On Saturday, Jan. 30, over 200 people came together for a Parent/Guardian Roundtable forum on the campus of Clark University. The event was organized by the Citywide Parent Planning Advisory Council known as CPPAC. Forty-two of the 44 Worcester Public Schools had parents on hand, representing the wide diversity of the families in our city’s public schools. The event gave parents the opportunity to share their hopes and dreams for the children as well as communicate the successes and challenges they have encountered in their children’s schools.
“We wanted to create a different type of event where parents would speak and educational leaders would listen,” said Eric DeMeulenaere, Co-Chair of CPPAC and a Clark Professor of Education, “and we wanted parents to learn from the successes in other schools and help each other find solutions to the problems we continue to face.”
In attendance to listen to the voices of these parents were educational leaders from the Worcester Public Schools, including Superintendent Melinda Boone.
“It was inspiring to have so many parents together in one place just to focus on our children! I loved the huge diversity among us,” stated Gretchen Switzer, a Nelson Place School parent, adding that it reminded her of “the deep opportunity we have here to educate our children to be good citizens of the world.”
Superintendent Boone and Clark University’s Provost and future president, David Angel, each offered a brief welcome. However, the bulk of the morning was dedicated to parent roundtables. Theresa Pickens, a recent graduate of the Worcester Public Schools and a first-year student at Clark, gave a brief keynote address. She told the story of how she overcame extraordinary adversity with the help of so many people who entered into her life as her extended family. She encouraged parents to become involved in their children’s schools and activities in both big and small ways.
“It was a great event,” stated Jacob Hiatt Magnet School parent, Rachel Keyo, adding that she was “excited to see the progress this event will lead to!” DeMeulenaere was “extremely pleased with the success of all of CPPAC’s organizing efforts.” But, he added, “this is really only the beginning of our work. The parents, today, have not only shared what is going right in our schools, they have set forth CPPAC’s agenda for working with parents to support the continued improvement for all of our schools.”
DeMeulenaere and the other parents of the CPPAC will compile all of the information from the forum to generate a report that they will disseminate to the school district and beyond.
For more information about the event or CPPAC, call Deb Steigman, co-chair of CPPAC at (508) 753-6419.
