My name is Lloyd White. I am the father of 2. My daughter is in the second grade at Brookside Elementary; my son is 4 years old. When my daughter was ready to enter kindergarten, my wife, Marti, and I had to decide between the public school system and private schools. The reputation of Beaumont’s schools was a deciding factor when we moved here 3 years ago from the Redlands school district. It was one reason we decided to go the public school route. Public schools have prepared us both to succeed in higher education; we felt if we remained involved in our children’s education they would be able to succeed as well.
As the son of a public school teacher, I learned early on there are good administrators and board members and there are many that are not so good. I began going to the board meetings to judge for myself the quality of the people running the Beaumont Unified School District. I learned there were very few parents involved in what was going on at the district level. As I tried to get more information about what was happening, I found it very difficult to get any information from the district. I tried to find what I needed on the district’s website; but I found it to be difficult to navigate and hopelessly out of date. I found the district wasn’t using the website efficiently to get information to the public.
When I first brought my concerns to the board and the administration, I found them to be responsive and quick to address my concerns. As time went on, I realized they weren’t really interested in increasing parent involvement. They only include parents when it is the politically expedient thing to do or to meet minimum legal requirements. Meeting minimum legal requirements instead of doing everything possible to involve parents seems to be what concerns this board and administration the most.
I decided to start a website http://OurFocusOurKids.com to provide a resource for parents but more importantly to provide a platform to get more parents involved. I will continue to address areas where I think BUSD is failing to support parents in a way that could make a significant improvement in our children’s education. I know, as the district knows, the real power is held by the parents. I feel the board of trustees and the administration make the decisions they do because they think no one is watching. I’m watching.
Hi Lloyd!
Boy am I excited to find your page. Please contact me as soon as possible in regards to the kindergarten class size issue. My son is in Mrs. Emert’s class along with 35 kids. I was at the meeting last night. I would have spoke but I didn’t really know what I was going to. I just knew there was a meeting about class sizes so I went. I arrived too late to fill out the paper in order to speak. I am so glad that you are so passionate about this issue and that you are so involved. I am very upset about this problem and am willing to do whatever it takes in order to get the district to do something about it. I really don’t think most of the other parents knew about this meeting or about how terribly it is going in class. I spoke with a few of them this morning and they were also upset. I got their names and #’s (and am hoping to get more) and they said they were also willing to help. I am very passionate and outspoken so I would love some direction from you on how I should proceed. I am going to write a letter to the editor for the Record Gazette and I want to speak at the measure meeting tomorrow. Please send me an e-mail so I can give you my phone#.
Thanks!
Heather Lewis
By: Heather Lewis on August 26, 2009
at 12:38 pm