Poll: Advisers for schools available, willing

Parents and teachers have a simple suggestion for Lee County School District officials who hope to increase community presence on advisory boards: Just ask.

A resounding 86 percent of respondents who participated in a poll the district took of its District Advisory Council said more parents might get involved on individual School Advisory Councils if staff members personally talked to them about joining.

Nearly as many thought people with children in the district would be on the boards if they found out more about them in the media or through functions where they choose a school for the next academic year.

Odds are, though, that those already serving on the boards are aware they're an option. Many work for the district.

Teachers and staff members are plentiful on the school councils, which are required under state statute and feed into the districtwide board. Participants from outside the educational community are less common, however, pushing the Lee County School Board to ponder if parents who happen to be teachers as well are too often filling the boards.

The make-up of those who weighed in on the topic itself tells the story. Fifty-seven percent of those who answered the questions were district employees. Just 26 percent were people with kids in local schools who don't work for the district.

School board attorney Keith Martin this week told school board members in a memo that though the law requires a certain number of people who make up a Student Advisory Council be parents and another percentage must be teachers, there is no language in the measure that says they can't be employees at another school or elsewhere in the district.

"Therefore, in terms of the requirement of the statute, there is no limitation on the ability of an employee of the school district to act as a parent representative on a SAC of the school where their child is enrolled, but at which they are not an employee," Martin wrote.

School board member Jeanne Dozier said that's only fair to district workers.

As the largest employer in the county, it is bound to see some overlap between those sending their kids to schools and those employed there, she said.

"If I'm a parent of a child in an elementary school and I'm employed with the school district, I have a right to serve," said Dozier, who is both a former teacher and a mother.

That said, Dozier agrees parents of all kinds are more likely to get involved if they are asked.

People also need a reason to want to get involved, she said. Having an opportunity to weigh in on a hot topic like scheduling or discipline codes at the school should draw parents in, she said.

"I think you have to have a purpose," she said. "You can't bring people together just to bring people together. They've got to have a reason for existing."

That's another place parents and teachers overlap. Both say they're there for the students.

School Board member Elinor Scricca said breaking parents down into different types, community members or teachers, is less important than considering the school community as a whole.

Still, Scricca, who acts as the board liaison to the District Advisory Council, is interested in hearing how parents might get more involved. She suspects some who work outside the schools might say they are too busy.

Others, particularly the minority parents the district actively seeks, might not feel close enough or comfortable enough with the schools to give their point of view, she said.

The recent survey of District Advisory Council members takes that into account, as well.

Since membership of the School Advisory Councils feed directly into the DAC, low parent participation at individual schools means a shortage in the overarching group as well.

Sixty percent of the DAC members surveyed said they thought child care for parents who came to the meetings could encourage more people to participate. Fifty-six percent said providing information about the council in languages other than English might help.