By Anonymous
Filed Thursday, February 23 at 10:49 PM
by Peter Downs
February 22, 2006 -- Superintendent Creg Williams' announcement at the St. Louis school board meeting on February 14 of a "strategic plan" for city public schools obscured another important act at the meeting: parent involvement.
Six parents of children at Wilkinson Early Childhood Center put a hold on Valentine's Day activities to express their concerns about bus transportation and plans to stretch out the school day.
Pamela Davis presented a statement from Wilkinson's Parent Teacher Organization on transportation (see the entire statement at www.stlschools.org). After complimenting the drivers, Davis read several proposals for improving the management of the bus system to fix such ongoing problems that threaten children's safety.
The Wilkinson PTO recommended sending bus schedules out to parents a month before the start of school instead of just days before classes start; conduct dry runs with substitute drivers as well as regular drivers before they start their routes; make sure substitute drivers as well as regular drivers have accurate manifests before they start their runs so they aren't forgetting children or looking to get manifests from principals; stick to schedules so children are not stranded at bus stops; hire and train more courteous dispatchers to answer parents' questions and prod Laidlaw into action.
"The ultimate customers are our precious little children. And since they are essentially powerless in these situations, we as parents are their only voice. Our priority, like yours, unequivocally, is the safety and security of our cherished cargo," Davis read from the PTO statement.
"Parents are outraged that they currently wait on hold for upwards of 30 minutes when their child has not been picked up or dropped off. In fact, one parent who made a connection during an evening of the first week of school was furious when told most customer service staff were on vacation. . . .
"Additional staff during peek hours allows for the opening of more phone lines to report missed or lost children and other issues associated with inclement weather."
Deanna Anderson, head of transportation for St. Louis Public Schools, chased the parents down as they left the meeting and asked to meet with them later to discuss their concerns.
As a result, Wilkinson's next PTO has become a citywide event, and has been moved to Mullanphy School. The meeting will be on Wednesday, March 1, at 6 p.m. Anderson, Laidlaw personnel, Director of Recruitment and Counseling Louis Kruger, and Superintendent Williams are scheduled to attend, as are school board members Bill Purdy and Veronica O'Brien. Reporters also have been invited. The meeting is open to all parents in St. Louis Public Schools. Child care will be provided for free.
Katie Wessling, one of the six Valentine's Day parents, said: "We have gotten their attention now and we need to show that more than just six parents care about these issues. We want to pack that auditorium with parents."
It was Wessling who read the parents' statement against a longer school day to the school board. "Many parents from a number of schools are concerned with the extension of the elementary school day," she said. "We have concerns about how this decision would affect student academics, quality of life and safety. We have come here tonight to share our concerns and the concerns of the parents who signed the provided petitions." (Read the full statement at www.stlschools.org)
Wessling pointed out that the school day in St. Louis Public Schools is already longer than in St. Louis County school districts, and longer than the day recommended by the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
The longer day, she said, creates a "pressure cooker" at home that makes is harder to get home work done. "We believe homework would be completed more efficiently if students had more time in the evening hours and the evening wasn’t a pressure cooker of: get home, eat dinner, do homework, take a bath, go to bed," she said.
"We feel that there should be a fair balance between school life and home for our children," she added. A longer day will interfere with the health care regimen for children with chronic diseases such as diabetes, she said, and it will isolate children from the community.
"We have one of the top public libraries in the nation here in St. Louis, and our children cannot participate in the after school programs offered by the library because they get out of school too late. These programs begin at 3:30. [Children at magnet schools get out at 4:08] The activities of our public library should not be accessible only by children who attend private school. Go to one of these programs sometime and note how many Catholic school uniforms you see, and then try to find a child from a public school. The activities of the South City Art Studio in Tower Grove Park start at 4—we can’t do those either. Those are just two examples. We encourage our children to be involved in our community, but many of us can’t find time.
"Adding minutes to the end of our school day will result in the loss of what is already precious little time for children and their families to spend together. We are not talking about time for homework, dinner, baths and bedtime routines, but rather "down time" where kids and their parents and siblings can play a game, read a book, or simply have a conversation together after work and school are done. Fifteen minutes of this time were already taken from us this year; the proposed plan to take more time over the next two years makes a big difference in our family life. It is important to us as parents, and it should be a high priority for this Board, that we get as much time with our children as we can, given our over scheduled and busy lives. . .
"Another concern we have is the amount of time in these long school days our children spend sitting. Then there’s more sitting time on the bus. We have a rapidly increasing childhood obesity rate in this country. With that comes higher rates of juvenile diabetes, heart problems, and compromised health. Our children should be out playing after school while it is still daylight, not spending more and more time sitting. Dr. Williams saw a problem with the nutrition our children get at school, but the other half of the equation is the physical exercise they need. Some schools are squeezing out recess altogether in an attempt to cram in more and more instructional time. Children who have time to run and play and be healthy will be better learners, and probably will learn in less time than if they are sluggish from lack of activity. . .
". . . in addition to the need for family and childhood time, in addition to the fact that these children will be too tired by 4:30 in the afternoon to be absorbing useful information, the idea that our small children will be coming home in the dark makes the plan to add more minutes to the school day completely unacceptable to us as parents."
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