work at a high FARMS school where the PTA president refuses to spend PTA money on interpreters to attend the PTA meetings, which essentially keeps the Spanish speaking majority away from participating in the PTA. When we looked closely at the budget and expenses, we saw that the amount of money spent on book fair decorations would pay for the interpreter for the whole year but the president still wouldn't budge. They said that if a staff member would volunteer their time to interpret then they would be ok with it. Staff members ended up finding high school students needing SSL hours. The PTA serves the interests of the English speaking UMC minority, and not the majority of the school's population.

Your argument makes sense but no fundraising organization is eager to pay the going professional rate for a service that could be donated in kind. It's certainly not fair to expect the teachers to provide this, but finding HS students seems like the best solution for everyone. Our school always found parent volunteers.

I'm talking about an MCPS interpreter, which would cost an extremely affordable rate. Certainly less than what was spent for book fair decorations that the kids didn't even notice or appreciate.

Affordability is not the issue here. Unless MCPS make clear rules on how money can be spent on interpreter services, I would not do that. If you hire interpreters for Spanish, how about other languages? How many parents are needed to get one interpreter? Or only the largest ethnic group gets one?

The school population is over 50% Hispanic. The white population is less than 10%. The entire PTA board is white and are native English speakers. The majority of the rest of the school population is comprised of African Americans (of which the majority speak English as either their native language or in addition to another language) and Asians.

We can argue all day about people being motivated or not being motivated to learn English and whether or not they "deserve" to have an interpreter at meetings. But just like students, sometimes we just have to meet parents where they are. Whether that means scheduling conferences before or after school hours to accommodate working parents (English or Spanish speaking) or providing an interpreter for Spanish speaking parents to participate in PTA meetings, it's meeting parents where they are.

What is the purpose of the PTA? To serve your own personal political agenda? Or to improve the school in ways that will ultimately help students? Can you really argue that having parents of students that comprise over half of the school population involved in the PTA is a bad thing? All because having translation available would cost an amount of money that is less than the book fair decorations budget? Interesting way to support the needs of the school you have there...

Apparently you did not get my point. My point is very simple: how big does the ethnic group have to be to "deserve" an interpreter? 50%? 30%? 10%? Or if a group is too small, do you tell them "your group only has a few parents and we can't provide an interpreter for you"?

There can be 100 reasons why an interpreter is good, but one reason leading to trouble is enough for not doing it. And I just provided you that reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been that mom.
Always provided interpretation yet participation was low. I choose to think it is because they can’t, not won’t.
Advocated for my child, yes, but kept being told that teachers don’t have resources to really differentiate (except if a kid is really gifted and willing to do extra work after having done what is busywork for them).
My kid finally lotteried into a middle class school recently and I am so happy.
I have come to think that the needs and wants of UMC and farms/ESOL are almost the opposites. They are so different that it is impossible to cater to both groups in the same school unless they are separate groups maybe (tracking).

PTA is a lot about fulfilling the wants, the extra stuff in a more affluent school. In higher farms schools it’s about fulfilling the needs. When you have a mixed population one group is gonna get the short end of the stick. Same thing with the classrooms, high performers and low performers have very different needs and they cannot equally be fulfilled. Diversity is good thing but how do we handle these issues?

Very simple - if the two sides both show strong wills for their needs and the school/PTA can't accommodate both, just don't do anything. Nothing can be achieved if no compromise is made.
Normally people are smarter than that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We the at Focus school and our PTA has tried to reach out for years. We do have Spanish interpreters. We send out information in Spanish for the events.

Guess what? Participation from Spanish speaking parents is really low.

My kid in 1st grade had a field trip and we struggled to get enough volunteers for it. At my niece’s more higher-income school, they turn away parents on field trips!

I volunteered for a class party last year and I was the ONLY parent volunteer. Literally the only one.

I’m not White, but don’t judge the UMC White Moms for taking control of the PTA. If they are the ones running things, it’s because they are able to or choose to show up.

Able to. You got it.

So what’s your point? Parents that are able to, will get involved. Would you rather have no parents involved? Ridiculous.

The OP’s article is useless, IMO. Digital gap? Are you kidding? We are at a high FARMS school and my kid complains that her friends have their own tablets and she doesn’t. She has been to her friends’ houses, and they have plenty of access to technology at home.

