Welcome to the EduVerse with ProfessorJBA. This series is aimed at parents and caregivers in an effort to inform them about the various roles and aspects of the educational landscape to ensure that caregivers can make informed decisions.

National Family Engagement Month is celebrated in November. School districts across the country have celebrations for schools and families on designated times to engagement families.

It is also a time to call parents to action for equity and better educational outcomes for all students. This includes the continued conversations around the way in which we look at how public school systems/districts including charters networks are doing the work of equity in and out of classrooms.

At minimum, parents should demand that school take a stance against inequities and racism and develop a policy for equity work so that it become a way of being and not a checklist.

For example, the Indianapolis Public Schools (District) developed and adopted a Racial equity mindset, commitment and action policy detailing how the districts would move in a direction in which it:

“empowers and educates all students to think critically, creatively, and responsibly to embrace diversity and to pursue their dreams with purpose. The Board of School Commissioners (Board) is
committed to creating an IPS community where student outcomes cannot be predicted by race or ethnicity.“

Equity work should not only be on the shoulders of the school district. It should also include families. This is a first step in engaging families and communities in equity work. Washington Township created a parent/caregivers series to engage families in learning about equity and engaging in it with their children and in the community. Last, caregivers should feel it is their right to know the progress on any equity iniatives and the impact of those initatives on their children.

An easy way for parents to ensure they know what the district’s commitments and actions are is to read the school board documents which should be linked to the district’s website. Indianapolis Public Schools provides a list of items in their commitments and actions which is informative but possibly overwhelming for parents and families. Parents should choose one to follow if they find the information overwhelming.

For example, a commitment to action that IPS states is:

a. The District will strengthen and expand its racial equity work to eliminate opportunity gaps and build the capacity of team members to persistently identify, and address individual bias, as well as disrupt institutionally racist, structures, and policies within the District.

This sounds good, but what does this actually mean to parents? One way to advance action of parents fighting for equity is to provide district workshops for not only educators but also for parents. Those workshops should break down education jargon and terms into simple speech so parents can understand what is happening and the workshops should help them get involved and engaged in the school.

For district looking to engagement family more, they could try the following:

1. Include parent and student advocacy training in family engagement programs that specifically review policies connected to and impacting teaching and learning. 
2. Connect parents to civic engagement to efforts to change the funding formula so public schools can properly fund individualized learning for each student. 
3. Address the school to prison pipeline by a) acknowledging the systemic and racial bias in behavior, discipline, and attendance policies and b) creating alternative ways of correcting behavior outside of suspension and removal from class.