Quick, cheap fixes for school problems

Make school fees flexible

I spent $300 on back to school items suggested for my 6th grader, including a flash drive and calculator. My son was momentarily shocked, "Mom, how do poor people pay for all this?" Good question. I flashed back momentarily to my years living in Africa, where many children stay home from "free" public schools because they cannot afford the fees for textbooks and uniforms.

Meanwhile, a political action committee devoted to transparency and accountability in our county school system is pointing out the many lab and class fees required in our "free" high schools. The Parents Coalition is circulating a list that shows that the "course fee" for 9th grade English in our county varies from $3 at one school to $21 at another school. Why does freshman English come with a fee?

Why does the price vary? Why are students punished, told they cannot attend the prom or graduation ceremony, because of their inability to pay? And where does that money go? The Maryland state's Attorney General reiterated in August that "anything directly related to a school's curriculum must be available to all without charge."

MCPS interprets this as meaning that they can charge fees, but that anyone who has trouble paying a fee should speak up if they need to have the fee waived. In reality, parents know that we find speaking up about our inability to pay humiliating, and we know that parents sometimes keep a child home from a field trip rather than explain private financial circumstances to school personnel. Many parents are hoping that the Board of Education and the state of Maryland will stand up to MCPS and insist that a free public education should be free of fees.

But in the meantime, here is my Quick Partial Fix: have a standardized form for all fees (course fees, field trips, activities) that has three boxes--

1) Fee is enclosed.

2) I also enclose a donation of __ to cover students who cannot pay.

3) I cannot pay this fee at this time.

Many PTAs use this system and the donations and waivers seem to balance out nicely. Using this system, a parent in need does not have to explain their financial circumstances to anyone. And students are not penalized for their inability to pay.

Get broader parent input

The school system only has one parent feedback survey, it asks very general questions, and last year it was cut for budget reasons. Meanwhile, the only way to have "parent stakeholder input" on academic programming in a particular school is through the School Improvement Teams (SIT). But the SIT meetings can be very intimidating for parents. Often, two or three brave parents face the entire school leadership staff. The discourse is laden with eduspeak. And the goals are dictated by MCPS Rockville.

Quick Partial Fix: Every School Improvement Team should automatically include the full array of parent leadership, just as it includes the full array of staff leadership. The NAACP Parents' Council Representative, the Special Resources PTA liaison, the Gifted and Talented PTA liaison, the Spanish-speaking parents outreach liaison, and any other cultural or language-based group that is heavily represented in the school, should all be seated on the team as a matter of policy.

Teach vocabulary

Johnny can't spell, and his vocabulary is lousy. Encouragement for invented spelling, computer spell checking, the obsession with reading rather than writing instruction, the dearth of handwriting and keyboarding instruction--all have contributed to MCPS kids who still confuse "accept" and "except" in high school.

The exceptions are the kids who go to Centers for the Highly Gifted in 4th and 5th grades, or the Eastern Middle School Humanities Magnet program. Those lucky kids get weekly spelling and vocabulary work in fabulous programs such as Wordly Wise, or Classical Roots. Piney Branch Elementary has a schoolwide program called Word Study, but Takoma Park Middle School has none. Many parents have to hope we can afford to put them into SAT prep classes to cram vocabulary studies in high school.

Quick Partial Fix: All MCPS upper elementary and middle school students should have a differentiated yearlong vocabulary program just like the programs in Centers and Magnets. Those who are ready should learn to dissect words they don't know, based on Latin and Greek prefixes and suffixes.

Stretch their bodies

The federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation stimulated the expansion of the reading and math time blocks in elementary school, and the simultaneous shrinking of recess and physical education. This problem will not be resolved until NCLB is reformulated and readjusted to account for the realities of restless, growing bodies. Parents are desperate to improve the lives of kids who fidget through hours and hours of math and reading.

The PTA at Piney Branch Elementary School last year paid for yoga instruction for teachers, to bring "seated yoga" exercises to students. Perennial school board candidate Tommy Le has even proposed that school administrators lead students in calisthenics over the PA system, as they do in China. This is actually not a bad idea.

Partial Quick Fix: Until we get some semblance of mind/body balance back into the school day, we should institute system-wide classroom yoga or stretching for our students during a few minutes of the math block. Studies indicate it could even lead to an increase in test scores. It would certainly help to combat obesity, stress, and strain caused by heavy backpacks.