Parents Taking Back Their Schools in South L.A.

In a groundbreaking effort to engage parents in meaningful decision making in their children’s education, CADRE, a parent group in South Los Angeles, and Justice Matters Institute, a research and policy group in San Francisco, have just released a new report entitled We Interrupt This Crisis With Our Side of the Story: Relationships Between South Los Angeles Parents and Schools.

This report documents the current state of relations between South LA schools and parents. In a survey of 122 parents, it found that parents overwhelmingly feel that public schools in South L.A. do not embrace or include the community’s cultures, share equal decision-making power with parents, or ensure that they are accountable to parents. It also found that parents believe that they can improve their children’s schools given the opportunity to do so through meaningful engagement practices. Some of the key recommendations in the report include:

mandatory classes for teachers and school staff about teaching the history and culture of South L.A. and fostering positive self-esteem;
structured opportunities for parents to give input, receive information, and help make decisions in matters affecting the quality of their child’s educational program; and
regular parent-led school forums at which school staff must be present to hear and respond to parent assessments of school quality and outcomes. (To read the full report, visit the link above.)

Community Asset Development Re-defining Education (CADRE) was founded by African-American and Latino parents in South L.A. because of their concern for education in their community and their desire to dispel the negative stereotypes of poor and minority parents often posited by school officials, in their view. Having witnessed children across South L.A. falling through the cracks of overcrowded and under-resourced schools, these parents recognized the need to organize and become advocates for educational justice for their children. Through outreach, membership, training, leadership development, activism, and issue campaigns, CADRE is working to eliminate institutional and political barriers to parent engagement and participation in local schools. We Interrupt This Crisis With Our Side of the Story is CADRE’s first step in achieving this goal.

Over the next several years, CADRE plans to identify schools and school personnel who understand the benefit of working with parent leaders, believe in the community, and are willing to establish new standards of cultural inclusion, engagement, and accountability in their relations with parents. To this end, CADRE, working with the Coalition for Educational Justice, has already secured a commitment from the superintendent of Local District 7 (which includes a portion of South LA) to include parents, teachers, and students in school improvement, problem solving, and decision making. CADRE will monitor the impact of this more inclusive approach and make sure that this new policy is put into practice.

Prepared by Melissa Mangino, February 23, 2005