Parent involvement brainstorm

April 9, 2009 by

I believe that relationships are crucial to learning. Parent involvement can take many forms and honoring any and all contributions is key. While it is important to do all you can to improve education for your child you have an opportunity to help another child as well. Your child benefits, another child benefits, and you are modeling humanity and giving for your child. Parents bring different strengths and gifts to the table and PTA’s and parent leadership must foster an inclusive environment where all contributions matter big or small.

In most, if not all, classrooms there are children that are abused, neglected, ignored, or just plain lonely. Loneliness is something that cuts across all walks of life; we’ve all been there. Pervasive loneliness affects self-esteem, learning, and status. Heap on abuse, neglect, and being ignored and lack of self-determination is a given.

One teacher in a classroom of 25+ is going to have a hard time caring for all these kids as individuals. I respect that a teacher must have professional detachment for their own self-care; it is tragic what some children must endure and a teacher must have a thick skin to continue to do the work. The mission to reduce classroom overcrowding and reform education must run parallel to increased parent involvement. In a classroom of 25+ you only need one to a few self-starters to improve the environment and build relationships with all the kids. A parent in my daughter’s classroom shared with me how excited her son is when another parent volunteers. I would like to generate dialogue on the benefits of increased parental involvement, identify barriers, how do we make it inclusive and welcoming for all parents, and what can we do for those kids that are lonely, abused, neglected, and ignored?

I would like to increase the challenge by asking what can we do for the parents that don’t get involved? How can we inspire them and foster unconditional positive regard for them and show them how they can share? Some parents we can’t change but we can still help inspire their kids.

Stephanie Hunter is a behavior consultant and the parent of a student at Ockley Green. She is active in local and statewide advocacy for children and adults with disabilities, which she writes about on her blog Belonging Matters.

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For the greater common good

April 8, 2009 by

I publish this Web site to advocate for the greater common good. I even came up with a mission statement some time back to capture this notion more specifically:

The mission of PPS Equity is to inform, advocate and organize, with a goal of equal educational opportunity for all students in Portland Public Schools, regardless of their address, their parent’s wealth, or their race.

I’ve been troubled by the direction some recent discussions here have taken, as have some readers who have contacted me privately.

Discussions about poverty and race have pushed some into extreme frustration. One reader sent me this link as an illustration of the attitudes she has encountered on this site.

Another reader chafes at what she perceives as an anti-test bias on this site. She cites data showing “65% of PPS 10th grade black students getting a C or better in math but ODE assessments show[ing] only 21% of that population at benchmark.” There’s huge distrust of the district within minority communities, and this kind of data shows why.

Yes, we’ve seen district policy ostensibly aimed at narrowing the “achievement gap” contribute to a two-tiered school system. But that doesn’t mean the achievement gap isn’t real, that the district can’t take real strides in addressing it, or that we shouldn’t have some objective standards by which to measure the district’s progress in doing so.

This is just one example of where teacher-reformers clash — perhaps unwittingly — with civil rights activists, a fight I don’t want to get in the middle of.

The charter school discussion is another fight I’m weary of. It has veered repeatedly into personal territory, with charter parents getting passionately defensive about their personal choices, and charter opponents criticizing those choices with equal passion. From within that melee, I asked a simple question: How can charters contribute to the greater common good?

Besides modeling pedagogy that we already know works, nobody seems to have an answer to that succinct question (though some have pointed out how charters work against the common good).

At the end of the day, I’m not interested in hosting a pissing match about personal choices. I also don’t want to get too deeply into education reform issues, which increasingly seem to pit progressive-minded teachers against civil rights groups (not to mention their strange bedfellows in the market-oriented, anti-union, foundation- and corporate-funded “reform” movement).

I don’t doubt that education reformers want to help all students, and that charter parents would love a system where everybody wanted and got what they’re getting. But these discussions don’t seem to lead to much unity of vision or purpose.

One thing I know for sure: the enrollment and funding policies of Portland Public Schools have resulted in a pattern of public investment and placement of comprehensive schools that demonstrably favors white, middle class neighborhoods and students, to the detriment of the other half of the city. I’m not naive enough to think righting that wrong would be enough for our poor and minority students; I think the district should learn to walk and chew gum at the same time — i.e. address inputs and outcomes simultaneously.

