Education is a Civil Right
The Plan: Action Items and Recommendations
Focus Area 4
Provide support for parents and families of underachieving African-American students.
- Establish a dedicated "Parent Support/Education Program" at school sites utilizing the volunteer assistance of parents of "successful students" as peer supporters of other parents whose children are less successful.
- Provide parenting workshops to assist families in preparing children for elementary school and for sustaining success through high school.
- Encourage and recruit churches, community organizations, and other agencies to collaborate with schools to identify parents/families in need of assistance and offer needed resources including counseling, monitoring, and community support for the parents. These groups/organizations should be available when students are performing in less than satisfactory ways to intervene with the family members of the student and provide assistance to remedy the situation.
- Legislation and other legal interventions are needed to require parental response to schools when students are demonstrating unsuccessful behaviors. The absence of required parental participation, by ignoring school outreach efforts, significantly restricts the schools' ability to provide assistance or to successfully engage in prevention activities.
- Adequate counseling services for the community, during evening hours, should be available to provide family support for those in need of assistance.
- Generate financial support, through contracts and grants, to support a parent/family outreach effort.
- A dedicated "Family Center" or "Parent Room" should be established on every campus and staffed by carefully screened and selected local parent/community members as employees, who are responsible for generating all school-site parent support activities, including regular visitations to schools during the instructional day to observe their children and provide a visible presence on campus.
- Develop an independent "Black Parent Union" with training on school structures and procedures, functions of advisory committees, school site governance, etc.
- Develop an assessment instrument to enable parents and community members to objectively determine school effectiveness.
- Develop communication and mobilization systems utilizing phone trees, e-mails, and other devices.
- Statewide legislation should be established to expand California Assembly Bill 3782 (AB 3782), which permits parental release time from employment to visit schools during the school day. Current legislation encourages parental visits and suggests the use of vacation or other earned compensatory time; however legislation is needed to require employers to release employees to support schools through personal visits in the same manner that employees are required to serve jury duty and/or respond to court subpoenas.
- Provide education and support for enhancing nutrition in African-American families.
Focus Area 1 | Focus Area 2 | Focus Area 3 | Focus Area 4
