When tasked with strengthening parent engagement at Cody High School, where does one begin?
On the first day partnering with Detroit Public Schools (DPS) for Challenge #2, the Challenge Detroit fellows were introduced to a widespread issue within DPS: low parent engagement. At first, I wasn’t intimidated; how could such a direct, focused issue be difficult to tackle? But, upon immersing myself into the depths of the issue, I found myself, instead, distressed.
On the first morning of the challenge, my fellow fellows and I heard from the various stakeholders in a speed-dating style activity. During this activity, we quickly began to realize the complexity of the issue, with its several players and their convoluted relationships. We spoke to devoted parents of students within DPS, Parent Advisory Council on Student Achievement (PACSA) presidents, current Cody High School teachers, DPS faculty, and students within Cody High School. All of which provided us with an array of perspectives. We had science teachers describe the baffling dimensions of teen pregnancy within Cody High School, devoted parents chastise the “laziness” of the absent parents, and PACSA presidents pull one of us aside to ask if we had a proper debrief on poverty. As illustrated by our interviews and interactions with these stakeholders, this was no easy issue indeed.
And yet, we did not (and would not) hear from a key component of this problem: the very parents who struggle with student engagement.
In the five-ish weeks we spent working on this project, I found that the issue of parent engagement is not a single issue, but it is — instead — a direct reflection of the interlaced problems of poverty and access (or lack thereof) to education and resources. We found that this perceived “laziness” of parents was not always an issue of apathy. Many of the Cody High School parents, for instance, struggled to even bring their students to school, as many lacked a mode of transportation. Thus, an estimated 90% of students resorted to the public transit. When asked what a “typical” struggle many of these families face, Principal King of the Cody-Detroit Institute of Technology simply said, “There isn’t one.” Each of these families have their own battles and none are comparable to the other.
I could continue to write about this subject, but I am afraid I would never fully encapsulate the gravity of this issue. All in all, I was reminded that what something appears to be may not always be what it is. As with the perceived impassivity of parents and family in DPS, it sometimes may just be the tip of the iceberg.