Parental misunderstanding in district politics

2–3 minutes

Parents misunderstand inner workings of the district, Students and Teachers affected

Staff Writer

Parents are as much a part of the FUSD community as students and faculty members. They continually make efforts to change district or school policy in their favor. Parent involvement can range from public comment at school board meetings, to pressuring school and district officials into decisions.

Mr. Howard, a teacher’s union (FUDTA) representative, outlined a possible issue with parental involvement, “It’s not uncommon for them to get involved, and not understand the systems that we have in place.” A lack of understanding in district policy may cause unnecessary delay in the passing of policy that may be beneficial to students and staff.

At a recent school board meeting, a public comment was made by an anonymous FUSD parent, “Dear FUDTA President and Office Bearers, FUSD has put up a proposal for Article 30. Please step up and renegotiate it.”

Article 30, according to the FUDTA website, has to do with fair public complaint procedures against teachers. Public comments like these only continue to extend the decision making process in realizing a fair solution for teachers.
Sriya Neti (12), the current chairperson for SURFBoardE (a student liaison group with the school board), commented on the power parents hold. “Parents and their comments can cause district policy to change.” Comments from groups like these can cause inefficiencies in improvement of student life. There is often a student bias that parents operate on when intervening.
“Instead of addressing the systemic problem of class size being too high, parents are instead focussing on the individual problem of, their kid didn’t get X class,” said Mr. Howard regarding how parent pressure can distract from larger issues. There is, however, a possible road to improvement.

“There are many people who are ill-informed,” Mr. Howard said, “and the solution to that is not necessarily less democracy but more education so people know how to utilize the levers of power.” Better education of parents may not only assist in making district policymaking more efficient, but may also help the student body.

“Parents are members of the FUSD community,” Neti said. “I can’t even imagine a situation where parents don’t have a voice.”