The point is for the people running things to recognize that they do that because they are able to. It's a responsibility, not a privilege.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree. I work at a high FARMS school where the PTA president refuses to spend PTA money on interpreters to attend the PTA meetings, which essentially keeps the Spanish speaking majority away from participating in the PTA. When we looked closely at the budget and expenses, we saw that the amount of money spent on book fair decorations would pay for the interpreter for the whole year but the president still wouldn't budge. They said that if a staff member would volunteer their time to interpret then they would be ok with it. Staff members ended up finding high school students needing SSL hours. The PTA serves the interests of the English speaking UMC minority, and not the majority of the school's population.

Your argument makes sense but no fundraising organization is eager to pay the going professional rate for a service that could be donated in kind. It's certainly not fair to expect the teachers to provide this, but finding HS students seems like the best solution for everyone. Our school always found parent volunteers.

I'm talking about an MCPS interpreter, which would cost an extremely affordable rate. Certainly less than what was spent for book fair decorations that the kids didn't even notice or appreciate.

Affordability is not the issue here. Unless MCPS make clear rules on how money can be spent on interpreter services, I would not do that. If you hire interpreters for Spanish, how about other languages? How many parents are needed to get one interpreter? Or only the largest ethnic group gets one?

The school population is over 50% Hispanic. The white population is less than 10%. The entire PTA board is white and are native English speakers. The majority of the rest of the school population is comprised of African Americans (of which the majority speak English as either their native language or in addition to another language) and Asians.

We can argue all day about people being motivated or not being motivated to learn English and whether or not they "deserve" to have an interpreter at meetings. But just like students, sometimes we just have to meet parents where they are. Whether that means scheduling conferences before or after school hours to accommodate working parents (English or Spanish speaking) or providing an interpreter for Spanish speaking parents to participate in PTA meetings, it's meeting parents where they are.

What is the purpose of the PTA? To serve your own personal political agenda? Or to improve the school in ways that will ultimately help students? Can you really argue that having parents of students that comprise over half of the school population involved in the PTA is a bad thing? All because having translation available would cost an amount of money that is less than the book fair decorations budget? Interesting way to support the needs of the school you have there...

Apparently you did not get my point. My point is very simple: how big does the ethnic group have to be to "deserve" an interpreter? 50%? 30%? 10%? Or if a group is too small, do you tell them "your group only has a few parents and we can't provide an interpreter for you"?

There can be 100 reasons why an interpreter is good, but one reason leading to trouble is enough for not doing it. And I just provided you that reason.

Sounds like you're looking for an excuse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree. I work at a high FARMS school where the PTA president refuses to spend PTA money on interpreters to attend the PTA meetings, which essentially keeps the Spanish speaking majority away from participating in the PTA. When we looked closely at the budget and expenses, we saw that the amount of money spent on book fair decorations would pay for the interpreter for the whole year but the president still wouldn't budge. They said that if a staff member would volunteer their time to interpret then they would be ok with it. Staff members ended up finding high school students needing SSL hours. The PTA serves the interests of the English speaking UMC minority, and not the majority of the school's population.

Your argument makes sense but no fundraising organization is eager to pay the going professional rate for a service that could be donated in kind. It's certainly not fair to expect the teachers to provide this, but finding HS students seems like the best solution for everyone. Our school always found parent volunteers.

I'm talking about an MCPS interpreter, which would cost an extremely affordable rate. Certainly less than what was spent for book fair decorations that the kids didn't even notice or appreciate.

Affordability is not the issue here. Unless MCPS make clear rules on how money can be spent on interpreter services, I would not do that. If you hire interpreters for Spanish, how about other languages? How many parents are needed to get one interpreter? Or only the largest ethnic group gets one?

The school population is over 50% Hispanic. The white population is less than 10%. The entire PTA board is white and are native English speakers. The majority of the rest of the school population is comprised of African Americans (of which the majority speak English as either their native language or in addition to another language) and Asians.

We can argue all day about people being motivated or not being motivated to learn English and whether or not they "deserve" to have an interpreter at meetings. But just like students, sometimes we just have to meet parents where they are. Whether that means scheduling conferences before or after school hours to accommodate working parents (English or Spanish speaking) or providing an interpreter for Spanish speaking parents to participate in PTA meetings, it's meeting parents where they are.

