PARENT INVOLVEMENT WITH '
CURRICULUM CHANGE IN
A PUBLIC SCHOOL

Dissertation for the Degree 6f Ph. D.
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
IESS-ELIZABETH HARTSOUGH PI‘NCH

1975 *

   
 

  

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thesis entitled

PARENT INVOLVEMENT WITH CURRICULUM

CHANGE IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL

presented by

Jess-Elizabeth Hartsough Pinch

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph. D. Education

degree in

 

 

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Date May 16, 1975

 

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ABSTRACT

PARENT INVOLVEMENT WITH CURRICULUM CHANGE
IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL

BY

Jess-Elizabeth Hartsough Pinch

The purpose of this study was to describe cur—
riculum changes occurring during the development of a
parent-involved program within a public school system.
This program derived much of its strength from the
cooperative nursery movement out of which came many of
the parents who took leading roles in the curriculum
changes featured in the establishment of this school.

Data were gathered from twenty-four c00perative
nursery parents who led in achieving this curriculum
change. These parents were interviewed and their
responses were recorded. The data from these interviews,
as well as data from interviews with the school principal
and a school board member, were combined with data from
other primary sources such as board minutes, position
papers, and newspaper reports. The information was pre-
sented in historical form which delineated the curriculum

change process as perceived primarily by the interviewees.

Jess-Elizabeth Hartsough Pinch

These data show that a group of people surrounding
a nucleus of cooperative nursery parents cooperated with
a local school board in establishing, during a nine-
month period, a parent-involved elementary school within
an inner city public school. After the school functioned
successfully for two years, the school board approved
expansion of the parent-involved school into another
and almost all-black school. The process of parent-
involvement was extended into the junior high school
(seventh and eighth grades) with board approval during
the third year.

This study indicates that parent-involved cur-
riculum change proceeded from awareness of an ideal cur-
riculum that parents had experienced with preschool
through dissatisfaction with an existing public-school
learning environment to choice of a plan for change.

The process culminated in action resulting in the
envisioned curriculum becoming a reality and in being
evaluated positively. Several principles of curriculum
were discovered operating during the process of parents
and school staff working together.

Recommendations based on this study are that
school administrators actively seek cooperative nursery,
Head Start, and Title I parents to participate in the
public schools in significant teaching and consultative

roles with children, teachers, and other parents and

Jess-Elizabeth Hartsough Pinch

that pilot programs expanding parent—involved schooling
into other educational levels and in various cultural
settings should be set up and tested.

The findings of this study indicate that greater
parent involvement has positive benefits for children,

parents, and professional staff members in public schools.

PARENT INVOLVEMENT WITH CURRICULUM CHANGE

IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL

BY

Jess-Elizabeth Hartsough Pinch

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Secondary Education and Curriculum

1975

DEDICATION

To my husband

Raymond Stiefel Pinch

ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The writer is deeply indebted to the cooperative
nursery parents and teachers of this study, to their
consultant, and to the principal who generously and
graciously gave their time and knowledge to make this
study possible. She also wishes to express warm appreci-
ation for her committee, an ever available source of
inspiration, wisdom, and guidance through the years of
study, research, and writing. The members of this com-
mittee were: Chairman Dr. George Myers, Dr. Dale Alam,
Miss Betty Garlick, and Dr. Louise Sause. The writer
extends especial appreciation to Dr. Troy Stearns fOr
his chairmanship of her committee prior to his retirement
and to Dr. Alice Davis who served on this committee
until her retirement, also.

Grateful acknowledgments extend to Mrs. Ruth
Amundson, her cooperative nursery parents, and to
Mrs. Kathryn Robotham for their help with preliminary
preparation for this study; to Mrs. Deborah Blakesly
and Mrs. Janet Loria for their hours of typing; to

Mrs. Lucy McAlpin and Miss Mariella Aikman for their

iii

manuscript reading and suggestions; and to her fellow
students, her teachers, colleagues, friends, and family

for their innumerable helpful contributions by which

this work benefited.

iv

Chapter

I.

II.

III.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY . . . . . . .

