The goal of the Parent Empowerment Program is to embolden parents of color in marginalized school communities, often in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods, to unearth their power to have their voice heard regarding the education of their children, the operation of their school and education policy in the District. Children experience the problems and the parents know the solutions. Organized parents are a critical force for education equity.
“I knew there was a difference between the schools East of the River – I just didn’t understand why.” Stated parent, Amira Moore, co-president of Friends of Ketcham Elementary School (FoKES). “When we decided to send our son to Ketcham, I knew that I wanted to be involved and engaged with my child’s learning experience.” Upon meeting the dedicated and valiant administration at Ketcham, which is located in the Historic Anacostia, she knew her family had made the right decision by sending their son to their neighborhood school.
Amira’s daughter had previously attended a school West of the River, and the contrast between that school and Ketcham was explicitly obvious. Her daughter’s school had an excessive amount of technology, countless field trips and exceptional programming. Amira soon discovered that this was a result of parents who leveraged their resources to enhance the learning experience for each child.
“Parents know what they want for their child. I want my son to learn about the cosmos, how to plant vegetables, to be curious about the world. The demands of reaching certain test-scores don’t seem to be soaked in building knowledge but rather steeped into a philosophy that nothing else matters but high scores in reading and math. Parent voice, engagement, and investment break up the monotony and enforces equity, resources and opportunities for children to thrive.”
Parents at Ketcham are tenaciously engaged; however, the lack of parent investment was a direct result of the racial wealth gap produced by the decades of historic neglect in that community. Title 1 schools filled with Black and Brown children struggle with the stigmatization that describes parents as uncaring and neglectful, when a more accurate description is that families have experienced remarkable discrimination and feel their communities have been left behind. Parents that have resources tend to endure long and grueling commutes to send their children to schools outside of Anacostia for this reason.
Ms. Moore, and a few other parents, became outliers. Ms. Moore stated, “PEP provided a blueprint… Up until that point, I didn’t realize we needed to be an incorporated organization, that bylaws are the law of your organization. In building this structure, this functional apparatus, the dots started to connect – fast.” Understanding policy and advocacy and the direct impacts it has on a school community started to resonate with parents. Systemic injustices started to come front and center, so much so, that other hands were needed to help navigate these challenges.
“I got involved in FoKES because of all this talk about the racial wealth gap and segregated housing and how those factors effect public education. I suppose I never made the connections. And now I get it! I get why this is important.” – TaNeesha Johnson, community member and a ‘friend’ of FoKES.
Friends of Ketcham Elementary School is a community-based parent organization. Meaning, community members, staff and parents partner together to increase academic enrichment opportunities for students. Parent power coupled with community support, investment and engagement not only emboldens parents, but it also provides freedom for children to have agency and a fierce directional compass to a professional path that the government cannot dictate. In one year, FoKES has raised over twenty thousand dollars to implement inquiry-based learning, field trips and academic events and activities for families. They have also campaigned for stronger and expansive professional development for teachers in Ward 7 and 8 schools. FoKES partnered with a security company to install $25,000 of equipment to ensure students and teachers come to a safe school every single day. Parents are now following politics and developers building in Anacostia and forcefully creating a strong voice for fairness, justice and equity for students in the process. FoKES plans to testify about the importance of early testing for dyslexia and other reading disabilities in front of DC Council Education hearings.
The term “empowerment” is the Washington Lawyers’ Committee pull towards justice. We do not give power to these parents, but support them to exercise the power that they already have. It is activating a city of people to be agents of equality and freedom. It is everyone’s civil right to break down the barriers to opportunity and fight for racial equity. “We can do more than we think. There’s a path to equity, we just have to step into it, and be willing to be the needle to push equality and justice for our people.” – Amira Moore.