Waiman Lam didn’t use to attend many meetings at her children’s
school. Like most of the Chinese immigrant parents at Oakland’s
Cleveland Elementary, she felt excluded. She couldn’t speak English.
And she didn’t think other people at the school really wanted to hear
what she had to say.
“There was no communication,” she said in Cantonese the other day,
with a bilingual instructional assistant translating for her.
Lam, 40, has been a part of the school since her oldest son, now a
high school senior, was a little boy. Most of that time, she stayed in
the background, keeping her opinions to herself. But in the past two
years, she’s finally found her voice. She serves as president of the
school’s newly founded English Learner Advisory Committee, has attended
protests at the school district offices, and routinely organizes other
parent volunteers.
Staff at Cleveland Elementary — a cheerful orange and blue
school perched atop a hill in Oakland’s diverse China Hill neighborhood
— say they’ve seen a dramatic increase in parental involvement in
recent years. They, along with the parents, attribute that in large
part to a new principal, Mia Settles, who has placed a premium on
overcoming language and cultural barriers.
“Parents feel that if she’s there, things will be fair for them,”
said Teresa Auyoung, a Cantonese-speaking first-grade teacher who’s
been at the school for 23 years. “And you can see it has nothing to do
with skin colors.”
The streets leading to the school reflect its diversity —
beautiful single-family homes line one block, subsidized apartments
another. Some 56 percent of Cleveland’s 348 students are Asian, many of
them from families that have immigrated recently from China and
Vietnam. Another 23 percent are African American; most of the rest are
white or Latino. Nearly two-thirds are eligible for free or
reduced-price lunches.
Settles, who is African American, came aboard as principal in August
of 2006; she immediately set about reaching all of these groups. She
started an open-door policy, telling parents they were welcome to drop
by her office anytime. “I let them know my role is servant first,
leader second,” she said.
Asian parents told her they were frustrated. They wanted to help
their children with homework, but struggled because they didn’t speak
the language. The school quickly arranged for adult English classes and
started the English Learner Advisory Committee. They made it a point to
have a translator at every school meeting.
African-American parents told Settles they felt schools often don’t
treat their children fairly. Settles started conversations with staff
to make sure they were aware of that concern.
White parents in the neighborhood frequently sent their children to
private schools. But after hearing Settles’ philosophy, some decided to
bring them back to Cleveland.
Evidence of increased parental involvement soon sprouted all over:
It’s in the new green and yellow play structure that parents raised
more than $50,000 to pay for, after years of discussion. It’s in the
overflowing PTA meetings, which used to have no more than a dozen
attendees — and now often reach fifty or sixty, plus a
translator. And it’s in the school’s hallways, where, at any given
time, several Cantonese-speaking parents can be found assembling
workbooks, stapling papers, or doing any number of other chores. When
staff or parents can’t communicate with one another because of language
barriers, they make it a point to smile and put a hand over their
hearts.
At the beginning of this academic year, something drew Cleveland’s
parents even closer together: overcrowding. In the first weeks of
school, some of the older grades had as many as 34 children. The school
was forced to combine fourth- and fifth-grade classes to accommodate
them. Some teachers, including fifth-grade teacher Ted Sugarman, found
they didn’t have enough desks for all their students. “It was
unsatisfactory to everybody,” Sugarman said. “Especially the
parents.”
Parents were outraged. The school has a successful academic track
record. In the past couple years, its Academic Performance Index score
has gone up from an acceptable 822 to an even better 862. (The
statewide target is 800). Many parents thought that success was
suddenly in jeopardy.
The parents met with district officials several times. Eventually,
nearly 100 of them — black, white, Asian, and Latino —
showed up to picket outside the district offices. Although they didn’t
end up with the precise outcome they wanted, they did get an additional
teacher during the process. But beyond that, said Staples: “We’ve come
together.”
“It’s been beautiful actually, even though we have a little language
barrier sometimes,” she said. “… We look at each other in our eyes
and hearts and we get it across: It’s for all of our children to do the
right thing.”
Troy Flint, a spokesman for Oakland Unified, called the increase in
parental involvement at Cleveland “very beneficial.” The protests
earlier this year were a reflection of something deeply positive that’s
happened at the school, he said. “While we don’t want to see parents
unhappy, there is a silver lining that’s happened in that now they feel
empowered to present their opinions to district administration in a way
they wouldn’t have before.”
Settles points to other examples of parents coming together at her
school. Earlier this year, the father of a second grader was hit by a
car and killed. In three weeks, parents at the school had raised $3,500
and signed up to bring his family meals every day for at least a month,
she said.
Many staff members said they’ve been impressed by the involvement of
so many parents who stayed silent in the past. Auyoung, the first-grade
teacher, said Chinese parents at the school used to feel like
second-class citizens. Now “they understand and they can feel that they
are not lower than anybody,” she said.
One Wednesday afternoon last month, about sixteen parents gathered
in Auyoung’s classroom for a meeting of the English Learner Advisory
Committee. Most were Chinese, although Staples and her friend Lynne
Wardell, who is white, were in attendance representing the school site
council. Jamie Flaherty Evans — also white — was there on
behalf of the PTA. A few small children climbed in and out of their
mothers’ laps.
“How’s everybody doing? Doing okay?” Settles asked, kicking off the
meeting. She waited as Auyoung translated. The discussion was fairly
standard — topics ranged from volunteer shifts, to PTA dues, to
donations to help teachers buy supplies. Toward the end, some of the
Chinese mothers brought up the idea of starting a children’s ping-pong
team after school.
“Does anyone know how to coach ping-pong?” Settles asked. Several
mothers pointed out one short-haired woman, who they said had been
well-regarded as a coach in China. She promptly blushed and hid her
face behind a sheet of paper. They burst into applause.
As transformative moments go, this was a small one. But after the
meeting, Waiman Lam was beaming. Judith Choy, the instructional
assistant, translated.
“They feel more part of the school,” Choy explained, after Lam
finished speaking. “She wants the teachers and parents and students as
one big, happy family.”