Introductory Statement . . . . . . .
Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . .
Need for the Study. . . . . . . . .
Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Method. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Limitations . . . . . . . . . . .
Background Information . . . . . . .
Overview . . . . . . . . . . . .

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE . . . . . . .

Parent Involvement with Education in
Agrarian Society. . . . . . . . .
Parent Involvement with Education in
Industrial Society . . . . . . . .
Some Influences Countering Isolation of
Schools in Industrial Society . . . .
Parent Involvement in Nonpublic Schools. .
Public-School-Initiated Parent Involvement.
Parent-Initiated Involvement . . . . .
Summary and Analysis . . . . . . . .

PRESENTATION OF THE DATA: AN HISTORICAL

NARRATIVE OF THE PARENT-INVOLVED CHILD-
ORIENTED OPEN PUBLIC SCHOOL. . . . . .

Preparatory Steps . . . . . . . . .
Negotiating Committee. . . . . . . .
Broadening Support Base . . . . . . .
Second More Specific Proposal . . . . .
Community Support . . . . . . . . .
Sub-Committee Organization . . . . . .
First Year of School Begins. . . . . .
Design Committee . . . . . . . . .
Parent Involvement Committee . . . . .
Culture Differences Committee . . . . .
Goals Committee. . . . . . . . . .
Staff Selection Committee . . . . . .
Resources Committee . . . . . . . .

i

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13
17

18
21
26
34
38

46

46
49
51
59
66
73
85
88
92
98
102
104
106

Chapter

Playground Committee . . . . . .
Parent Board. . . . . . . .
Second Year of School Begins . . .
The Program . . . . . . . . .

Parent Involvement. . . . . . .
Partnership-~Parents and Teachers. .
Professionalism. . . . . . .
Evaluation—-Accountability . . . .
School Extension Into Junior High
School . . . . . . . . . .
Final Parent Board Meeting . .
Summary of the Steps To Establish The
School . . . . . . . . . .

Preparatory Steps .
First Year of School . . . . .
Second Year of School . . . . .

IV. INTERPRETATION OF THE DATA . . . .

The Process of Curriculum Change . .

Phase One .
Phase Two .
Phase Three
Phase Four.
Phase Five.

Principles of Curriculum Change . .

V. SUMMARY, RECOMMENDATIONS, CONCLUSION

AND EPILOGUE. . . . . . . . .

Summary . . .
Recommendations.
Conclusion . .
Epilogue . . .

O 0 O O
O
O

I 0 Q 9
O
O
O

APPENDICES

Appendix

A. STATEMENT OF GOALS FOR THE OPEN CLASSROOM

B. CURRICULUM OF THE

PROJECT . . . . . . . . . .

A POSITION PAPER . . . . . . .

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . .

vi

CHILD-CENTERED SCHOOL:

Page

107
108
110
114
117
122
124
125

130
131

138
138
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142
142
142
145
146
150
151

152

160
160
168

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173

185

190

210

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

Introductory Statement

 

This study focuses on the curriculum change that
a group of parents with a nucleus from a cooperative-
nursery-parent organization achieved in a public school.
Despite their problems of writing initial proposals
unassisted by the local school administration and board
of education and the obstacles they encountered such as
having to provide transportation funds and being excluded
from teacher selection, these parents brought about our-
riculum change in their public education.

They succeeded in changing a school to involve
parents as active partners with staff and administration
rather than as aides in classrooms. They changed a
school from an extrinsic to a more intrinsic reward sys-
tem. As a result of their efforts their school is
changing from a pressured to a more unpressured yet
stimulating learning environment with learning centers
based on the children's interests. Their school is
changing from discrete age-level groupings to more

multi-age groupings that flow into each other from

classroom to classroom and into the corridors. It
changed and is changing from teacher- and principal-
centered discipline to child-centered self—responsible
discipline. It changed and it continues to change from
well-defined schedules to more flexible scheduling.
Because many of the key parents involved in this
curriculum change were imbued with a child-oriented
child-developmental philosophy due to their membership
in an area-wide cooperative nursery organization, they
participated in public-school curriculum change that

more nearly reflected their beliefs.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate
curriculum change that occurred in public education by
documenting the work of cooperative nursery parents in
producing change in a public elementary school. It is
concerned with pinpointing the steps taken in this change
and with analyzing them.

