The spring of parents' discontent with schools Byline: Linda Seebach Last week I wrote about East Avenue Middle School in Livermore, and how upset parents there were about changes in the curriculum disclosed to them only after school officials had determined to proceed. Monday morning when I arrived at my desk, the little red light on my telephone was signaling distress from all over the Tri-Valley. Different schools, but the same message from distraught and angry parents: The schools are failing to teach our children, and no one will listen to us. That's how I came to be in Alamo Thursday morning, having coffee and muffins with a dozen mothers whose children go to Rancho Romero Elementary School in the San Ramon Valley school district. These are bright, articulate, well-educated women who devote a great deal of time to their children's education and their children's schools. Many of them are volunteers, or were until disillusionment set in. They believe Rancho neglects instruction in fundamental skills, lets children drift when they aren't doing well and then attempts to make the parents feel it's their fault. They don't trust that the information they get from the district about school policies is honest or complete. And most troubling to me, they share a conviction that their children will suffer retaliation if they are too outspoken (or say anything at all). Does retaliation happen? Probably more often than officials would want to admit, and less often than parents fear; it could be subtle. One woman recalled once being told, apropos of a complaint, that the school might have difficulty finding a teacher for her child. That could have more than one interpretation, but an implied warning to be less of a nuisance is not far-fetched. But even if no retaliation ever happens, the perception that it will is a problem the school and the district need to address. They should also be concerned that there is a coterie of parents who voice their dissatisfaction with such vehemence. Most surveys show the public split on education; they think that schools as a whole are not very good, but that the one their child attends is fortunately an exception. Parents who believe their child's school is worse than average are an anomaly that demands explanation. The flash point at Romero, as at East Avenue, was a policy change of some importance that was already decided before parents even heard about it. In Livermore, it was sixth-grade math; at Romero, it was "adjusted Wednesdays." The school day was shortened by 50 minutes on Wednesdays, at the expense of small-group reading time, to allow all the teachers to meet at once in "collaborative time." What mischief they get up to is a subject for another column. The revised schedule was described to parents at an "informational meeting" Dec. 7, attended by more than a hundred people. Complaints were kept to a minimum by the facilitator, who instructed members of the audience not to repeat a point already made by someone else thus allowing the principal, Marilyn McCurdy, to report to her superiors that parental support had been obtained, with only a few people objecting. "At the meeting, parents unanimously indicated support of collaborative time," McCurdy wrote in a Dec. 15 letter to families. She didn't deem it necessary to mention that parental opposition to this means of obtaining it was widespread. "Adjusted Wednesdays" were implemented as a pilot program, to be evaluated in May. It's May; Rancho is currently conducting its bi-annual "family survey" by means of questionnaires, which were due back on Friday. The questionnaires are farcical. They consist mostly of smugly self-congratulatory statements about the school, to which respondents may answer along the usual five-point scale from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree." And just how many families strongly disagreeing with these rosy views does it take to constitute a major problem? Who knows? Question 50 is just such an open-ended response as is beloved by devotees of authentic assessment. That is, the desired answer is made clear. "The teachers want to continue the collaborative time provided by the adjusted Wednesday schedule during the 1996-1997 school year in order to continue the improvement of our educational program. We invite you to share your comments." You have to be a natural-born dissident to reply, "I deny this is an improvement." In partial mitigation, I have to say that adjusted Wednesdays are a directive imposed by the school district, purportedly to "improve student learning." Like other unfunded mandates, this one requires the schools to pay the educational costs but neither tells them how nor provides them with the resources. "The key issue," McCurdy wrote, explaining why none of the parents' suggestions could be adopted, "is providing a weekly block of time for 27 teachers to collaborate within their contractually paid time." The women I met have a wonderful stock of stories about their children's encounters with education, and they'd be funny if the matter weren't so serious. One discovered that her son, in third grade, would subtract 73 from 81 and get 12. Or sometimes 2. You have to borrow, she told him. "Oh, no," he answered; "that's too hard." Maybe he needs a little extra help from the teacher? "You might think of hiring a tutor," the teacher told his mom. The useful intelligence these mothers shared with each other was that every child is entitled to resource help in whatever subject is causing him difficulty. If every parent demanded that help, the whole enterprise would be undone. Schools might decide it was less trouble to teach the children well in the first place. Seebach is the editorial page editor of the Valley Times-San Ramon Valley Times. Phone: 510-847-2160; Fax: 510-847-2189; e-mail: Valleytms@aol.com; Mail: P.O. Box 607, Pleasanton CA 94566.