Parents: Get Visible, Get Involved

by Roberta Woods

Being a parent in these troubling times isn't easy. So often school officials claim that parents are absent or apathetic. Not so. Parents have largely been held at arm's length from the schools and encouraged to be passive in the education system. School officials complain so they won't be held accountable for producing kids that kill kids at school. Schools want it both ways -- parents to go away and let them run things, and parents to be involved, but only in ways they approve of and in activities they designate. At all times school officials want the parents to take full responsibility. Just look at the release forms and permissions parents are asked to sign before their children can participate in school sponsored activities.

I have a confession to make. For some 20 years I've made a point of ignoring public schools. We sent our children to private and parochial schools because we could afford it. Then a reversal of fortune forced us to place our children in the public school system.

Generally we were satisfied, though not overjoyed, with the education our children received in elementary school. My children were bored and never academically challenged. Certainly the school had to deal with problems we had never known in the private school realm. Administrators and teachers encouraged me to leave them alone and let "the professionals" handle things in school. Oh, I was welcome to bake cookies, cupcakes and shelve library books, but not welcome to ask why my children didn't have daily homework, why they weren't learning multiplication tables, spelling words, doing book reports or participating in a science fair, all of which I had come to expect from my experience in private schools.

I was silent when my children came home with a business card they were to keep in a private place. The card had a toll free phone number that was a child abuse hotline. They had spent part of a school day learning that if your parents spank you, call this number. I learned of this secret one day when my son deserved a swat on the fanny with my wooden spoon. He raced into his bedroom and emerged with his card. "Go ahead," he said, "hit me. I'll call this phone number if you do and you'll get in trouble." Being the parent I am, I spanked his bottom and handed him the phone afterward.

Before he dialed the number I told him what would happen after he made the call. His mother would be arrested, probably fined and sent home. He would be taken away and sent to live with strangers in a foster home. If he was ever allowed to see me again, it would probably be only in the presence of police or some other third party. In all likelihood, he would never be allowed to live at home again. Needless to say, he hung up the phone. The school hadn't told him that part he confessed. Yet I let "the professionals" run things and never complained.

Public schools also introduced me to a new element -- violence. How can children learn when they are constantly afraid for their safety? I began to wonder if I would be accused of child endangerment simply because I sent my children to school. For months other students threatened my children. My youngest son, a middle school student, often had to have a teacher escort to change classes. Again, the schools said "trust us." We can keep order and control in the school. Then, my son was attacked from behind in the hallway by an older student who smashed his head into a locker. The locker handle was within a centimeter of being driven into his temple and less than an inch from his eye. Bleeding profusely, he was taken to the hospital in an ambulance with a head injury.

The Assistant Principal called the police, a legal requirement following assault in school. Later, I learned that police presence went against a directive issued by the superintendent. He demanded that the assistant principal call him first in all cases that required police intervention, even when the law required the police be immediately called to the scene.

This micro-managing of the assistant principal's job concerned me. Was the superintendent trying to circumvent the law by demanding that he be called first and no calls be made to the police without his approval? The law is clear and doesn't require the superintendent's prior approval. Did he want to know first in case the child came from certain families in the community? Or was it that if no police record existed about an assault, parents could not sue the school district for not providing a safe school environment as required by Federal law? But once  again I was silent and let "the professionals" handle things.

The assailant was removed from his classroom, handcuffed and searched. The police discovered drugs on the student. He and a handful of others were well-known by the police as being buyers and sellers of drugs in the school. How can this happen, we wondered. How can these kids still attend school daily, effectively allowing them daily access to a vulnerable drug market, without impunity? If the police know who they are, why doesn't the school?

We took our concerns directly to the superintendent. My husband met with him on several occasions, but no action was ever taken. The superintendent didn't even bother to return his phone calls after a while. It was clear. Nothing would ever be done unless we did something.

A minister in our town heard of our plight and invited us to a meeting, which he ran. I understood that the ad hoc group of community, police and school officials would assemble to address the troubling issues that led to my son's assault. The superintendent stood up at the beginning of the meeting and wrote an outline of his "vision" on the blackboard. He seemed to drone on for over an hour on theoretical educational issues. Yet we and others attending the meeting were all very polite and pretended to listen long after we realized that none of what he was saying answered the urgent need to address violence and drugs in the schools.

We attended meetings for months, and I eventually worked with others in a group that produced a clear discipline policy for the school district.

The assistant principal presented the fruits of the many long evenings dedicated people from the community spent on the document to the superintendent for approval and presentation to the school board for adoption. The superintendent rejected it. After learning the superintendent's specific objections, the assistant principal revised the document until it satisfied the superintendent. At a school board meeting in the summer of 1998 the superintendent presented the new discipline policy to the board without so much as a mention of the many hours the community and the assistant principal put in to produce it.

All the while I was passive and let "the professionals" go about the business of the school district. I read the school board minutes published in the local paper, but they were boring and never held my interest. From reading the minutes, the official record of the school board, I couldn't tell what was going on in the schools.

One day I got a call from another parent. The school board was going to meet on the assistant principal's contract and the superintendent was recommending that it not be renewed. I rearranged my work schedule to attend the meeting. Because with this particular assistant principal handling things at the school, the atmosphere and climate had turned around. In fact, my concerns over safety were so completely relieved that for the first time in months I began to focus on what my son was actually learning.

I spoke at the meeting on behalf of renewing the assistant principal's contract as did many others from the community. The school board rejected our comments and in a 4-1 vote went along with the recommendation of the superintendent and the assistant principal's contract wasn't renewed. I wasn't happy with the decision, but I had done all I could. I kept my silence.