But this is the focus I want to get back to here: what can we do to make our public school system fair, just and equitable for the greater common good? If we’re not working toward answering that question, I fear we’re getting sidetracked… just as we finally see signs of movement in that direction at the district level.

Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.

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Support MECP in person at the school board meeting April 13th

April 8, 2009 by

As I stated in a previous blog post Multnomah Early Childhood Program has been notified by PPS that they will not be renewing the contract for early intervention evaluations and PPS plans to take this over. MECP has a streamlined, cohesive, family-friendly, child empowering, and working system in place. This change will affect a lot of families and the risk of children unprepared for Kindergarten is at risk of increasing not to mention the philosophical difference I noted in my blog post.

This will be a showing support for the citizen comment section at the April 13th meeting on MECP. PPS is supposed to give MECP the final word on renewal next week and it is important that we show our support for good programs that work and we show it in person and in quantity.

The school board meeting is at 7pm at 501 N. Dixon in Portland. You can email me at stephanie.c.hunter@gmail.com if you want more information or if you would like to testify and need some input.

Stephanie Hunter is a behavior consultant and the parent of a student at Ockley Green. She is active in local and statewide advocacy for children and adults with disabilities, which she writes about on her blog Belonging Matters.

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Please no MORE, just the SAME for students with disabilities

April 4, 2009 by

In the early 1970’s the Pennsylvania ARC won a court case that allowed children with disabilities the right to a public education. Their attorney Thomas Gilhool used the precedent set by Brown v. Board of education in 1954 that separate but equal was inherently unequal. In 1973 the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was passed and people with disabilities were given legal protection for the first time. Section 504 of this Act prohibited discrimination based on disability in any program receiving federal funds. It took a lot of effort on the parts of advocates to get the regulations written and this finally happened in 1977. In 1974 the Amendments to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act addressed issues related to students with disabilities and this led in 1975 to the Education for All Handicapped Children Act which provides for a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment for children with disabilities. This law was renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1990. Also in 1990 the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed finally giving full legal equality to people with disabilities.

While all of this history was being made there were still children being placed in institutions into the 1970’s. When a mother gave birth to a child with a disability the physician commonly recommended immediate placement into the institution and to forget about the child and go have more babies. If the parent did not take this advice the child was still relatively invisible even if you were a part of the parent movement. Even if you did not put your child away you eventually had to send them to the institution for their services because that was the only way to get specialized medical help. When you watch a film from the 50’s and 60’s about Oregon’s Institution the Fairview Training Center (Once called the Institute for the Feeble Minded) you see rows and rows of infants in cribs and nurses in crisp uniforms. You see children no older than 4 in a stark white room with a few dolls and some balls. Fairview Training Center did not close until 2000. I worked with people that had been placed in Fairview as young children and had lived there 40 years and often more. They had no friends and their family had been told to forget about them a long time ago. I read reports about people that entered Fairview walking, talking, and with skills and now this person was in a wheelchair, could not talk, and could not even do the most basic things for themselves.

When do we get to at least start having the conversations about implementing the ADA in public buildings and places? I often get asked, “What about buildings that were built before the ADA was made into law? That will cost a lot of money.” Well schools were supposed to be equalized by federal funding since 1973 and the ADA brought more regulation in 1990; how many more years can we get out of that excuse? When there is talk about minorities, diversity, and equity people with disabilities are not always included. Important, life changing decisions are made for people with physical, medical, cognitive, and acquired disabilities all the time without their consent or opinion. Parents hear, “Your child’s needs are going to be best served in this special classroom with other kids like them. I am a professional you know and evidence based best practices say that this is best for your child.” This logic sounds a little bit like those doctors back in the day that said, “This is the best place for your child with people like them. Go home, have more kids and forget about this one. “We already did that and it wasn’t very nice.

Special education pull-outs from general education are supposed to be a pit stop to gain some skills and quickly get back into the race; not a place you stay your entire school career. These pull-outs from general education currently are a door that closes once you step through it. These children might be sheltered and warehoused in separate wings, portables on the playground, converted locker rooms, basements. Their classrooms are prone to change to new buildings from one year to the next forcing children to transfer. Children with IEP’s do not have the same rights as other children to attend their neighborhood school. If you have a disability and live across the street from a school they will short bus you all the way across town anyway. They will have a variety of reasons for this. Some of them are ADA related or there simply is not a classroom that will meet the needs of the child according to the IEP team. A parent that wants something different has to seek due process. We are discussing transfer options at length and there are some students in PPS that would just like to attend their neighborhood school and they are told NO.