This study is based on the assumption that
parents have the right to participate in the public
schools and that public schools have the obligation to

involve parents.

Need for the Study

 

Parent involvement in the public school is

increasing in many localities. One writer, William D.

Boutwell, has said, "We seem to be coming into the 'age
of the parent' in American education."1 According to
Vernon E. Anderson, "The upsurge of interest in citizens'
advisory committees and lay participation in curriculum
study [in public schools] is of relatively recent origin."2
A perusal of periodical references indicates the relative
recency of parent involvement; relatively little material
was being published on this subject before the latter
part of the 1960's. Nothing about cooperative nursery
parent involvement with public education appears in the
indices to the present day. In the past six years
articles have been published reflecting that public
schools are engaging parents in an ever-increasing
variety of roles in classrooms, halls, lunchrooms,
libraries, offices, and recreation areas. These parents
are acting as volunteer and paid aides as well as

members of advisory and administrative boards and of
citizens' committees for the benefit and improvement

of their schools. Schools have a need for able parents
who can orient other parents to work with school people

and who can orient teachers to work with parents. This

 

1William D. Boutwell, "Parent Participation in
Education," PTA Magazine, February 1969, p. 12.

 

2Vernon E. Anderson, Principles and Procedures
9; Curriculum Improvement (New York: Ronild Press,
1965), p.—199.

 

 

study will be concerned with this need by indicating a
resource that may be available but often untapped by
school people.

Another need of public school people arises out
of increasing numbers of preschools being incorporated
in public schools both through Head Start and through
Title I programs. Illustrative of this need are
occurrences in the state of Michigan. A Michigan
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
(MASCD) conference was held in Lansing, October 18, 1974.
Over twenty public school educators including principals
and superintendents attended a workshop session presented
by a MASCD Task Force on Early Childhood Education voicing
concerns and questions related to preschool education
programs in the offing or already functioning in their
schools. This same MASCD task force has been evaluating
a proposal that the Michigan State Department of Edu-
cation is framing for federal funds to establish parent—
child preschool centers.

The present study is addressed to a need on the
part of public school people for a possible source of

expertise in preschool education.

Scope
This study documents the events and activities
of a group of cooperative nursery parents and teachers

in a Michigan city as they were engaged in the formation

of a parent-involved school program. The period of

time covered by the events described is three years.
These activities and events consist of informal and
formal gatherings, committee meetings, board proceedings,
large public meetings, surveys, publicity efforts, edu-
cational endeavors such as engaging consultants for
teacher training workshops and classroom participation,
writing position papers and proposals, solving problems,
negotiating, and evaluating. The data comprising this
study pertain to these activities and events. They are
presented chiefly in the form of an historical narrative
from the cooperative nursery parents' perceptions of
these events. The perceptual data are supplemented by
information from such other primary sources of infor-
mation as board minutes, newspaper accounts, and com-
mittee reports. Two other people directly related to
the school have added data from their points of view.
These other peOple were an ex-c00perative-nursery-parent
school board member and the principal of the school

which is the subject of this study.

Method
This research is based primarily on data that
are historical in nature obtained from first-hand accounts
and from written primary sources. Twenty-six persons
were formally interviewed over a period of five months,

from January to June, 1974, during the last half of the

second year of their new school's functioning. These
structured cassette-taped interviews were recorded with
permission of the interviewees. Their stories, together
with factual data from written primary sources, were
woven together into one historical account. The rough
draft of this history was checked by five of the inter-
viewees: the cooperative nursery consultant, the princi-
pal of the school, the chairman of the parent board,

and the secretary of the parent board, and the initiating
parent. These people read the narrative and made sug-
gestions which were incorporated into the final draft.