My silence ended forever when the students emptied the school one day in a peaceful demonstration to get the school board to change it's ruling. How could an elected school board disregard a peaceful demonstration by nearly all of the students? The school board chairman and superintendent were patronizing to the kids after they returned to the high school. Their handling of the situation is the reason a generation of kids now feel disenfranchised and cynical. How could our representatives ignore the students, teachers, police and the parents on this issue? The answer I have come to believe is we have become invisible through our passive, "let the professionals handle things" approach to education.

I'm out to prove a point to the kids. It matters, and you can make a difference. I don't want responsibility for a generation of kids that don't care about liberty or basic human rights. Kids that go along just to not cause a stir. What would our country's founding fathers say about me and them? What would those who died defending our liberty say? Apathy is a word I'd like to make obsolete.

In an era of kids killing kids at school, the assistant principal we had was able "to defuse the bomb" as one member of our School Community Action Committee so aptly put it. The superintendent is the only one who wanted him gone. Whatever the superintendent told the school board about the assistant principal should have been told to him so that he could, at the very least, answer the charge against him. The assistant principal has never been told why he was released. The school board has denied him a private hearing. Such behavior is beyond my ability to comprehend. Even private businesses offer employees an exit interview.

Silence is cancer, and without treatment it grows into a tumor that we have seen violently rupture in public schools throughout the nation. Parents have been silent, letting the so-called "professionals" handle things in our schools, far too long. We've known that things aren't "right" in the schools but felt powerless to change things. It often seems that the courts, legislature, insurance companies and a litigious atmosphere in our society are stacked against us. Clearly, the "professionals" have botched some things up in the schools while we sat idly by and watched it happen.

We may not be able to change everything that is wrong in our public schools, but we can begin by demanding that elected officials and public employees be held accountable for creating a learning atmosphere in the schools. And then, teach fundamental skills to our children. If our public school children are not getting the same education, and at a much higher cost per pupil, I might add, as private school kids, then we should demand to know why. Aren't public school kids as valuable to this and the next generation as the ones attending private schools? Do we want a "dummied-down" society in this, the most powerful nation on earth?

Don't be silent. Your voice can be heard. Band together because together our voices will be loud enough to roar. It is important; it matters; and you can make a difference.

###

Roberta Woods

***********************************************
Reaching me is easy...let me show you the ways

Visit http://www.conknet.com/~rwoods where
"A good laugh is Spring cleaning for the soul."

Visit http://www.conknet.com/~rwoods/School for
Citizens Oversight Group of Schools

FEDERAL JUDGE SIGNS FINAL JUDGMENT IN LAWSUIT OVER PERSONALLY INVASIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDENT SURVEYS AT JEFFERSON HIGH SCHOOL

You will recall that the lawsuit arose over personally intrusive surveys which were administered by the district on several campuses including, but not limited to, Jefferson High School at the beginning of the 1998-99 school year. The signed Final Order of Judgment includes the following important parental rights provisions:

1. The San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD) will establish a new district-wide parents committee to review, with school district staff, surveys which the committee might believe to be personally intrusive, prior to submitting said surveys to the board of trustees for approval pursuant to district policy.

2. On February 24, 1999, the SAISD shredded all the original Jefferson High School intrusive surveys in the presence of the class representatives.

3. SAISD, when required by law, will obtain parental consent for participation of a minor child in a comprehensive and developmental guidance and counseling program, and for questionnaires and surveys. The request for consent will notify the parents that the questionnaire or survey includes controversial topics such as political affiliations, sex behavior and attitudes, mental and psychological problems potentially embarrassing to the student or the family, critical appraisals of other individuals with whom the student has a close family relationship, illegal and demeaning behavior, and legally recognized privileged relationships such as with lawyers, physicians, and ministers. Parents will be notified that they may obtain a copy of the questionnaire or survey upon request. If requested by a parent, a parent will be given a copy of a questionnaire or survey before said questionnaire or survey is administered to a minor child.

4. SAISD's Academic Coaching Classes, which was one of Diana Lam’s school restructuring reforms, will involve only academic issues. The program was to be implemented throughout SAISD. In addition, SAISD will require that any counseling curriculum, instruction or services may only be delivered by a certified counselor as required by the Texas Education Code.

5. SAISD will include in its student/parent handbooks written notification as to all the parental rights under state and federal law. Within its regularly scheduled in-service training, SAISD will provide training to its staff regarding state and federal statutes concerning parental rights.

6. SAISD will also include in its in-service training a statement that SAISD officials may not retaliate, intimidate, interrogate, or harass students or parents as a result of a student or parent exercising their student or parental rights. SAISD officials, during official grievance proceedings, may question parents and children, with parents present.

7. SAISD will make a student's educational records available for review by parents and legal guardians and will instruct its staff that minor students will not be instructed that such records are confidential against their parents, unless otherwise allowed by law.

The provisions of the Final Order of Judgment should be implemented in the district pursuant to existing district policy, as well as new policies that will have to be created by the district immediately, so as to comply with the court's order.

Texas Justice Foundation attorney Thomas W. Stack said, "The signing of this federal court order signals a bright future for all parents in the San Antonio Independent School District and the protection of their parental rights in the education of their children. We are hopeful that districts across the state will take a look at what happened in this case and voluntarily implement the same or similar measures in their own district to protect and advance parental rights. Remember, parents are full partners with educators in the education of their children, and they need to be treated that way."

If you would like further information, please contact Yvette Ramirez at the Texas Justice Foundation at (210) 614-7157.

TJF is a non-profit, public interest litigation group representing people at no charge in cases of limited government, free markets, property rights, and parental rights.

-- Thomas W. Stack, J.D.
Texas Justice Foundation
8122 Datapoint Drive, Suite 812 San Antonio, TX 78229-3273
(210) 614-7157 (210) 614-6656 (fax) Visit our Website at http://www.TxJF.org