What is the purpose of the PTA? To serve your own personal political agenda? Or to improve the school in ways that will ultimately help students? Can you really argue that having parents of students that comprise over half of the school population involved in the PTA is a bad thing? All because having translation available would cost an amount of money that is less than the book fair decorations budget? Interesting way to support the needs of the school you have there...

Apparently you did not get my point. My point is very simple: how big does the ethnic group have to be to "deserve" an interpreter? 50%? 30%? 10%? Or if a group is too small, do you tell them "your group only has a few parents and we can't provide an interpreter for you"?

There can be 100 reasons why an interpreter is good, but one reason leading to trouble is enough for not doing it. And I just provided you that reason.

Sounds like you're looking for an excuse.

Not an excuse. Would you want to get into trouble for hiring interpreters for one group but not another (because of "smaller size")? I certainly don't.

That is the mentality of many administrators these years and I fully understand why they try to be careful. So if I were the PTA chair or board members, I would be careful about these choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree. I work at a high FARMS school where the PTA president refuses to spend PTA money on interpreters to attend the PTA meetings, which essentially keeps the Spanish speaking majority away from participating in the PTA. When we looked closely at the budget and expenses, we saw that the amount of money spent on book fair decorations would pay for the interpreter for the whole year but the president still wouldn't budge. They said that if a staff member would volunteer their time to interpret then they would be ok with it. Staff members ended up finding high school students needing SSL hours. The PTA serves the interests of the English speaking UMC minority, and not the majority of the school's population.

Devils advocate-but a PTA like that won't have a lot of money. Surely there should be a staff or parent volunteer who speaks both languages who could interpret for free?

+ 1

In all probability, the PTA (the handful PTA involved parents who do everything) are the ones who are raising and donating money and time and are choosing (as is their right) how they want to spend the money. The school population can attend the PTA meeting where budget is voted on and decide how the money will be spent, but since most people do not show up for anything they lose the right to complain. Yes, you get the PTA you deserve. If you do not show up and vote and are knowledgeable you get the 1 or 2 PTA parent who will do it all - raise the money and spend the money.

In a Title 1 school - the Principal should be spending their own slush funds (which is plenty considering that they are Title 1) and get interpretors. But the administrators do not care either, even though they are paid for that.

A good Principal will engage the underrepresented community. But usually we get the worst Principals who are biding their time so that they can get away from such schools. They expect the PTA to do their jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a really good article about how UMC parents moving into low income schools aren't always good for the low income families. These issues are all present already in the higher FARMS schools with a small group of UMC parents, in fact a local Silver Spring school was identified in the article.

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/07/how-marginalized-families-are-pushed-out-of-ptas/491036/

PTA should not be the only way that parents are being engaged in the school. It is shameful that the schools do not create such opportunities for parenst to volunteer and help out in the schools and depend on the PTA to do everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been that mom.
Always provided interpretation yet participation was low. I choose to think it is because they can’t, not won’t.
Advocated for my child, yes, but kept being told that teachers don’t have resources to really differentiate (except if a kid is really gifted and willing to do extra work after having done what is busywork for them).
My kid finally lotteried into a middle class school recently and I am so happy.
I have come to think that the needs and wants of UMC and farms/ESOL are almost the opposites. They are so different that it is impossible to cater to both groups in the same school unless they are separate groups maybe (tracking).

Very interesting post, thank you. What do you think are the different needs of these two groups?

DP with a similar experience. Take the various EC/ after school stuff. From the UMC perspective, their kids are already signed up for all the possible enrichments, so ideally there should be minimal mandatory after school activities. Their kids are getting their tutoring, music and sports instructions at a more advanced level than the school can provide. From the low income kid’s perspective, they should be kept in school as long as possible to stay out of trouble and the only way for them to get any extracurricular involvement is through school, however amateur it is. And those activities have to be mandatory to a) avoid stigma and segregation and b) provide them an excuse for their parents lest they be made to e.g. take care of the younger siblings instead of doing homework. My daughter attends a high school with about 50% FARMS, and the Saturday AP prep sessions run by the school are always a point of tension.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a really good article about how UMC parents moving into low income schools aren't always good for the low income families. These issues are all present already in the higher FARMS schools with a small group of UMC parents, in fact a local Silver Spring school was identified in the article.