Don’t strategize how you can give people more services to “fix” them, throw more pots of money at them, plan how to give them “special” opportunities to be equitably distributed, and don’t immerse them with people of “their” kind and let them prove to you in segregation with lack of peer models that they “deserve” to be with everyone else. Please no MORE, People with disabilities (teachers, parents, students, staff, citizens) should have the same right to complain about their neighborhood school like everyone else. Students should be able to attend in the neighborhood. Parents in wheelchairs should be able to have access to their child’s school. Administrators, teachers, and staff in wheelchairs should have the opportunity to work in any school they wish.

Please do continue to give people with disabilities a voice in the forum that includes minorities and diversity but only the same, not more. Allow them to have similar joys and worries any student, parent, teacher, citizen might have.

Stephanie Hunter is a behavior consultant and the parent of a student at Ockley Green. She is active in local and statewide advocacy for children and adults with disabilities, which she writes about on her blog Belonging Matters.

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On the blogs: EPA to study air quality at Tubman

April 1, 2009 by

Dennis Newman reports on his Natural Oregon blog that the US Environmental Protection Agency will be studying air quality at two Oregon schools, including Portland’s Harriet Tubman Young Women’s Academy.

Tubman’s proximity to Interstate 5 and industry puts its air quality in the bottom 9 percent of schools surveyed for a story in USA Today last December.

Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.

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PPS Equity gone wild

March 31, 2009 by

Since this Web site was launched a little over a year ago, it’s had a small but dedicated following, and the list of contributors keeps growing, little by little.

Then, this month, something happened. Due to a combination of factors, traffic for the month of March is suddenly more than double the previous monthly average, and comments — many from new readers — are through the roof.

Props to long-time contributor Peter Campbell for sparking things up in the comments department with his thought-provoking posts, and to new contributor Stephanie Hunter for shining a light on the frequently-overlooked inequities faced by PPS students on IEPs.

I am not an educator or a journalist, just a socially-conscious, politically-active parent. I publish this Web site because I can, and because I feel a moral responsibility to speak out about injustice when I see it. But without reader participation, it would be nothing but a lone voice in the wilderness.

The civility of the dialog here, and the level of intelligence, expertise and critical thinking you all share puts other local blogs and media outlets to shame. I am truly humbled by this (even a little proud).

There have been just 16 blog posts this month, and over 350 comments. That’s 25% of all comments posted here in the 14 months this site has been live. I’ve taken a few steps back recently to spend more time with my family, so it’s gratifying to see this thing take on a life of its own. I own the server, but nobody can own the community dialog that’s taking place on it.

It’s gotten to the point that I can barely keep up (I do have a day job!). In order to make the comments easier to follow, I’ve added a comments page, listing the most recent 100 comments, as well as some statistics. I also plan to implement some other features soon to make discussions easier to follow, e.g. comment threading (and perhaps automatic quoting, etc.).

If you have any suggestions for making this site more useful, I’m all ears. And as always, I welcome new contributors. Drop an e-mail to steve at ppsequity dot org if you’d like to join the ranks of writers here.

Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.

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School board candidate forum

March 30, 2009 by

The Beverly Cleary PTA is hosting a school board candidate forum this Thursday, with all six candidates expected to attend (or send a surrogate).

  • Thursday, April 2nd, 7:30-8:30 pm
  • The Cafetorium, Beverly Cleary School, Fernwood Campus, 1915 NE 33rd Ave.

Childcare will be provided by the PTA on a first-come, first-served basis for a maximum 20 children.

Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.

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Charters and PPS

March 26, 2009 by

Responding to the recent audit of PPS charter schools, PPS Superintendent Carole Smith had this to say:

“The track record of PPS charter schools — and of the district’s success in managing and partnering with those schools — is a mixed bag. After 10 years, it is time for a deep and thoughtful assessment of charter schools, in theory and in practice.”

Given the Board’s rejection of the most recent charter applications, it looks like the worm might be turning. Odd timing, given the rest of the country under our new President is going ga-ga over charters.

