LA Parents Leadership TeamWelcome to the LAUSD Guerrilla Guide
-Bill RingWelcome !
This site is a work in progress that will change often as insights and
valuable resources are added.
Back in 2002, when I announced my intention to form an independent
parent
asociation in Los Angeles, I began to think of how to help parents
navigate the
Los Angeles Unified School District.
Years ago, I began circulating an LAUSD E-letter which periodically
covered
educational issues in Los Angeles. I have now decided to launch this
site to
provide a historical context and institutional memory of events
affecting the
LAUSD and the parents, students and employees who participate, to
promote a
parent association which will focus upon the real issues and concerns
of parents
with children in public schools in L.A. and to make available to
parents and
community members a wide array of resource material beginning with
information
on issues dealing with special ed, magnet schools, gifted and talented
programs, school safety, school governance and more. Please continue to
watch this
space for further dvelopments.
There are certainly plenty of reasons why parents may not be as engaged
with
schools, among them, both parents in a household may work fulltime and
many
parents are single parents struggling to manage. Another reason is that
while
some parents are actively engaged in local schools with instructional
leadership
that "gets it", many parents have tried fruitlessly to have an effect
upon
their local school, their local district and LAUSD policy and have
burned out
and become cynical or bitter. Others have left the public system
entirely.
Much of this is due to the result of LAUSD's pattern of very poor
communication with parents and community as well as LAUSD's inability
to
properly plan and to train parents as partners in shared
decision-making, both at
the central and local district levels and in the local schools.
It is time to change the culture at LAUSD. Parents, like teachers and
administrators, need to organize as a body, independent of school
district
and school-sponsored organizations. They should also be independent of
political
agendas such as AB 1381, the plan currently steamrolling through
Sacramento
and bypasing the voters of Los Angeles in the process.
Watching inside school politics is a lot like watching sausage being
made:
it's one of those things you really don't want to see....but we had
better take
a real hard look before we eat: I don't know the cure for 20 billion
dollar
indigestion.
I hope you will participate - together, we can make a difference.
Please feel free to let other parents or community members know about
this
website and please let me know your thoughts. If you have something to
contribute, I welcome hearing from you.
Join the discussion at LAUSDParents listserv. Send a blank email to:
lausdparents-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Bill Ring
www.guerrillaguidetolaunified.com
LAUSDParents@aol.com