At the press conference where Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio announced the appointment of Carmen Fariña as New York City’s new schools chancellor, she said, “Joy has really been missing the last few years.”
Joy. Not a word you often hear in discussions of New York City public schools.
It was a joyful moment for those who had been feeling that an educator should be leading the school system, not a business person or a lawyer. A former teacher, principal, superintendent and deputy chancellor, Fariña is the first NYC schools chancellor in nearly 20 years who did not require a waiver from the state education department to assume the position.
Recently, Fariña shared her goals and philosophies with school administrators.
In a letter to principals her first week as chancellor, Fariña wrote, “In the coming months, the focus of the Department of Education will shift significantly.... We will move aggressively to increase parents’ involvement in their children’s education, and change the way we make decisions so that all of our stakeholders feel included in the process.”
And in her new monthly newsletter for principals, in a section called Parent Engagement, it says that parents are “our most valuable resources, but too often they feel left out.”
This statement would be puzzling to Downtown parents, who are invited and urged to come to school on a regular basis.
In one week alone, I attended a parent workshop on “Collaborative Problem Solving”; a School Leadership Team meeting; and a meeting of the PTA auction planning committee. All were models for parent involvement—collaborative, informative and productive.
School Leadership Teams—a mix of staff and parents including the principal—are required in every school, and in her newsletter, Fariña refers specifically to them: “Let’s make sure parents feel welcome, and please be sure to include them in meaningful School Leadership Team decision-making.”
SLT meet once a month to discuss school issues. In the fall, our team surveyed families to find out what kind of parent workshops they were interested in and relayed this information to school administrators, who planned the workshops accordingly.
Other parents make a weekly commitment to the school library or hang student artwork around the building. Parents were in second grade classrooms recently helping kids make dioramas of folk tales for a unit on storytelling. Members of the PTA Green Team man the lunchroom recycling center every day during three lunch periods.
I feel safe in saying that there is never a time during the school day when there are no parents in the building.
Why then is Chancellor Fariña focusing on parent involvement? Because in many schools in this big, diverse city, parents are rarely around.
The reasons for that are as varied as our school populations. Because some children take long bus rides to schools that are far from home. Because parents can’t get time off from work, or they work nights and sleep during the day. Because they don’t speak English well enough to feel comfortable in school. Because their memories of their own school experience drive them away.
Parent coordinators at schools with low parent engagement have a very different job from mine. They arrange ESL classes for parents and run workshops explaining why parent–teacher conferences are important and how to get the most out of them. They offer meals, gift certificates, door prizes or MetroCards to parents who participate.
Downtown parents want to know if the curriculum at their children’s school is aligned with the common core standards and whether they will be prepared for the state tests in the spring. At workshops designed to explain how literacy and math are taught, they often ask cogent questions and come away with a better understanding.
Chancellor Fariña, who once wrote, “The marginalization I felt because of my teacher’s inability or unwillingness to pronounce my foreign last name has remained with me,” is poised to reach out to those families who are at the fringe of the city’s school communities. Let’s hope she is successful.
Connie Schraft is P.S. 89’s parent coordinator. For questions and comments, write to her at connie@tribecatrib.com.