Reply to Creative Minds - Unified Lottery?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm also sad that was your experience - and honestly, a bit baffled that anything about the school would've made you feel that way. I'm an African American parent at CM and the reality is that the school is actually extraordinarily diverse. Indeed, it's comparable to many of the other similar, highly sought after charters (e.g., Inspired Teaching).

What I can say, based on personal experience, is that you absolutely cannot judge the diversity of the school based on who you see attending the open houses (or the parent events, for that matter). Furthermore, the family association president last year was an African American parent, and one of the co-chairs of the family association this year is African-American. I've volunteered at the open houses and led tours for prospective parents. I've honestly never felt a "vibe" that would make AA parents feel unwelcome and I'm pretty certain the principal would be deeply troubled that you would feel that this school was not welcoming to children from all backgrounds.  It's one thing to say that you didn't think the school was a good fit for your child because of your child and your family's needs/values -- but it's really another to claim that this is because the school doesn't welcome AA kids.

You are, of course, more than entitled to your feelings...but I just wanted to say that, as a parent of an AA child at CM, I have never felt my child wasn't welcomed and loved at that school.

[/quote]

I'm the parent you're responding to, and I really do appreciate you writing all that.  Please note that I didn't generalize about all families, I just wrote what MY experience was and what it felt like for MY family.  I also didn't say CM isn't diverse, I'm just agreeing with a PP that marketing does plant a seed of impression.

Since it sounds like you have had a great experience there, and there are other AA families who not only feel welcome but are even in some leadership roles (like Family Association President), maybe you should mention to the school's leadership that it might be worth looking at updating the images on the website?  That's how this whole conversation started.  And I would reiterate that I've met other AA parents who also checked out CM and chose not to apply, or applied but didn't feel good about their visit.  Wish I could be more specific about their experiences but it's just worth noting that it's not just my experience.  ANd I don't think any of us were going just on who else was in the room looking at the school.  I met some uptight, overly-competitive parents at many open houses, including one fo the schools I fell in love with the most, but that didn't confuse me with the school itself because the school staff and environment was great and so welcoming.

I'm sincerely glad you're having a good experience there, and even though we didn't apply, I'm always happy to know that all families (but yes, I'm particularly sensitive to how things are for AA families) are welcome there and that AA families are having a great experience.  You can't have too many families happy with their schools![/quote]

I share some of your experiences.  I'm curious to know which school you fell in love with.  Are you there now?[/quote]

Hi, I'm that PP, I'm sorry that you share some of my experiences, but please know you aren't alone.  We are not at the school I mentioned falling in love with in my post, but it's lottery time again so...! :D   All I can say is go to as many open houses as you can, go to the Charter Expo, talk to ALL the staff, of the schools you're interested in and the ones you've never heard of.  Just expose yourself to as many schools as possible.

I guess, since we didn't get in, I'll say which school we did fall in love with that I mentioned above: it was Mundo Verde.  To give examples of what made us feel so so welcome, aside from the welcomes we got in the classrooms from the room teachers (who managed to both be attendtive to the parents they were talking to while also welcoming people as they came in and engaging the kids that came with their parents), and the answers to our questions in the classrooms about how the school operates and the teachers' approaches, they were scheduled to do 2 "info sessions" for all attendees, an early one and a later one, with a power point etc.  The vast vast majority of people went to the 1st one, but we missed it.  We went downstairs at the end of the open house for the 2nd one and there were literally only 3 parents there.  You could see staff stick their heads in and realize hardly anyone was there, and we were waiting for them to just ask us if we had any questions and call it a night (which I would have understood).  No, they did the entire power point, and all the staff who had attended stayed, so staff outnumbered us parents quite a bit!  They patiently answerd our questions (a few more parents drifted in because they wanted to hear th einfo again so after awhile it wasn't so small).  But I was so impressed. You could tell they (including the Principal) were tired and yet they stayed and answered every question from the tiny number of us who missed it.  And we had a lot of questions!

There were many other things about the school we fell in love with (the curriculum and many other aspects, plus what we heard from parents of MV kids), but that was the experience that stood out.[/quote]

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