TTCTWCH10
We are very lucky at the school where I currently teach to have a very degree of parent involvement. We have 100% PTSA membership and countless volunteers helping out at our school every day. Every year since I have been at Tritt, excluding this year, I have had parent volunteers in my classroom four days a week. This year for some reason, I have had a very difficult getting parent to come in to help. My room mom has done all she can to try to try and encourage parents to come in, but they just don’t seem to want to make the time in their busy schedules. Believe me though; this is not the norm at my school. I know how very blessed we are to have such involved parents. Not only do parent volunteers help out at our school, they also get community members to partner with our school and do a tremendous amount for the school. We have something called “Arts in Education Day” every year at my school, where community members come in to spend an entire day educating our students. We have actors, singers, musicians, artists, architects, potters, woodworkers, comedians, etc. that teach our students. All of this is coordinated by parent volunteers. Parents also help raise tens of thousands of dollars to support a foundation that pays for a computer lab teacher, a science lab teacher, and a Spanish teacher. I feel for the low income schools where this is not possible. The disparity is evident. The one negative comment that I have heard from teachers, which is pointed out in chapter 10, is that parents have too much power, and “run the school”. I love the idea of parents becoming activist to bring “socially just schooling to all of the neighborhood’s children” (p. 407).
