I don’t mean to brag, but I was just handily reelected to an important public office. I’m talking, naturally, about a seat as a parent representative on my local school improvement team.
The campaign was mercifully short and mostly involved texting a few neighbors. But now I need to figure out how to be better at the job.
If you’ve never heard of these teams, you’re probably in good company. The concept dates back to 1989, when North Carolina began to offer school districts more freedom from state rules in exchange for taking responsibility for results. To get those waivers, you had to have a school improvement team.
Reforms in 1996 made these teams mandatory at every district-run public school in North Carolina, and the next year lawmakers added procedures to elect parents to them.
The intention of the law is for parents sit alongside teachers and administrators to develop a plan for improving the school, and state law says we’re supposed to have a “substantial role.”
But when I joined last year, I had virtually no idea what to expect. It felt like I’d walked into the middle of something and struggled to catch up. The goals were set, the plan was underway, and everybody else seemed to know what we were doing.
I learned a lot and appreciated the chance to ask questions. I had a harder time figuring out how to make an impact.
Sadly, there’s really not a whole lot for parents to go on. The state Department of Public Instruction and the North Carolina PTA put out a parent handbook in 1997. There hasn’t been much of anything since then.
That’s what I want to fix. But I need your help
It’s so easy for school improvement teams to become a box-checking exercise.
I’m working on a practical guide to help myself and other parents across North Carolina figure out how to make the most of the job.
That’s where I could use your help. Have you served on a school improvement team? What did you accomplish? What got in the way? What do you wish you’d known going in?
Parents, teachers, principals — I’d like to hear from all of you. Send me your experiences, tips and tricks, especially examples of something your team actually changed.
The end result will be a practical handbook that parents across the state can use to make their schools better. I’ll share it with you when it’s done.
Top spenders on social media last week
Going back a couple of decades…
The SLT/SIP is a great place to share factual information across different advocacy groups and understand everyone’s perspective: They are a good way for staff and parents to come together in a way that focuses on an overall program — to understand the particular needs of a program and how local issues, State laws, and Federal laws impact the local school building and how to best advocate for what a specific program needs.
For instance in K-8 Language Immersion under the guidance of the SLT (now called SIP), parents learned why a slightly larger student-teacher ratio (than State law dictated) in the lowest grades benefited the upper elementary school program over time and could make the case for it to the decision-makers.
Another example: When CMS rolled out the “standard K-8 buildings,” one of the LI programs was able to advocate for a slightly larger number of classrooms which benefited the health of the overall program, especially at the middle school level.
The SLT/SIP is a great place for newer parents to get up to speed on many issues, especially in the case of some magnet programs that essentially extend through 12th grade.
Example: Advocating for the proper placement of LI students into the high school program (which can vary by target language, age of that language “strand,” and program specifics of the sending K-8.)
I am on the SIT for my child’s middle school. This is my 3rd year, 2nd Principal.
I realized that I really have no power.
If the school needs a Math Teacher, the parent can do nothing.
If the school has discipline issues, the parent cannot suggest anything.
What it did give me was insight into the bulls***. And with those insights, I was able to email our former (and effective) school board member and lodge a complaint with details, about our school’s former principal (I am sure it is not the first).
We are now in our second year with a calm and effective Principal. Discipline issues have been mostly addressed and teachers want to work for her.
What needs to be changed is really beyond even a Principal’s fix.
For example, there is no tracking for science and social studies teachers. Fine. But how effective is a classroom with 5 kids that can’t read, 5 who can speak English, and a few discipline problems - and no textbooks (only Chrome books - now on their last legs), and a new teacher?
Or on the Elementary level, the Illustrative Math curriculum is abysmal and required.
EL Education for ELA (K-8) has tough standards, I will give it that, but is so boring and politically correct.
Those issues cannot be changed on a parent/school level.