Seattle Schools Community Forum: 100 Black Parents' Survey

Seattle Schools Community Forum: 100 Black Parents' Survey:

100 Black Parents' Survey

In advance of the meeting tonight at Mt. Zion Baptist Church at 6 pm with Garfield principal Ted Howard and black parents at GHS,  I thought I would put up their short survey. 

I'm putting it up for two reasons.

One, if there are any black Garfield parents who haven't seen it, they might want to weigh in.

Two, I note the list of items that is their wish list of 17 items.  Know what's NOT on it?  Blended classes.  It's a long list and that's not on it.  What they do say on honors is this:

Increase of black students in Honors and AP classes

Now I asked public education activist and Garfield teacher Jesse Hagopian about this issue of drawing more students of color into Honors/AP.  I asked if there couldn't be encouragement for kids to go into these classes and supports for those who need it.  He had no real answer except that there wasn't enough of a cohort of these kids for a comfort level for them. 

A cohort.  Yes, that's a term used a lot at Garfield but usually HCC students.  It apparently matters to many groups of students.

What the list DOES include are supports like:

- academic supports like tutoring
- college/career opportunities
- resource list for testing, AP, etc and supports for tests like SAT/ACT, AP

I think the entire list is valid and quite interesting.

As well, you may remember that I posted an article earlier this year from The Atlantic on more black parents who are homeschooling.  Here's another interesting one on that same topic from the Christian Science Monitor.

While some parents cite religious and moral reasons, others say they are keeping their kids out of public schools to protect them from school-related racism.Seattle Schools Community Forum: 100 Black Parents' Survey: