Reply to Can anyone update me on Shaw Middle and parent involvement?

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Can anyone update me on Shaw Middle and parent involvement?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You all are chicken shit. Becky has the balls to put herself out there like that and not hide in the shadows of anonymity like you. Instead of crapping all over her effort, why don't you add something constructive. Oh, that's right, it's because you are empty of ideas and the only thing you know how to do is bring people down.  [/quote]

Chickenshit?  I've been working in education long before you moved DC. I'm on 3 city wide education groups in the city and 10 years ago I worked on issues to make a middle school happen in Shaw. This is happening in my own backyard, yet I know nothing about it.

I imagine a few white, upper SES parents parents sitting around on weekends with their 5 year olds and infants in citi-minis talking about how the are going to "fix" the schools.[/quote]

PP, you're not wrong. I know it, Becky knows it, and the other PP probably knows it as well. You want the baby parents to put themselves in your position, but you don't seem to be willing to reciprocate. Do you know how demoralizing it is to constantly be told, "It'll never work, we tried it 2, 5, 10 years ago, and it'll never work"? Do you know how insulting it is to be told, "Well, your kids are young, so your opinions are not important"?

Since you've been around, working on these things for a while, you know that parent engagement is hard. You know that it's comparatively easy to get people to come to one organizing meeting, particularly when their kids are young, but that it gets progressively harder as time goes by and people acquire other commitments and priorities. One of the things that I think the parents of younger children have going for them is the cheerful idealism that motivates them to consider this stuff in the first place. Their kids are just starting school, so talking about middle school is largely academic. They do not have to make realistic calculations about their family's future in DC or consider the options that are on the table right now. They can say, "Well, Brookland Middle just opened, we'll see what happens, maybe in 5-10 years, when my kid is ready, it will be a great place!"

Their needs are different than your needs, which is actually a strength in a coalition. Unfortunately, educational needs are a little bit of a one-way flow: you know what the parents of PK kids are experiencing, because your kids were once in PK too, but they don't know anything about what your kid in grade 5+ is experiencing or what they need, because they haven't gotten there yet. Rather than shooting down the ideas of people who want to help, perhaps try offering non-derisive perspective from your experiences on what worked and what didn't work. You want to talk about engaging the families of older kids? That's hard to do, without an introduction. Becky posted her personal email. Why don't you drop her a line and suggest that she have coffee with those families you're talking about?[/quote]

You've given me a lot to think about. And, while I rarely say this on DCUM, you are right. 
Probably at least I can offer her some of the contacts and lessons learned from our groups. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics