“Another mom said to me that, over the last few years, parents have fallen asleep at the wheel. I think she’s right – but we’re changing that.”

“I’ve had several friends pull their kids from the district – due to transparency and curriculum – and send them to private school. I’ve also seen a swing of parents going to homeschooling. My former husband and I both grew up in the district, so we were really hoping to have that same experience for our kids. I would have never guessed five years ago that I would have thought to so much as look at a different school district, but I’ve looked.”

“I’m part of a group of parents that regularly attends board meetings. For close to a year, parents have been asking to have the meetings livestreamed and recorded. They are in the evening, but – like everybody with kids – we’ve got sports and different things in the evening. I’m a single-parent household with four daughters. Especially for working parents and single-parent households, we can only be in so many places – and these meetings are often scheduled the same night as other things like the city commission meeting.”

“I think the board thinks that parents have nothing better to do than what they see as complaining. Our group tries to give them constructive and positive feedback – thank them for things that we’re appreciative of, too. But, it feels like it’s all behind closed doors. I think that probably the board’s perception of us is that we think they’re not doing their job well, and that’s not it. It’s that we want to know more about their job, and be able constructively to parent and collaborate with them.”

“Collaboration starts with the transparency of the meetings and there is 100% an issue with that. There are these basic things that have been continuously requested of our school board that they don’t make happen for one reason or another – it feels off.”

“They’re our kids and we want to know what’s going on with them. I want all parents to weigh in if they have something to say – parents I agree with and parents I disagree with. We’re paying tax dollars, so I want to know what my kids are up to and have an opportunity to applaud or not applaud that.”

“The minutes from the board meeting are quite delayed – sometimes until close to the next board meeting a month later. That doesn’t really work – minutes can be scrubbed. It’s just different than being in a live meeting or being able to see a recorded meeting with interactions between the board and the folks that go to meetings and are able to ask follow-up questions. I have not been able to attend at all lately, but I would certainly watch.”

“Transparency is the top concern that we want the school board to understand. Considering what our district has managed to pull off the last couple of years with options for the students – but very few options for the parents – there is absolutely no reason they can’t honor repeated requests to livestream and/or record meetings.”

“It would be nice if our school board responded to our questions and concerns as individuals versus always as a group. It feels that it’s the mentality that a canned response from one member is supposed to suffice for all the board members. I’d also like to see our community get more involved with running and with elections since these are elected officials. A lot of our school board seats have run unopposed with no alternate to run against. Maybe some more town hall meetings – I don’t think we’ve ever had one.”

“There’s this underlying fear of open conversation and respectable conflict, so to speak. Let’s mine for the conflict, mine for the sticking points within the district and really get to work on those.”

“It doesn’t seem like too much to ask. And that’s the head scratcher – out of all the technology and options we have, asking direct questions still does not seem to get appropriate feedback.”

“Parents have woken up and we just we just want to be part of the solution – we don’t want to be considered the problem.”

Gretchen Trost
East Lansing, Michigan