One of the issues at the forefront of this year’s school board election is parental involvement. It’s something that certainly sounds uncontroversial. Who would be against parents being involved in their children’s schools? The truth around parental involvement, however, is a bit more complicated.
(Note: This is a long one, so we put a TL;DR at the bottom for you!)
CFSD Encourages Parental Involvement!
Speaking from experience, we know CFSD loves parents and encourages their involvement. All three of us—Jacquelyn Davoli, Tom Logue, and Eileen Jackson—are parents of CFSD graduates or current students, and we have all volunteered in CFSD schools. We appreciate the way CFSD schools welcome parent volunteers in so many aspects of our students’ lives. In fact, the level of parental involvement at CFSD is the envy of other school districts and is a classic example of what parental involvement should look like.
In CFSD schools, parents chaperone field trips, run book fairs, supervise lunch periods and playgrounds, lead reading groups and activity centers, and more. Parents also serve on Family Faculty Organizations and booster clubs at individual schools. This work centers around fundraising to enrich our students’ lessons through events that happen outside the classroom. FFOs recruit parent volunteers to act as committee chairs for school events, running STEM and Lego Robotics clubs, silent auctions, holiday carnivals, parent education nights, community building events like rodeo parade lunches, bingo nights, dine outs and more.
Through these hours of volunteering in the schools, parents see firsthand the expertise of our teachers and staff and the resulting engagement of the students they’re working with. Any parent who has volunteered for these duties can attest that our teachers and staff rely on their help and welcome them into their classrooms. Our students’ experience in CFSD would look very different without the parents who work tirelessly on behalf of students to support the educational mission. CFSD administrators and staff recognize this and actively encourage parents to be involved.
CFSD Listens!
The current board, through superintendent Dr. Denise Bartlett, is dedicating significant resources to support Listen and Learn sessions at all CFSD schools to hear from not only staff, but from parents and community members. CFSD actively solicits input from stakeholders to improve the educational experience for all students.
Further, the Board elects to include a public comment session at each board meeting, specifically to hear from people who want to contribute to the conversation. Parents and other stakeholders can comment on any topic related to our schools, and the Board ensures their questions and concerns are addressed by District personnel. If warranted, a public comment may end up changing an eventual policy or program adopted by the Board.
Our Position on Parental Involvement
Your CFSD Students First candidates—Jacquelyn Davoli, Tom Logue and Eileen Jackson—have been active participants in the district. Together we have amassed three decades of volunteering and service with the district—work that has uniquely prepared us to take on the role of Governing Board Member. We support the continuation of CFSD’s current approach to parental involvement, including the new outreach initiatives recently announced by Superintendent Bartlett. The Superintendent’s goals can be found here and a brief news article on why CFSD is noteworthy in publicizing those goals can be found here.
Our involvement in the district and our support of CFSD’s parental involvement initiatives are something that differentiate us from other candidates in this election.
So What’s Wrong With Parental Involvement?
Nothing—if you understand parental involvement to be what is described above. We believe CFSD does an excellent job of involving parents in their children’s education.
Unfortunately, the terms “parental involvement,” “Family-First,” and “parental partnership” are used by some to mean something else entirely. Some envision an educational system in which one set of parents could dictate to another set of parents what books their students should have access to; whether the entire history of our great country should be taught or the more difficult parts of our history glossed over; or even what school facilities their students should be able to use.
In our view, curriculum and resource decisions are best left to teachers and experts, plain and simple.
This does not mean that students should be exposed to potentially inappropriate subject matter over the objections of their parents. In fact, CFSD schools and teachers are proactive in notifying parents when any potentially objectionable materials are being used in the classroom, so that parents may request alternatives. In addition, all CFSD parents have the ability to view the curriculum and the specific lessons and materials their children will be using. In other words, a parent can be as involved in their own child’s education as they choose to be!
We Are Advocates for True Parental Involvement
We believe all parents should be involved in their children’s education and that CFSD offers parents ample opportunities to do so. We also believe that one set of parents should not be given the power to determine other children’s education. The district would be doing parents and students a disservice if it chose to ignore the guidance of trained experts in education.
We know you want to continue CFSD’s tradition of constructive parental involvement in CFSD. Vote for your CFSD Students First candidates, who will continue to welcome and encourage parental involvement while maintaining our expert staff and administration’s ability to set curriculum. As always, our goal is simple: to put Students First.
TL;DR: CFSD does an outstanding job welcoming and encouraging actual parental involvement, both at the school and district level. Unfortunately, the term “parental involvement” has become politicized and promoted by those who want to be able to make curriculum and resource decisions for ALL students, not just their own. We object to this type of influence in our schools and believe that CFSD should continue to put educational decisions in the hands of teachers and experts. As always, our goal is simple: to put Students First.
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