Parents sharing the process of searching for a school in Greater Philadelphia. What kind of school are you looking for? Charter, public, private, city, suburban?
One of the things that I have noticed during my school search are the parents sitting next to me in open houses. It occurs to me that one of the factors that has emerged as important to me indirectly are the parents of the children at the school I choose. This point cuts across many themes that I have written about on this blog over the last 8 months, most directly parental involvement in the schools. It also relates to my posts on the relative attractiveness of city versus suburban schools or public versus private, the cost benefit of private/charter schools that draw from multiple regions, and a schools’ racial/economic/cultural diversity. Specific to this post, though, I am referring to the social/economic/political/religious/cultural values of the parents at the schools I am considering.
The topic came to the forefront of my attention directly after speaking with another parent about school choice recently. She loved one particular private school, but expressed concern about the parents there, how different they were from her. Based on her admittedly brief social interactions with other parents she had concluded that they were not closely aligned with her values. She explained to me that over the course of her child’s education, she expects to deal with parents not only socially, but on a variety of stickier situations. PTA is just one obvious example, but she pointed out to me that there will constantly be sensitive issues that arise as children grow up, and those issues are often social in nature, involving other children and their parents, miuch more so than most of the issues that our children are currently dealing with (i.e., potty training, sleep patterns, etc.)
It is true, though I admit that I never thought of it that way. There are a ton of social issues that school-age chilren and parents have to negotiate–interpersonal conflicts, physical changes, even *GULP* sex. We obviously want our children to be able to negotiate many these challenges themselves as much as possible, but they are all potential points of negotiation between children and their families and friends. There will be occasion where the issues even often cross over to their parents. Will my 5 year old come home and say, “Greg’s parents let him see rated R movies!” and do I care? Maybe the quality of the school is such that I am willing to fight those smaller battles. That is obviously a silly example, but there will certainly be trickier moments where parents may have to intervene. How does another family approach sleepover parties? Dating? Summer employment? Toy guns? Designer clothes? Violent video games? Do they buy cars for their driving age children? How much academic pressure do they exert on their children? Asking those questions, it is not a great leap to see how parental values have a great influence on the overall health of a school and a district, and not just on how directly involved in the school families are. I have to think that the recurring and recent public brouhaha over the redrawing of cathchment boundaries in Lower Merion has its roots in part in the fact that district parents have widely varying value systems. That diversity has likely been a factor in creating one of the most respected districts in Pennsylvania, but may have exacerbated the redistricting problem beyond what other districts have to face when facing similar challenges.
I am not too sure how to address this question in my own life and school choice except to say that when evaluating schools, I will try to pay more attention to other parents, not just teachers and administrators. Still, making gross generalizations on limited data about parents is absurd. I guess ultimately this concept is just another important factor to file away during this whole process.
Len Lipkin
PSS Community
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