ALERT:
Please read about the new sex ed law at this link and then follow this link to send an e-mail to the board.
Please visit “Updates” for current news and “Forum” for chat forums!
Who we are
We are an advocacy group that was formed during the 2021 school board election, as parents realized that the decision to close schools did not occur in isolation but was a part of a larger issue of ways in which the school board was failing our children.
The group “D214 Parents for Kids” was formed as a PAC to support four candidates who ran for election in opposition to the incumbent slate of candidates. Although our candidates did not win, we learned much from the process and are now discussing our next steps to work on the issues we have discovered through the process. We are continuing to build out this website and network with other parent groups to learn the best ways of organizing ourselves to move forward.
In the meantime, any parent who wants to become involved with this group as it evolves, and is not already a part of the Facebook group, is invited to contact the group at the e-mail d214parentsforkids@gmail.com. We will also be publicizing next steps as we have them.
Our issues
Our primary concerns at this point are the following:
Oversight and transparency. The current school board wants to have it both ways: during the election, they insisted that they exercised plenty of oversight of the Superintendent, invisible to the public only because it was behind-the-scenes, and they insisted that all there discussion was transparent and public. Both of these cannot be true. In addition, we have identified various concerns around conflict-of-interest, such as the Superintendent’s side job as CEO of Transeo, impairing his decision-making about his planning and areas of focus for the schools. We have experienced FOIA requests being summarily denied. And we see a multitude of decisions being made and presented to parents only after it’s too late, such as the shortened class time with the adoption of a block schedule.
IEP/Special Needs and other struggling students. Parents report that students with IEPs are not getting the necessary contact hours and, generally speaking, are not having their needs met, and we fear that the district’s push for Dual Credit and AP enrollment is leaving behind those kids who need extra help merely to be able to work at grade level, or, if not, at their own best. What’s more, achievement disparities between demographic groups are becoming clearer (now evaluated, for example, by the Great Schools rating group); that these exist to such a degree appears to be a symptom of insufficient district attention to the kids that need extra help. At this point, we lack data to know with certainty what is happening here, but one thing is clear: there is no involvement of the community that would provide clarity on these questions.
Other issues
We suspect there are other concerns we are not aware of. While acknowledging that there is much that is very positive about the district, it is our intent to advocate for students in all of the ways in which the district may be failing them. We would prefer to do so collaboratively, if the Board were to engage parents/community members, but we will not wait for the invitation. Finally, we intend to be nonpartisan, but we know that at the moment our parents tend to come from the right/center-right of the political spectrum.
Our legal structure
Having originally formed as a PAC for the 2021 election, we will be evaluating our legal structure going forward. We invite any experts who can lend assistance to contact us.
Questions?
Please contact the group at:
d214parentsforkids@gmail.com