Full disclosure: my daughter attends Trillium right now. There are lot of great things about the school, e.g., not holding kids to artificial benchmarks, integrating art and music across the curriculum, theme-based education that ties in different learning styles, project-based learning, and allowing kids to choose things they are interested in learning and then giving them time and support to pursue these things. As an educator and parent, I appreciate these forms of pedagogy.

But as an activist, I question the role of charters and worry about their draining effect on neighborhood schools. On this blog, Rose and Stephanie have shared information about the way kids with IEP’s and kids with disabilities are served by PPS. The way charters handle this concerns me even more.

I think we as a community need to look carefully at the charter movement here in PPS. Is there a way that charters can become community partners, or will they always serve a niche? And why?

Peter Campbell is a parent, educator, and activist, who served in a volunteer role for four years as the Missouri State Coordinator for FairTest before moving to Portland. He has taught multiple subjects and grade levels for over 20 years. He blogs at Transform Education.

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School library bill gets first hearing

March 26, 2009 by

Oregon’s HB 2586, the Quality School Libraries bill, gets its first House committee hearing this Monday, March 30. This bill would make library programs eligible for grants in addition to State School Fund money, and would require school districts to include goals that implement strong school library programs in their local district continuous improvement plans.

Please contact members of the House Education Committee and urge them to support this bill. (Or thank them for their sponsorship. Four of nine of the committee members — Dembrow, Huffman, Roblan, and VanOrman — are co-sponsors). It is also helpful to contact your legislators and encourage them to sign on as sponsors if they haven’t already, or thank them for their support if they already have.

House Education Committee

Legislative sponsors

House:

Senate:

Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.

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Early Intervention changes proposed

March 24, 2009 by

When something is working we sometimes forget to ask why or notice at all. The Multnomah Early Childhood Program (MECP) is one of those things that is often taken for granted.

MECP falls under the big umbrella of Multnomah Education Service District (MESD), a regional program that serves all of the school districts in Multnomah County. On March 16th, 2009 MESD was told that Portland Public Schools will not be renewing the contract for MECP to continue doing evaluations for children that have developmental concerns and disabilities. MECP would continue to provide the service of early intervention is what I understand because this is ODE’s requirement.

My biggest concern about this is the philosophical differences between MECP and PPS in how children with delays and disabilities are identified and supported. MECP is based on the values of serving the whole family and community in the process of serving each and every child. MECP partners with Multnomah Parent Action Committee (MPAC) and provides free training and support groups for parents. MECP offers classes in communication, autism, behavior, and actively seeks resources for families. The process from the first phone call all the way to transition to PPS is seamless and supportive.

PPS likely believes they can save money doing the early intervention evaluations in the district. I beg to differ.

  • The money PPS would have to spend to meet the standards of consistency and family centered practices that MECP provides would likely exceed whatever savings they believe they can draw from this move.
  • I do not understand how shifting pots of money around and creating a fragmented system benefits anyone. Parents just receiving a diagnosis have a lot of concerns and questions about services, and there is ample room for mistakes and miscommunication when one agency is handing information off to another.
  • Since MESD is a county system and covers all of the districts there is a lot of sharing of resources that offsets costs all over. MESD intakes 2400 children a year and roughly 1200 are in PPS. If PPS pulls out of this contract then East County will have to pick up the slack and absorb costs and in addition MESD would have to let go of 50 percent of their staff. Turnover within MECP is rare and in my 3 years as a parent in their system see all of the same faces every year.
  • Perhaps PPS should allow MECP to keep the contract and instead direct resources to investigate what MECP is doing right to empower, engage, and support families while also being successful in providing early intervention.

My deepest, darkest fears about PPS taking over early intervention evaluation is that children with disabilities will be routed into special schools like the Pioneer Program or will simply not be identified as needing early intervention at all. More segregation and less identification is what our future may hold if PPS does not allow MECP to continue doing their good work. PPS has enough to worry about right now.

Join me in writing the school board and the superintendent (contact information on the “action” page of this site). You can also contact Ron Hitchcock the superintendent of MESD at rhitchco@mesd.k12.or.us

Tell them to let MECP continue to do their good work. If you have personal stories about how MECP has helped your family then share them.

Stephanie Hunter is a behavior consultant and the parent of a student at Ockley Green. She is active in local and statewide advocacy for children and adults with disabilities, which she writes about on her blog Belonging Matters.

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