pdf | print

This year, my twins are in first grade and the night before school started was a restless one for me. Although they’ve been in school for three years, thanks to DC’s commitment to early education, this was a big deal -- a new campus, unfamiliar teachers and most exciting of all (to them), lockers. I was comforted that many of their friends and the parents that we have gotten to know would be joining them on this journey, but I was worried.

I wondered about the overall health of their school. I know that test scores aren’t everything, but the fact that their school hadn’t made AYP this year was somewhat troubling. Were the teachers and administrators up to the task of moving this school forward? I worried about my children’s experience:  Would they like their new teachers? Would they be ok eating lunch in a large cafeteria and being around big kids? I’m happy to report that so far the answers seem to be “yes.” But now that the immediate worry has passed, my thoughts have moved to how I can help support the school as a whole, my children’s classrooms and their education as individuals.

Education is an experience of giving and receiving. On the receiving side, your child(ren) deserve a high quality education. This includes effective teachers, school leaders and other staff who ensure that your child, and all children, are learning and that they have the unique help that they need; a well-maintained building that supports learning; and opportunities beyond the basic curriculum – like fine arts and physical education courses – that meet students’ needs and interests.

The giving part is in the hands of parents and others who help schools. This may sound simple – “I can just go and paint the cafeteria or sell some holiday wrapping paper.” But anyone who’s volunteered to help a school knows that it’s much more complicated. As a parent, I look at the needs of my children and their school and then figure out how much time I can carve out of my schedule. All volunteers wrestle with the questions of where they are most needed and where they can have the greatest impact. Do we focus on one individual child or one specific classroom, or do we work to improve the entire school? Can we offer help that will make the entire system better?

All of these types of volunteering are crucial for schools – you just need to figure out what is most needed and where your skills and schedule can fit. For parents like me whose schools didn’t meet AYP, we can ask our principal to publicly explain the results in detail and share his or her plan for helping more kids reach proficiency (the receiving). Then we can figure out how to support this plan (the giving). If the principal thinks that more kids need one-on-one reading support, I could help organize a reading buddy program or just sign up to read with one child each week. If he or she wants to supplement the curriculum with extra materials or field trips to reinforce the learning standards, I could raise money, volunteer to organize a trip or serve as a chaperone.

Using your time to share information with leaders beyond the school walls is a type of volunteer work and can ultimately help improve the entire system. Whether you send an email to the Chancellor or meet with a charter school’s board of directors, know that good leaders use individual feedback to make policy changes that can improve things for lots of kids. Improvements to school nutrition or safety don’t happen in a vacuum; policies change when parents and others work within schools and then share their concerns and their successes with “higher-ups.”

The first thing I’ve volunteered to do is bring healthy afternoon snacks for my son’s class. His teacher feels that this will help the class focus more on their lessons; makes perfect sense to me, and healthy eating is one of my personal passions. A small step, but still forward motion. So give some serious thought to how you as a parent – or one of the many wonderful volunteers who give of their time because they care and they believe that our city is only as strong as our schools – can best support learning for your child and for all children in DC.