Students at one Cobb County high school would not be allowed to participate in sports and other extracurricular activities if their parents don't attend meetings with teachers and act more "engaged" in their children's academic work as part of a controversial proposal being considered by school leaders.
Cobb school board member David Morgan proposed the new policy and believes it will help boost academic achievement at Pebblebrook High School, a lower-performing school, though parents and education scholars argue it is unfair to poor and working families and punishes students for their parents' inactions.
If passed, the policy would be the first among metro Atlanta schools that keeps students from participating in extracurricular activities because of their parents' lack of involvement. DeKalb County has a similar policy with a small group of specialized "theme" schools which also requires parental engagement; however, students face possible dismissal from the schools if their parents don't abide by the rule.
“To me it’s nonsensical… to punish children for their parents’ actions or inactions,” said Rich Pellegrino, whose daughter is a senior at Pebblebrook. “Everybody wants parent engagement…but the reality in America is that we have a lot of single parent families, and a lot of them just don’t have the wherewithal to drop work and drop what they’re doing to come and adjust to schools’ schedules.”
Policies that punish students or their parents with fines or other punitive measures for not abiding by school rules, such as being truant or late to class, have popped up in other school districts across the country, though academic experts say such approaches rarely resolve the problems.
Under the Cobb proposal up for vote at Thursday’s board meeting, parent/teacher conferences would be mandatory as well as Road to Graduation meetings, where students and parents meet with counselors to talk about their post-high school career plans.
Meetings, which can be held with a parent or guardian, such as a grandparent, are allowed to be face-to-face, by telephone or online “as long as there is documentation of the meeting taking place and artifacts to corroborate what was communicated/discussed,” according to Morgan’s proposal.
Morgan cites the myriad of education studies which indicate students with more engaged and actively involved parents do better academically. Engagement can include a wide range of activities, from volunteering with the PTA and attending school meetings to tutoring students to helping children with homework.
“We as a district can’t idly sit by and look at the abysmal numbers and patterns, decade after decade, and say that we’re not going to have some level of accountability when it comes to making sure parents are engaged and involved in their child’s education,” Morgan said.
Initially, only 9th graders at Pebblebrook would be required to abide by the parent engagement policy starting in the fall, with other grades to follow, Morgan said.
Pebblebrook is currently the only school subject to the proposal, though other schools could also possibly be included in the future. Cobb school board members have questioned the fairness of the policy, yet Morgan doesn’t believe the policy is necessary for every school because not all have low parent engagement rates.
Morgan chose Pebblebrook, which is located in the area of South Cobb he represents, partly because the school could not produce records showing how many parents participated last spring in Road to Graduation meetings.
Eric Holmes, who had a daughter who attended Pebblebrook and also has children zoned to eventually attend the school, spoke in support of the proposal at a recent school board meeting.
“You’re showing the child how important academics is,” he said. “You’re not putting all the responsibility on the child. These school meetings are very important to attend.”
“He’s (Morgan) trying something. To do nothing is not right.”
Georgia Department of Education officials are not aware of any law or state board rule that would prevent a school system from putting in place such a policy affecting extracurriculars, which is considered a “privileged activity” and not part of the regular school day.
In DeKalb County, Pat Copeland, who oversees charters and other school choice initiatives for the schools, said the district has seven "theme" schools, which have more demanding academic standards and require parental engagement. One of the schools, for example, requires parents perform at least 16 hours of engagement activities per school year. If parents don't then their child is subject to dismissal.
“They want the parents not only there at the school to see what the child’s day-to-day activities are, but they also want them to understand just what the district is offering the students, to be well-informed of all the initiatives and academic requirements the student will be engaged in and held accountable for,” Copeland said.
Any parent can apply to attend the theme schools via a lottery, and the district considers them a success, Copeland said. A “small percentage” of students have been dismissed from these schools because their parents did not abide by the engagement requirement, she added.
Aurelio Montemayor, senior education specialist with education advocacy group Intercultural Development Research Association has conducted research into parent engagement. He says other school districts in the U.S. have tried similar punitive policies in an effort to stem truancy and other problems.
He said the policies often unfairly target poor and minority families and students. At Cobb’s Pebblebrook, students of color make up the majority of the school’s population; and nearly 70 percent of students qualify for free and reduced lunch, an indicator of poverty.
“It’s this punitive approach and it doesn’t work,” Montemayor said. “It doesn’t get more kids participating. It doesn’t make the parents participate. But you end up punishing the parents who are hanging on by their fingernails, the ones who are barely putting food on the table.”
“It ends up punishing the ones with the least resources. Schools need to be a lot more parent friendly and have events at times working families can connect or use other means. If you’re a working mom with three kids, it’s really hard for you to adjust your schedule.”
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