Have you been dying to get a few minutes to ask D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty questions about his controversial plan to take over the District’s public schools? Washingtonpost.com will give you a chance this afternoon at 1 p.m., when they moderate an online chat with the Mayor about his proposal.
You can submit your own questions for the Mayor here. We’d really like to know what the Mayor thinks about Colby King’s idea to create an emergency volunteer corps to go in and fill the gaps of parental non-involvement in our schools. Sounds like a pretty inspired idea to us:
This is African American history month. Fenty and Gray should make history.
They should convene an emergency session with the heads of organizations such as the Links, AKAs, Deltas, Zetas and Sigmas and other professional and social women’s groups with rich experience in dealing with young women. Bring in Brenda Miller, ministers and college presidents. Tap the leadership of active high school alumni associations, such as Dunbar and Roosevelt’s.
Do the same thing with male professional and fraternal groups (Kappas, Omegas, Alphas, Sigmas, Peaceoholics, Elks, Masons, etc.). Make it racially inclusive.
Enlist from these groups an army of adult volunteers to serve under an official Fenty-Gray mandate to fill the gaps at elementary and middle schools deficient in parental involvement.
The District has a wealth of talented people who can serve as mentors, tutors and extended family for children whose parents are unable, either because of work or personal circumstances, or unwilling because of their own issues, to be on the school scene. A Fenty-Gray sanctioned volunteer corps, like Murch parents, can partner with principals and teachers as fundraisers, classroom monitors and helpers. They can also provide direct feedback to Superintendent Clifford Janey and school board President Robert Bobb, as well as Fenty and Gray, on what’s going on, good and bad, at ground level.
As much as Fenty ran a campaign of radical change in the city’s plan for public schools, his recent report has been noted to very closely resemble the school system’s Master Education Plan, already being implemented by Superintendent Clifford B. Janey. But something like this just might deliver the kind of jolt of electricity D.C. Schools so desperately needs.
What do you want to ask Mayor Fenty?
Photo by Sommer Mathis
