Guest Blog: Re-Center the Children
I am an RPS parent, and an obsessive “Board Watcher.” I believe deeply in the power and importance of public education, and critically assessing those who lead it. I believe our elected School Board receives its authority from the people on Election Day, but their legitimacy as community representatives must be earned with each and every governing decisions they make, every day of their 4-year term.
This perspective is validated by the expertise of the Council of Great City Schools, who serve as nation-wide mentors to school districts just like ours:
“..school board members often view the school board as being one layer above management. But that is a flawed understanding of governance; in reality the proper alignment of the school board is one layer below community.”
I also hold as a core value in my personal life that you “cannot get what you do not ask for.” And that asking for what you need is only as effective as how you ask for it.
With both of those things in mind - I offer the following public comment ahead of what appears to be a very consequential emergency meeting:
Honorable members of the Richmond School Board,
I share your sense of urgency to address the district’s SOL scores. These scores highlight the crisis we are in as a school community, a state, and a country. Our public schools were vulnerable long before this pandemic - our district weak from insufficient funding and our students disadvantaged by a national and state emphasis on testing that stifles, bores, frustrates, and consumes educators and students. Politicians reward or punish schools for the results of these tests, boiling a complicated picture of societal inequities, school culture, and political context down to: students, smart (or not); educators, qualified (or not.)
I beg you tonight, do not fall into this trap of oversimplification. Rushing to blame personnel, or curriculum, or calendars, leaves no room for grace, and no room for nuance. Your students, your staff, are whole complex beings. Your next steps must stem from a holistic perspective, and must put their needs first.
To the GOP talking points dominating the media: Students are whole people, not test takers. That’s why schools around the world offered virtual instruction in response to a historic pandemic. Adding fractions matters, but not more than the lives of loved ones. We didn’t expect impromptu virtual learning to yield the same results as in person instruction - we expected it could ensure another 10 years with grandma and that mattered too.
To the Mayor: We didn’t adopt a year round calendar because it was unpopular. I believe there’s good research to suggest it’s effective, but those impacts would be undermined by an exodus of educators. In a sense, it doesn’t even matter whether their protests were justified - they weren’t on board and the district would not have offered better quality education by inflating class sizes and relying even more on temporary instructors.
To the Board: The data underscores, but didn’t introduce the fact, that the focus of this governance team is misplaced. If the review from the Council of Great City Schools didn’t tip you off, increasing community action should have.
I’m grateful for the recent work of Virginia Organizing and LULAC - as well as whistleblowers from the districts LIEP program - for their fierce advocacy for our English Learning students. But we should all be troubled that the board’s slow, hostile brand of leadership has left a void in student-centered policy that is SO BIG that community groups have had to do the policy creation for you. I see these efforts as a community’s deep love for protecting childrens’ futures, AND a deep mistrust in the elected board’s focus, intentions, and skill to be responsible stewards of necessary change for the district.
This mis-focus is evident throughout the academic year in question:
You knew the Family Liaisons were critical to retrieving the districts chronically absent students - a well documented barrier to overcoming pandemic learning loss. Yet you held steadfast in your demand for senseless budget cuts that decimated this staff.
You knew the district had no staff or budget to create their own “Schools Build Schools” construction department. But you instructed the superintendent to reassign resources from previously-approved academic priorities anyway. Then spent 10 months stubbornly engaging in a battle of “alternative (census) facts” with the city while your existing facilities team needed support, and aged fire alarms were time bombs silently ticking away in schools across the district.
You knew students were suffering from a parallel pandemic of mental health, acting out in classrooms and driving their teachers to the hallways to cry and despair. You refused to hire leadership to address this crisis of school culture, then brazenly blamed the 25% teacher attrition on admin retaliation.
You took to local media to demand significant personnel changes in the wake of these SOL scores - fueling rumors of ousting the superintendent and scaremongering caregivers who - tonight - are bracing for the impacts of regime change. Your comments “sucked all the air out of the room” - and took focus away from the real victims: students. You missed an opportunity to tell them and their parents “look at the data by student-demographic subgroup - we outperformed the state in math! And in reading, many sub groups met or beat the state average.” You could have eased fears, reassured everyone of the skill, effectiveness of, and appreciation for our educators. Instead, you stoked the kind of panic and chaos that will attract the state takeover of RPS.
Some of you will meet this moment with humility, and recommit yourselves to focusing on students; to building your governance skills and overcoming biases. If you are unprepared or unwilling to do so, you should resign.
