Back To School: Don’t Expect Black Parents To Rush Right In

By Gwen Samuel

Yep, it’s that time of year again for diverse families across the country where parents are sending their most precious cargo (children) into the hands of educators, with the hopes that they will treat them as their own. But it does not escape this Black mom that this will not be a business-as-usual moment in time — and it should not be! We are sending our kids back-to-school in a pandemic landscape where it feels like everyone, most of whom have never had a child in an unsafe and failing school, has an opinion on literally everything from masks to curriculum to remote learning and schooling choice. Parents do not need various opinions; we need facts, and we want to know how to ensure our children get back on track academically after massive learning loss due to massive school closures!

If you are a parent or guardian, it is darn near impossible to get a word in edgewise with education decision-makers because they are the so-called experts of “other people’s children.”

If you listen carefully — which requires a great deal of patience and empathy — there is notable weariness in the voices of Black parents because they are once again being asked to blindly trust in a system that has historically failed Black kids.

Parents are being asked to “go along to get along” by accepting business as usual K-12 decisions even though the pandemic has shown them that other schooling options may better suit their child’s academic needs during this unprecedented time.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Education issued this press release:

Today, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) released the “Return to School Roadmap,” a resource to support students, schools, educators, and communities as they prepare to return to safe, healthy in-person learning this fall and emerge from the pandemic stronger than before. The Roadmap provides key resources and supports for students, parents, educators, and school communities to build excitement around returning to classrooms this school year and outlines how federal funding can support the safe and sustained return to in-person learning. Over the course of the next several weeks as schools reopen nationwide, the Roadmap will lay out actionable strategies to implement the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) updated guidance for K-12 schools, so that schools can minimize transmission and sustain in-person learning all schoolyear long.

There is an assumption here that Black families want to go back to the pre-pandemic traditional classroom — a place that has historically not delivered high-quality results for many of our students — in the first place.

We are both weary and wary as Black parents because we were ineffectively served during hybrid learning last year school year, and summer learning was a bust for many of the most marginalized students in America due to the status quo rolling out pre-pandemic education solutions to a very pandemic education landscape.

Don’t believe me? Check out the latest research from EdChoice, which has been oversampling Black parents for the past few months as part of their broader polling work to find out what parents and the general public think about K-12 education in America:

Only one-third of Black parents want to send their kids back to the classroom five days a week. Nearly one in five want to homeschool their children full-time. Those are some powerful numbers!

EdChoice also asked parents what resources they would find most helpful in the upcoming school year. There were notable differences between what Black parents and what other parents are looking for:

Now, this data does not get into why parents feel the way they do, but I’ve got a few thoughts on the matter based on a listening tour event I attended in Georgia on the same day the U.S. Department of Education issued its back-to-school roadmap.

When I landed in Atlanta, this Black mom and grandma was mentally preparing myself to catch up on Black history by visiting some historical civil rights museums and landmarks. I was hoping to draw on the wisdom of my Black ancestors as Black parent leaders and education activists across our nation position themselves for a next-level fight as our kids go back to school. Our goal? To ensure children have access to ongoing, quality before- and after-school supports as well as more schooling options as they head back to some form of schooling.

We must fight this fight because parents, especially the most marginalized families, clearly have differing academic and life needs right now.

The Atlanta listening tour brought together Black moms, dads and grandparents to hear any questions or concerns about their children returning to school in-person during this unprecedented time. The overall objective was ensuring their children gain access to all the support and resources they need to get back on track and stay on track academically as they continue to navigate through this epidemic.

One Black dad had three girls, two are school-aged and one was just four days old. He stated he just started on this school journey with his girls, and he did not know where to begin because there is no centralized mechanism where he can research after-school supports and other life supports that he may need to ensure their academic success.

Sadly, the status quo might label him as a “deadbeat” because he is not as present in the school system as other parents, but the reality is you don’t know what you don’t know. In this instance, the village really matters.

Another Black mom of two was brought to tears because she felt her daughter’s kindergarten teacher had unrealistic expectations of her daughter, who just left pre-school during the pandemic. She expected her knowledge base to be “x” even though her daughter didn’t have much access to the supports and instruction that would have taught her “x.” In addition, the mom felt the teacher’s comments implied the educator knew her five-year-old daughter better than the mom. Bottom line, whether education decision-makers like it or not, parents are a child’s first responder because kids do not begin their day in a classroom. That’s real talk.

It goes without saying — yet I must say it — that it’s clear we don’t need more one-size-fits-all students solutions from policymakers and elected officials, and as we consider the future of education, we need them to answer some difficult questions:

• How are so many children being left behind while historical amounts of American Rescue Act monies pour into school districts across America?
• Why is there pushback against educational choice when parents are demanding more schooling options to address the massive learning loss that occurred due to national school closures from 2020 to present?
• What is the rationale to force our kids back in schools that — simply put — fail to meet the very diverse academic needs of our students?
• How do we better serve Black families that clearly want learning models that do not include five days per week in a classroom?

The pandemic forced so many of us to evolve and adapt, but in that process, we also learned many things about the cracks in the K-12 system. Not all families are in a huge hurry to rush back into that system. We do not trust it, and we want something different.

Let us find the courage needed to right some wrongs in public education and make it more effective for all families — in particular Black families — to access what they need for their child’s academic journey instead of what they’ve been told they have to accept — failing children should never be an option.

Gwen Samuel is a Connecticut mom and founder of the Connecticut Parents Union, a grassroots advocacy group that recruits and trains parents who want to harness their collective voices to protect their children’s educational rights.