Minority Parents of Robinson met on Saturday, April 12 for the last time this school year. The meeting, which was titled "The Minority Student Achievement Gap: Putting the Pieces of the Puzzle Together," concluded with a suggestion of "increasing parental involvement."
Panel member Francisco Millet had a suggestion to achieve that. He thought the lack of parental involvement among the immigrant population began in the home country where the teachers took care of it in the past.
"We have to get these Latino parents involved," Millet said. "We have to change that culture so the parents get involved."
Rosemary Fennell wanted to increase the capacity of parental involvement by using other methods to get the message out. She had another experience where parental involvement worked in another county.
"Once parents got involved, it changed the whole spectrum," she said.
Millet is the director of the Office of English for Speakers of Other Languages, and Fennell is a senior education program specialist for the U.S. Department of Education. Other panel members at Robinson included Michael Glascoe, an assistant superintendent at Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS); Angela Davis, professor of law at American University; Dr. Levi Folly, program specialist at FCPS; J.M. Vialpando, language and literacy coordinator at the Center for Educational Community Excellence; and Ann Fulk, program specialist at FCPS. The meeting, dubbed a "dialogue," was the second in the series and will be followed up with a recognition ceremony on May 13 at Robinson.
The parental involvement suggestion was reached after the panel first came up with a list of recommendations, which included School Board commitments, an open-door policy, nurturing the role of teachers, English as a Second Language (ESOL) student involvement in school literary projects, as well as differential instruction.
Glascoe pointed out the need for a change in the PTA members along racial and gender lines. He pointed out that the PTA members are currently white, middle-class women.
"We've got to crack that," he said.
Millet thought that it began with the Gifted and Talented Program, and as a result of students being placed in that system early on, they get "tracked," for success. Her plan was called "detracking."
"Detracking has to be done," she said. "It's not easy. It takes resources and money."
But Sonia Lineras, who lives in Woodbridge but works in Burke, has a son in the Gifted and Talented (GT) Program at Potomac View Elementary School in Prince William County where the GT program worked for him.
"Since he joined this, he's been on the honor roll twice," she said.
According to the statistics available at the meeting from the Minority Student Oversight Committee, "Of the 15,415 students participating [in Fairfax County] GT programs in elementary and middle school, only 693 (4.5 percent) were black and only 510 (3.3 percent) were Hispanic," the information stated.
Lauren Adams is the president of the Minority Students of Robinson. She liked the fact that meetings like this let people know of the problem.
"If we have forums like these, education is the key," she said. "If there's no education, then people won't know about it."
Krystal Commons is another member of the minority students group at Robinson.
"There's not been a big impact, though," Commons said, of the parent group's efforts. "It's self-motivation, basically. It's a necessity," to close the minority gap."
"It's needed, but it's not necessarily existing," she said.
ROBINSON assistant principal Velma French is the school representative with the group. She's been at all the monthly meetings, which began in September and will conclude this year at the recognition ceremony in May.
"This year, they've [the meetings] focused on specifically closing the gap," she said. "There's been some good things that came out of it."
Minority Parents of Robinson will meet again in September.