Parents and teachers can share their stories of
dilemmas they solved or innovations they created to address challenges faced by
African American (and other learners) in school.
One family's Story. All school year, at every parent teacher conference, my son was considered being below average and at risk of being retained for 2nd grade. We attended countless meetings, both his dad and I were volunteers in the classroom, and we enlisted the help of an outside tutor. The school staff only offered to help by placing him in the front of the classroom. I recall the teacher telling my dad (who is a special education teacher) that she was not going to repeat or spend extra time on the curriculum because one child didn't understand. She believed that the rest of the class understood. When I asked about other options such as summer school the principal said that my son wasn't scoring low enough to go to summer school. Summer school, in this district, was only for students who were at a lower level than our son was performing. They kept telling me to go to his pediatrician and have him evaluated for ADHD so that he could take meds if he was diagnosed. I talked to several other African American parents and they had some of the same concerns. We finally changed schools and he finally got the services he needed, one of which was an IEP. An IEP was never offered at the other school. Now he's on honor roll and has received student of the month awards.
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| Latisha Harris-James |
One family's Story. All school year, at every parent teacher conference, my son was considered being below average and at risk of being retained for 2nd grade. We attended countless meetings, both his dad and I were volunteers in the classroom, and we enlisted the help of an outside tutor. The school staff only offered to help by placing him in the front of the classroom. I recall the teacher telling my dad (who is a special education teacher) that she was not going to repeat or spend extra time on the curriculum because one child didn't understand. She believed that the rest of the class understood. When I asked about other options such as summer school the principal said that my son wasn't scoring low enough to go to summer school. Summer school, in this district, was only for students who were at a lower level than our son was performing. They kept telling me to go to his pediatrician and have him evaluated for ADHD so that he could take meds if he was diagnosed. I talked to several other African American parents and they had some of the same concerns. We finally changed schools and he finally got the services he needed, one of which was an IEP. An IEP was never offered at the other school. Now he's on honor roll and has received student of the month awards.
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