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/07/how-marginalized-families-are-pushed-out-of-ptas/491036/

PTA should not be the only way that parents are being engaged in the school. It is shameful that the schools do not create such opportunities for parenst to volunteer and help out in the schools and depend on the PTA to do everything.

Anyone can volunteer in their child's classroom and on field trips. It has nothing to do with the PTA. PTA volunteers are for things like book fair, Variety Shows, picnics/carnivals etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PTA policies and priorities will be decided by the parents who contribute money or time to it. Simple. No freebies. If you do not show up, then your interests will not be taken care of.

Shorter PP: "I got mine."

You twit. What exactly do you think the specific process of “getting Mine” consists of? Active participation and hustle. I know many dream of where others provide everything readymade and then everyone just shows up and takes an easy test where everybody scores the same and then when the cake is handed out evenly there is considerations to who got smaller pieces in the past (so not so even).

Just a couple of problems with that utopia is it is really just a meek and passive way to try a justifying getting the big piece of chicken just like everyone else is doing but you are use being pathetic to elicit sympathy. And it works just about as well as it does on a playground

And 2nd is that for someone to hand out a bunch of free (or what ever bogus merit suits you ) cake, one must hustle up a bunch of cake. Typically the people who are able to stock pile lots of cake don’t get there by handing out free cake. Even the billionaire cake guys who give it all back had to be hoarders for a long time cutting off and taking others cake to amass so much.

New poor Latinos are not supposed to eat as much cake as the leaders and elite of the Capital city of the richest country in the world. And I wouldn’t want to live in a world where they did either. 50$ field trips are better

Well put

[Anonymous]

This article and the ensuing discussion simply highlights that whites don't move into low income areas because they want to embrace the diversity. They move in to change things to match what they see in other all white neighborhoods. Gentrification is never good for the low income residents.

Its usually a push and pull between the gentrification failing and whites leaving or the gentrification working and low income people leaving. MoCo is unique that is has lots of older low income housing areas that are protected from gentrification and development in the eastern part of the county and less demand up in the north eastern part. This provides low income housing but keeps the struggle between the UMC and URM groups in place longer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This article and the ensuing discussion simply highlights that whites don't move into low income areas because they want to embrace the diversity. They move in to change things to match what they see in other all white neighborhoods. Gentrification is never good for the low income residents.

Its usually a push and pull between the gentrification failing and whites leaving or the gentrification working and low income people leaving. MoCo is unique that is has lots of older low income housing areas that are protected from gentrification and development in the eastern part of the county and less demand up in the north eastern part. This provides low income housing but keeps the struggle between the UMC and URM groups in place longer.

Some people do, some people don't, eh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We the at Focus school and our PTA has tried to reach out for years. We do have Spanish interpreters. We send out information in Spanish for the events.

Guess what? Participation from Spanish speaking parents is really low.

My kid in 1st grade had a field trip and we struggled to get enough volunteers for it. At my niece’s more higher-income school, they turn away parents on field trips!

I volunteered for a class party last year and I was the ONLY parent volunteer. Literally the only one.

I’m not White, but don’t judge the UMC White Moms for taking control of the PTA. If they are the ones running things, it’s because they are able to or choose to show up.

Able to. You got it.

So what’s your point? Parents that are able to, will get involved. Would you rather have no parents involved? Ridiculous.

The OP’s article is useless, IMO. Digital gap? Are you kidding? We are at a high FARMS school and my kid complains that her friends have their own tablets and she doesn’t. She has been to her friends’ houses, and they have plenty of access to technology at home.

Yeah the first thing I thought of when reading this article is well, I don't like the Chromebooks either. Too much screentime for an elementary school student. If they were teaching something useful like keyboarding skills, fine, but that's not what's happening IME.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This article and the ensuing discussion simply highlights that whites don't move into low income areas because they want to embrace the diversity. They move in to change things to match what they see in other all white neighborhoods. Gentrification is never good for the low income residents.

Its usually a push and pull between the gentrification failing and whites leaving or the gentrification working and low income people leaving. MoCo is unique that is has lots of older low income housing areas that are protected from gentrification and development in the eastern part of the county and less demand up in the north eastern part. This provides low income housing but keeps the struggle between the UMC and URM groups in place longer.

Some people do, some people don't, eh?

You didn’t hear, Stereotypes are only true when directed at whites