Parents, Privilege & Public Schools

I’m a white middle class parent and my kid attends a rapidly gentrifying public school in Oakland, California. This particular school has a powerful vision to foster an environment for native Spanish and native English speaking students to grow and learn in a culture of mutual respect. The school has a reputation for strong parent involvement and social justice curriculum.

Like some of the other kindergarten and pre-K parents, my kid went to a small private preschool, and, while I strongly believe in the vision of our current school, I was accustomed to more information about my child’s day, and more regular access to the teachers than I experienced when we started kindergarten. It was a hard, nerve-wracking shift to drop my kid off at a large institutional setting for the first time. I had many feelings, concerns and questions those first months and I know I wasn’t alone in this. I heard other parents voice concerns about lack of recess time, not enough green space, not enough healthy food in the cafeteria, not enough communication from the teachers. I share these concerns, and I think these things impact all kids.

I also know that some members of the school community (my child’s peers, school staff and their families) are dealing with issues like skyrocketing rents and lack of affordable housing, lack of stable employment, wages that don’t match the cost of living, long commutes, neighborhood violence, displacement of kinship networks, and even more stressful situations dealing with incarceration and the threat of deportation. Like many language immersion schools, ours was founded on a legacy of social justice and Ethnic Studies, which focused on students of color and immigrant families in Oakland. How do we honor and continue to build that legacy as the school demographics change? How do we make sure that white and/or privileged families are not marginalizing the families who built the school and for whom the school was built?

Everyone wants the best for their kid, and it can be hard to zoom out and think about how our desires affect other students, or the school as a whole. Learning to think collectively is not only what’s best for our child and family, but it is also what our rapidly changing community needs. For privileged parents, it can be especially hard to see the ways that our understanding of and approach to addressing challenges at school is shaped by our experiences of privilege in the world. We can show up to our new school community with race and/or class entitlement that can alienate teachers, other parents, and school staff. We may replicate some of the underlying structural inequities that created the things we find challenging about the school in the first place.

A 2016 article in the Atlantic talks about this issue: “advantaged parents, many of them members of parent organizations, wield great influence on school policy. They often push for programs that would benefit their own children and not necessarily the kids of less means. When these parents don’t get what they want, they often make calls to someone higher up than the principal, such as the superintendent, to flex their muscle — something lower-income parents rarely do.” Another study found that “as they worked to make their local public school “great,” advantaged parents performed the role of careful investors, defined themselves as the source of the school’s potential value, and marginalized low-income families and families of color.”

So, my fellow parents with race and/or class privilege, how can we flex our muscles for the greater good? How can we approach our mixed class and multiracial school community in a way that is humble, curious, and where we build relationships to better understand and advocate for the needs and priorities of other families, especially those who might not share our backgrounds? How do we see and support the resources others are bringing? How do we work to improve outcomes for all students — but particularly students and families of color, immigrant families, and families with less access to financial resources? Below are some concrete suggestions from parents, teachers, and educators.

Tips from parents & teachers:

• Listen to teachers, and rather than offer a solution or try to fix anything, do what they are asking you to do.
• Do not take every issue you have to the Principal, she is juggling the needs of hundreds of students. Talk with the teacher directly, the PTSA, or room parent first to see if your issue can be handled locally.
• Don’t assume your way of parenting / relating to the school / packing lunch is the only or “right” way.
• Avoid (and respectfully challenge) gossip or badmouthing targeted toward a specific teacher, which spreads misinformation, and it undermines the school community.

Tips for bilingual/immersion schools:

• If you are speaking Spanish to your child’s native Spanish speaking teacher and she responds in English, continue the conversation in English — teachers are not here for you to practice your Spanish.
• If you are not a native Spanish speaker do not correct your child’s native speaking teacher. (You’d be surprised how often this actually happens!)
• Acquiring Spanish as a second language is a privilege. Acquiring English as a second language is mandated, and at times can be traumatic. We often lump/generalize the difficulty of being a language learner without acknowledging that there is a vast difference historically and politically in acquiring Spanish vs English. For many of our teachers, growing up bilingual was complex in their identity formation (shame, learning, unlearning, hiding, embarrassment), and there is something particularly painful about interactions with white monolingual families who don’t understand this context.