During the interviewing the writer employed
open-ended questions in order to obtain wide-ranging
information, perceptions, and feelings. Such questions
as, "When and how did you first becOme interested in
the cooperative nursery? Why?" and "Is the cooperative
nursery similar to or different from your school? In
what ways?" were used to bring out knowledge of child
development and philosophy of education. These questions
led to others about involvement with committees and in
classrooms.

Although the interviews were planned to continue
for about thirty minutes, some lasted for two hours and
longer. One group interview in the home of a c00perative
nursery family with three respondents ran for about .

three hours. Most of the interviews took place in homes,

but others were in offices, classrooms, a community room
of a school, and a teachers lounge.

Three of the twenty-six respondents were black;
three were males; most were relatively young parents of
school-age children. Each person interviewed gave per-
mission to be quoted. Two of the parents interviewed
used the words "off the record" occasionally, and these
requests were honored.

Documents such as proposals, positions papers,
committee and task-force reports prepared by the cooper-
ative nursery parents of this study supplied dates and
details that escaped the interviewees' memories. Minutes
of three boards were used: the board of education, the
area parent-child cooperative nursery board, and the
parent board of the Open school. Newspaper articles
provided dates and sequencing of events and other data.
One of the parent board members kept a scrapbook for a
period from early 1972 to June, 1973 which, through its
collection of announcements, newsletters, clippings, and

pictures, proved an invaluable source of information.

LimitationS-

 

This study is limited to the one public ele-
mentary school that c00perative nursery parents of one
city participated in. Only those cooperative nursery
parents working directly with this school were inter-

viewed. The data are limited to the reSponses of the

cooperative nursery parents involved, the principal of
the school, one teacher in the school who was a former
cooperative nursery teacher, and a school board member
who was a former cooperative nursery parent. The data
are also limited to such printed and written materials
that pertain directly to the school of this study or to
the particular cooperative-nursery-parent group working
with this school. Proper names connected with the locale

and the persons involved are fictitious.

Background Information

 

The city which provides the setting for the open
school of this study is a large manufacturing and indus-
trial center. Production plants are distributed around
the urban area so that no one geographic section is
considered exclusively industrial. Tall office buildings,
banks, and department stores occupy the center of the
city. Several shopping areas are to be found near the
outskirts. Sections of luxury homes are scattered
throughout the city amidst localities of average and
poor residences.

The city has some forty elementary schools,
eight junior high schools and several high schools.
Three institutions of higher learning are all located
near the center of the city in what is known as the

college and cultural center, where the library and art

museum are found. These colleges are a community col-
lege, a branch of a state university, and an industrial
institute.

The school of this study is situated within walk—
ing distance of the three colleges. To the casual
observer it may appear relatively new and modern with
its one-floor and basement construction. Because it
is built on sloping ground, part of its foundation is
exposed. These exposed foundation walls have been
painted attractively with primitive art in bright colors
by the children of the school under supervision of an
artistic volunteer adult. Considered an inner-city
school, it is part of a nearby older semi-residential
area with trees and lawns. A large apartment building
obscures the view across the street on one side of the
school. Onthe other side across another street rises
the board of education building. The view from the
remaining two sides is of open sky and empty city blocks
because of home removal for a future highway. Such is
the school building that houses the parent-involved

child-oriented open school of this study.

Overview
The first chapter of this investigation presents
the purpose, need, scope, method, limitations, back-
ground, and overview. Chapter II contains a review

of the literature dealing with parent involvement in

10

public schools. In the current literature and more
recent publications the accounts of parent involvement
are categorized according to school-initiated parent
involvement and parent-initiated involvement in schools.
The chapter concludes with a summary and analysis of the
relevant literature. In Chapter III the data are pre-
sented in the form of an historical narrative. Chapter IV
contains an interpretation of the data according to the
purpose of this study by examining the process of cur—
riculum change that took place through the joint efforts
of cooperative nursery parents and school staff members.
In Chapter V conclusions are drawn relative to the value
for this investigation and recommendations are made for
further study. The study closes with an epilogue

describing the expansion of the school.

