Engaging Families & Building Trust
Part 2 of PRESS NYC’s Response to the Chancellor’s Vision for NYC Public Schools
“And often what happens is the process itself determines the outcome. So if we go through a different kind of process then a different kind of outcome can result. And so…with the listening sessions…even if people feel listened to, then the person in power goes back to their office, closes their door and … make a decision. And then if they’re really quote unquote responsive, they’ll go back and tell people what they decided, but it really consolidates the power actually, in the formal decision maker. And so what would it look like instead to build the agency of all of those people to come up with a solution together and to, to try to implement those things?”
-Professor Ann M. Ishimaru, Integrated Schools Podcast S5E22: Family Engagement & Equity
During a recent hearing in Albany about mayoral control, legislators seemed thrilled when Chancellor Banks promised to share his cell number with each of them. He seems very personable. Overall, it has felt like, if you were able to chat with him, he’d make you feel heard during that interaction. Good listening is a good thing, but it is only one part of truly engaging with a person. And when it comes to policy, it can actually do damage to over-promise with individual active listening and under-deliver system-wide with tepid engagement and unresponsive policies.
At Banks’s first PEP meeting, many parents expressed that they wanted the mask mandate to continue and we (PRESS NYC) “delivered” (via zoom chat) a well-researched open letter addressed to Chancellor Banks, Mayor Adams and others detailing what would be needed to keep students safe in the face of future waves and when cases are lower, including universal masking. But oddly, when this topic was raised with him a few weeks later by two PRESS NYC parent leaders, he was surprised, saying he hadn’t been hearing this message from parents. Confusing.
During that February 16 PEP meeting, Banks bemoaned the lengthy participant testimonies, suggesting that there had to be a better format. Though several students and a multitude of parents and educators shared concerns, Banks responded to only a handful, ignoring equity and public health — themes that came up over and over.
During a March Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council (CPAC) meeting, he was surprised to learn that it was being streamed live on YouTube, suggesting that in the future these discussions should happen behind closed-doors . To date, Banks has not met with CEC presidents as a body, breaking a precedent set by previous administrations. It seems the DOE and the chancellor are interested in ‘Parent Engagement’ in narrow and stringent terms that only they define. The proof is in the meetings.
There needs to be a very clear way for any parent or guardian to share their thoughts and experiences with the DOE, and a clear way they are shown that their input mattered — even if the response is, “We heard from parents that they wanted x, but we did y because this system is focused on equity and here’s how this policy will help us achieve it.” We want the DOE to be guided by principles, to offer opportunities for real exchange and dialogue. We are very tired of the models for “engagement” that preceded this administration, which were convenient for the department without being responsive to families. Parents and caregivers were managed; we experienced a lot of theater, a lot of performative box checking, and it eroded trust.
We also know that decisions about what happens in our schools often come from the mayor’s office. So we need to be engaged by the actual decision makers ready with a mechanism to integrate on-the-ground experiences of the most disenfranchised in the policy making process, depending on the issues. They must acknowledge, as we do, that marginalized voices deserve centering as opposed to marginal voices. Given our schools’ demographics, any policy that does not uplift Black and brown and/or socio-economically disadvantaged students and parents is fundamentally flawed.
Though some caregivers are educators by trade, most of us are not. So if we feel threatened by a change, say from Regents exams to performance assessments, the DOE needs to support us in understanding the benefits of such a change. Our input will be more useful if we have more information and insight with which to engage. Parents shouldn’t have to be policy investigators and analysts in their spare time to participate in discussions regarding their students’ education. A true parent-DOE partnership would recognize that imbalance and provide everyone equitable resources to fully and intentionally participate.
Empowering the parent bodies that do exist is its own topic, but we will say that truly engaging with the resolutions CECs send to the DOE, would make a difference. Historically, we’ve joked that these go into the circular file, but that’s a travesty and a telling symbol of why mayoral control does not serve communities or stakeholders. What if the chancellor held a meeting where he responded to resolutions, shared his thoughts, asked other DOE staff to offer ideas — essentially used these important messages from parent leaders to have a dialogue? At the very least, the Chancellor should share his responses to these official statements during his report at the PEP, especially resolutions passed collaboratively by multiple CECs.
There are so many ways that we expect teachers to work with students that we do not carry into other aspects of the system, and that means the system isn’t fulfilling its potential. An audit of the system would tell us that parents are not being met where we are.
Parents of multilingual learners are barely “informed,” are certainly not “engaged,” and are definitely not empowered. Parents of students with disabilities are inundated with inefficient services, dehumanizing bureaucracy, and the constant need to fight for their students’ basic rights. Students in temporary housing and their families are particularly vulnerable and often silenced and hidden away, with “privacy issues” cited as a reason to do so. A safe and nurturing environment for learning for students in temporary housing is anything but the norm.
If the system can get it right with these parents, then other families will be well served as well. Put these families at the center of what you do, hear from them, dialogue with them in culturally responsive ways. This would be courageous and transformative leadership, and we are here for it.
This is part of an ongoing series offering PRESS NYC’s responses to Chancellor Banks’s March 2 remarks outlining his vision for transformation and building trust in NYC Public Schools. See Part 1 here.
