Parents Bring Resources to Resource Strapped Schools

Posted by on November 10, 2012

by Eden Kainer

Long gone are the days when parents needed to occasionally bring in bake sale cupcakes to school to help raise money for field trips or a school dance. Faced with enormous and repeated slashes to public school operating budgets over the past year and a half, when for example, a principal has to choose between lunchtime aides or an art teacher, parents are increasingly called upon to devise creative plans to help their schools teach their kids.

J.S. Jenks parents have been harnessing their skills, working collaboratively with teachers and principals and enlisting the support of outside community organizations to put together some of the enriching opportunities that the budget cuts have effectively removed from the schools…

I hope not only that people in higher education will see ways in which they can be part of these solutions but that parents will feel empowered to borrow from these ideas to inform their own efforts in bringing resources to their children’s schools.

As a public-school parent I have personally seen the very real effects of these budget cuts in a number of schools. At the school support level it means that not only does a principal in one school have to be the person to administer an EpiPen or give out medications, because the nurse is only in the building two days a week, down from five; in another, principals and staff have to do rotating lunchroom duty. In many schools counselors and other student support providers are reduced; a security officer cannot be paid overtime to stay past his regular day to provide support for after-school activities yet other schools no longer have a security officer at all. At the curricular level, many schools have lost their music and art programs, or have have to put these teachers on such a reduced schedule that they cannot build a meaningful program. This in conjunction with the curtailment of extra-curricular monies to pay teachers to run after-school programs for sports, music, art and STEM threaten to make schools buildings in which only math and reading is taught, reducing the variety of ways in which children can get engaged with school as well as explore different modalities of learning and expression.

Parent groups in Philadelphia are not currently allowed to raise money for salaries for teacher or support staff, e.g. lunchroom aides, security guards, nurses, which have taken frustratingly huge hits in the budget cuts. However, parents groups are allowed to raise money to support student enrichment through field trips, artists in residence, textbooks, school supplies for extra-curricular activities such as sports and music.

In Northwest Philadelphia, parents at J.S. Jenks Elementary, have focused their attention on replacing the visual arts experience for the students at their school after losing their full-time art teacher, after a previous year of having the art teacher on a very reduced schedule. Jenks, which has been developing an in-school enrichment program in art and music called JAM (Jenks Arts and Music Program) over the last three years, with an eye to eventually becoming an arts and magnet school, has had to meet the challenge of no longer having an art teacher at all although they have been able to ward off large cuts to their music program. Music teacher, Andrew Leland, has voluntarily picked up the additional role of arts community partnership coordinator. He has established a partnership with World Cafe Live so that middle school JAM music students will be able to go down three times this year  to meet professional musicians, including Philadelphia Orchestra musicians. He has also organized a free trip to the Barnes Foundation for the students.

In addition to reaching out to large arts organizations, Leland, with the help of parent Laura Eyring, has been able to mobilize Jenks parents who are involved with the arts and other community artists to provide a roster of art activities to the students during the school day. Most recently, they have been able to recruit David Green, a retired art teacher with the School District, to come in for three full days to work with the middle schoolers. Recently he began teaching perspective and graphic lettering with the 6th,7th and 8th graders. Some of the most recent activities with other artists include 3rd graders designing journals to keep in their classrooms as well as a sculpture project.

In addition to these volunteer efforts, Jenks parents realized that the school would need to create an organization that could raise significant funds in the long term without the limitations on fundraising imposed on all Home and School Associations, which are not allowed to carry large sums of money from one school year to the next. Thus Jenks parents created the Friends of Jenks  (FOJ) and applied for 501(c)3  status. President of FOJ Haviva Goldman, says that parents have designed the organization to be an extension of the Jenks Home and School Association, with the same goal of supporting Jenks students, but with the ability to raise long-term programmatic and eventually building improvement funding.  Also the organization would have a major focus on outreach to community and forming community partnerships, so again, parents do not have to bear the sole burden of raising money and resources.

FOJ’s immediate goals center around protecting the music and arts programs at Jenks, and to this end have hosted a silent auction, a Fun Run and an arts morning at Jenks for the community. More long term goals include aligning with supporting principal’s interested in expanding science opportunities for the upper grades, raising funds to build a school addition that would improve the library and media center as well as include indoor recreation space that would be available for after-school activities and community events.

There are a few key elements to the Jenks initiatives that make it more energizing than the usual magazine or candy sale which I have seen generate fewer profits in response to the poor economy at my own schools. Their program is admirable because they show a combination of good strategic planning with the school leadership to focus on a project that is collaboratively identified as an important need, building creative mutually beneficial partnerships with a range of community organizations and ultimately expressing a mission of bringing quality enrichment and learning to the greatest number of students possible.

The example of JS Jenks demonstrates that even in these austere times, there are ways to get enriched learning happening in the public schools. Parents need to make the case that this matters not only to the students but to the communities at large.  Building on collaborative alliances with a large variety of community organizations, parents,  principals, and teachers can respond to shrinking district and state support with solutions that helps kids learn more not less.

You can go to: http://jsjenks.org/ for more information about other Jenks initiatives.

This article part of a short series on parent-led partnership initiatives. Coming up in our next K-16 Newsletter:  Parents who develop another valuable resource for the schools: building parent representation and voice at the School District level.