and Statement for PPU Report Card Project 

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Since we started writing this report (Feb 2015 )it has been amazing how the things we pointed out as concerns for PPU through our experiences has now escalated and we are seeing departures of those we targeted. The targeting  has come by others, whom because of the unfair pressures, created an overshadowing of the real voices that needed to be heard, the Families'!

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We will get no answers?! Carol Smith is gone, the board has changed, some of our allies are gone in PPS and other places, the teachers' union has escalated their demands around safety, rightfully so and astute families gatekeep. Escalated Proofs have shown up everywhere. It is almost like we expected some of these things before they happened!

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PPU suggested by assessing parents' thoughts and experiences on the climate of the school and PPS's feelings about parent involvement, schools could get a better idea of how they need to improve in the area of Discipline Disparities. They can solicit targeted help from their parents/families. Personal interviews, listeningdialogue circles and focus groups can be used to solicit in-depth information about parents' experiences, attitudes. Few schools can manage such intensive ways of soliciting information. Parent organizations like PPU and others are key to help getting information from families. This report card tells you of such efforts by PPU with PPS only to count it as failure in the end. Again it solidifies education institutions are not interested in parents input. It is only when parents push back or make a legal complaint do they respond!

 

Written and verbal stories, surveys, and one on ones can be a much more efficient method that can yield good results. The system must rely on parents to help to run the systems. These are their children! Who better knows how to meet their needs. PPS pays for professional experts who usually don't have children or have never been impacted by push out, to give input of what is needed for families. They get paid but they come to us to get the information.  Why is that?  see  http://nonprofitwithballs.com/2015/01/are-you-or-your-org-guilty-of-trickle-down-community-engagement 

 

The act of conducting a process for  parent-feedback helps the system know what they think. It gives both parents and students a voice in articulating what works and what does not work. Related to best practices for  their children to get all out of learning. This report is an example of parent feedback with concerns and sometimes down right anger.

 

PPU Says so much for good faith efforts!

 

  PARENTS need an open dialogue between/among Administrators and Teachers 

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https://www.slideshare.net/ppuportlandparentunion/notes-from-trust-circle-solutions-not-suspensions

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We are unapologetic for the contents in this report. All this comes from our heart as well as the experiences. It is our story that needs to be told. We are not a black organization, even though our founder director is.  Our mission is to help all children but when we got started, it defaulted to calls from black families? The subject was always a discipline disparity problem. The stories were always similar....

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What was this all about , getting calls constantly from a particular group of families. The stories were always the same! We soon leaned towards that problem and made it our major work. That is keeping us busy 24/7. This is our D.N.A.

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We soon researched what major group we could align with who also worked only on discipline disparities. We found Dignity in Schools.

 

We continue today to get phone calls  from black families at an alarming rate. It is important for us to articulate a black narrative in this report. Hoping this narrative will create a dialogue. The report is written from the lens of our PPU leaders and the black families or white and Latina families who have black children who have come our way as well as the Dignity In Schools Model Code. See Executive Summary

 

​We are grateful to Carol Smith and the PPS Equity Department director Lolenzo Poe for making a concerted effort to support a moratorium on school push out. We hoped we could come to an agreement. That hasn't happened. This report chronicles what went wrong! PPS still doing things on their own fragmented terms?  A BROKEN SYSTEM.

 

This document has become a living document. Since we started writing positions, policies, protocols have changed rapidly!

 

​WE ENTERED into this deal with a large amount of distrust but hopeful. The reassurance of support came from Carol and Lolenzo? Carol has been pushed out!

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In the history of anyone working with PPS knows that there is always fragmented supporting which looks like holding back for one reason or another. ​

 

Good collaborations could be good collaborations regardless.  The strategies outlined in our work together seems clear but PPS's efforts to be on the same page with our families have been frustrating to say the least. Our determined efforts to  change the way that PPS views our marginalized families has landed in an impasse. We sense in our interactions that institutions like PPS don't have the capacity or the wherewithal to build true grassroots' relationships.

 

​The education system is so complicated that even though the district is claiming they are doing the best they can. It is literally impossible to be effective when lots of indicators are missing. PPU gets more upset around people who are claiming they are doing the right thing. It is not logical to us because the district only stops to hear certain voices! It would be believable if all sit down with us on a routine schedule.​ ​​​​​​PPS's distractions are the lining up with those folks and organizations that unreasonably demand their time constantly. 

 

We ask this question; How does one have successful programs if one has a broken system in the first place? ​​It is the PPS education system with its lack of cultural knowledge, understanding of history, empathy, human caring and concern that ought to be on trial. Its failure to teach the historical realities of Oregon along with the capacities for self-awareness and critical thinking is what produces "fragility".​​ 

 

This report is culturally specific (comes from our own eyes as folks of color and white and latina folks of biracial children) This is our narrative! THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORIES

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VIDEO TIMELINE:​  sometimes we are in and sometimes we are out

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We started this report in Feb 2015. 

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*PPU always actively seeks a diversity of viewpoints and actions around education, information, services, support and advocacy. Opinions expressed from our website blog partners, peers, affiliates, other parent union models, articles we posted, others comments we posted or community partners, are for education purposes and  are not necessarily intended to represent PPU. They do not necessarily represent the views of PPU.  We do try to find that information that might align with PPU's beliefs.

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When we say PPS it is directed at those who claimed they are interested in reducing the disparities. Those we are working with and have worked with. Carol Smith (now gone), equity department as well as the teaching and learning department, special education and student services. 

 

When we say PAT it is the Parent Association of Teachers' management. Not the teachers who often have different opinions about this whole thing. We know there are 30% of the teachers that feel unsafe in the classroom. What about the other 70%?

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Someone told us in a meeting one time after they rejected our asks for support. "This is not personal. It is business!'' This is personal for us our children are who we protect!

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THIS report claims no credit for any images posted on this site unless otherwise noted. There will always be a link to where this picture came from. Unless it is stock pictures or our own..  Images on this report are linked to its respectful owners. The pictures are used to introduce that article the picture belongs to.

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