Questions to ask yourself:

• Am I aware of the history of teachers or other parents organizing around various issues to improve the school — especially previous initiatives led by families of color, immigrant families, and working class families?
• How can I help increase access, involvement, leadership, and opportunities for other families, particularly families of color and families with less financial resources?
• Am I asking for more time and attention from the teacher than other families? Do I see or treat the teacher and school staff as my employee?
• Do I know the names of the janitor, the admin front desk staff, and not just the teacher, principal and vice principal?
• Have I made an effort to get to know other children and families, especially families who are different from my own?
• Do I regularly communicate with the teacher / school staff about what’s going well (or do I only communicate when things go wrong)?
• Have I asked about what resources the school needs that will benefit the whole school community?
• Have I given time, energy and money to projects that I didn’t think of myself? Am I thinking about how my privilege might be playing into my experiences of the school and my priorities?
• Am I supporting the leadership and initiative of teachers, school staff, or families that have less access to financial resources?
• Am I asking what projects my teachers want help with, or am I just bringing ideas of my own?
• Am I zooming out to see what might be structural fixes for some of the issues at my child’s school? Am I asking my child’s teacher to fix problems that are well beyond their control?
• Am I communicating my values to my child in a way that makes them judge and condescend to other students and families, or am I teaching them in a way that helps him connect to kids who are not like them? (An example around food — if you’ve taught your child that non-organic / prepackaged food / fast food is “junk food,” how do you think your child is going to interact with students whose lunches contain these items?)
• What are my interactions at school teaching my child and other children?

Questions for bilingual/immersion schools:

• Why do I want my child to be bilingual? How is this contributing to my child’s privilege/entitlement?
• What is the difference in acquiring Spanish as a second language and English as a second language in the U.S.?
• How does language impact or perpetuate the power dynamics among children, parents and teachers?
• If I see learning Spanish as an asset, do I see Spanish-speaking teachers and peers as “resources” who benefit my child?

Suggestions about how to contribute to the greater good:

• Get involved in grassroots organizations working to expand funding for public schools, increase tenant protections, broaden access to public transportation that serves working-class neighborhoods, expand access to healthy foods, challenge police violence, challenge school closures & charter expansion, etc.
• Make it clear that every parent gathering will have child care, translation and food and help to provide these resources
• Offer to translate documents / recruit translators so all meetings and other parent communication are multilingual
• If you participate in fundraising, make sure it benefits the whole school, not just your kid’s classroom
• Organize food donations for back to school night, Spanish-speaking parents night, parents of the African Diaspora night, etc.
• Organize regular food and coffee donations for the teachers lounge / after-school programs
• Help with outreach to prospective parents in working class and/or Black and/or Spanish-speaking neighborhoods and community organizations
• Help bring a weekly farmers market to the school
• Tutor kids in whatever classroom needs it, not just your own child’s room
• Offer to volunteer for middle school classrooms, trips or activities! Parent support is usually concentrated at the elementary level.
• Help organize Know Your Rights Trainings around Immigrant Rights, tenant rights, etc
• Help organize Spanish-language donations, donations of Black history/cultural books, or other resources explicitly about communities of color to the school library
• Volunteer to do admin / office work as needed by the front desk staff
• Donate to the childcare at meetings even if your kids aren’t using it
• Thank other parents for their contributions.
• To understand how the school spends its budget, go to a School Site Council meeting.
• To help with activities outside of school time for students, parents and families, get involved with the PTSA.
• Talk about race & class privilege with others.
• Say hi to people you don’t know at school. Community building makes a big difference and it can start very small!

Suggestions for bilingual/immersion schools:

• If Spanish is the school’s primary language, make Spanish the primary language for posters and handouts. (Do not rely solely on google translate, make an effort to have proper translation.)
• Ensure and promote space for monolingual Spanish speakers during classroom presentations (Back to School night, parent meetings and school functions)

Additional Resources:

• How Marginalized Families Are Pushed Out of PTAs — article in the Atlantic
• When Middle-Class Parents Choose Urban Schools: Class, Race, and the Challenge of Equity in Public Education — — excellent book by professor Linn Posey-Maddox
• White Liberal Racism — article about an elementary school in Seattle
• “A Great School Benefits Us All” Advantaged Parents and the Gentrification of an Urban Public School — — book by Alexandra Freidus
• The Longest Shortest Time Podcast: Episode 135 White Guilt and Other Crazy Sh*t
• 11 min video: Education of a White Parent
• For Latino Parents, Bilingual Classrooms Aren’t Just About Language
• Bilingual education can be an asset for white students but a deficit for immigrants — PBS article on how the laws around bilingual education are biased towards English speakers
• Two Moms Choose Between Separate and Unequal Schools in Oakland
• Overview of gentrification in Oakland schools
• 30+ resources to learn about more about race and racism
• Ethnic Studies provides vital context for students
• San Francisco School District’s Ethnic Studies Program

Huge thanks to Kimi Lee & Suzanne Schmidt who helped write this piece, and to the many other teachers and parents who gave critical input.