It is a work in progress, but Buffalo Public Schools are racing to get some key parts of its community schools program up and running. WBFO's Mike Desmond was at Bennett High School Wednesday for a meeting on where the program is and where it is headed.You can tell a program is still in its early stages when the website is not ready yet.
The key community schools piece is not the daily classroom activity, but the afternoon classroom and assistance time and then the family time on Saturday mornings. The idea is that families will benefit from the social programs available right there at school and that families will benefit from classes to help them get jobs, learn English and help their kids with their homework.
Amanda Vellake is supervisor of adult education in city schools. Vellake says kids will benefit from parents going to school and doing homework.
"Huge benefit. Huge benefit. And going back to class, promoting education, promoting literacy," she said. "We want to have programs where we help the parents realize the importance of reading to their children. We want to provide them with books to go home with, classes on what to do. That's a big component of what this is."
The programs will be offered in different schools in different days in different sections of the city. One of the programs will be in the new East Community High School, where Darryl King is principal this first year. King says the concept promotes much greater collaboration between school and families.
"It's not about waiting for the school to call you. I say no more than three weeks should ever go by without a parent contacting the school and talking to the teacher. If you don't hear from the school, we want the parents to know they have to be proactive," King said. "That's part of when Dr. Cash talks about the New Education Bargain, that's part of the parents role. They have to be more proactive."
Kim Walek, with the Parent Network of Western New York, offered a scenario for parents to help make sure homework is being done.
"Interesting thing is, you can be the engaged parent and sit there and say, 'Show me your homework' when you're clueless on it. But by building that expectation, 'You show me what you know. You tell me what you know.' You can sort of get your child to do the homework," Walek said. "They're educating you on what they're doing. It sort of mentors them because the child says, 'Ha, ha, I know what Mom doesn't know.'"