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

A basic assumption of American education expressed
both implicitly and explicitly by educators is that
parents have the right to participate in the schools
and educators have the responsibility to involve parents.
Horace Mann wrote that before a child ever enters school
he "is molded by his family."1 Thus his first teachers
are his parents who, according to Herbert Spencer, feared
that public education would "undermine"2 their freedom
to educate their children. This fear speaks to the con-
tinued concern that parents sometimes feel relative to
their children's education after entering school. The
fear is unfounded to the degree that they (the parents)
are involved in public education.

John Dewey, recognizing the role of parents in
their children's rearing, used this as a criterion for

good education: "What the best and wisest parent wants

 

1Lawrence A. Cremin, The Transformation of the
School (New York: Alfred A. Knopffgl961), p. 17.

 

21bid., p. 94.

11

12

for his own child, that must the community want for all
its children. Any other ideal for our school is narrow
and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy."
Also pointing to the home as an element in ideal
schooling, William H. Kilpatrick wrote that the school
must "become more truly a place of actual experiencing,
for only in and from such experiencing can the child get

the inherent close-to-life kind of education formerly

2

given by his home and community." Of this basic home

preparation, George Counts stated that children

. . . received a most rigorous education, an edu-
cation superior in many ways to that which they
receive today. . . . It was in the family that
the individual received the major part of his
vocational, civic, and moral training.

Schools depend not only on the best of homes as models
of good education but on dedicated parents to such a

degree that

. . . this country's splendid public school systems
could not have been developed if devoted citizens
[many doubtless being parents] had not felt it was
their obligation to serve on boards of education
and had not sacrificed their time and energy to
promote and improve the school. The public schools

 

1John Dewey, School and Society (Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1899), p. 3.

 

2William H. Kilpatrick, Education for a Changing
Civilization (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1927),
p. 97.

 

3George S. Counts, Education and American Civil-
ization (New York: Teachers College Bureau of’Publi-
cations, 1952), p. 101.

13

could not long exist as an institution if the com-
munity were not interested in its schools and
had no way of showing that interest. The public
schools are a cooperative venture of citizens
and educators that the community employs. . . .

1
In the thinking of these educators, the parents

and the schools are inextricably bound together by a

common concern--the best education possible for the

child. This common concern means parent involvement

in the schools as a right of the former and the duty

of the latter--the assumption upon which this study is

based.

Parent Involvement with Education
in Agrarian Society

 

 

In the agrarian society of America from colonial
times until industrialization of the latter half of the
nineteenth century which continues into the twentieth,
education centered predominantly in the family and was
parent controlled.

On the farms which housed well over 90 percent

of pre-Civil War Americans, education continued
to begin early for the average boy or girl. It
continued as it had in the colonial period to be

largely an apprenticeship education; that is the
young learned largely by imitating adults.2

 

lVernon B. Anderson, Principles and Procedures
of Curriculum Improvement (New York: RonaId'Press, 1965),
p. 199.

 

 

2R. Freeman Butts and Lawrence A. Cremin, A
History of Education in American Culture (New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1953), p. 237.

 

14

In the generally self-sufficient pioneer and farm house-

holds

. . . were clustered all the typical forms of

industrial occupation. . . . The entire industrial

process stood revealed from the production on the

farm of the raw materials till the finished article

was actually put to use . . . practically every

member of the household had his share in the work.

Vivid descriptions of this kind of education that

children received in the agrarian households are found
in such publications as the "Little House Books" by
Laura Ingalls Wilder. She writes of children who learned
so thoroughly in this informal way that by their early
teens they managed the house and farm entirely by them-
selves for several days in their parents' absence. With
such preparation they were ready for early marriage and
their own homes at an early age.

Marriages of young people in their late teens or

early twenties were certainly more common than

not . . . both parents [having] . . . received

many ideas on bringing up children from the 2

large families in which they had been reared . . .

Schooling based on this agrarian-home education

was advocated by Benjamin Franklin in 1749 writing in his

"Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in

 

1Dewey, School and Society, p. 7.

 

2Butts and Cremin, A History of Education, p. 238.

15

Pennsylvania."1 Decrying the formalism of the Latin
School, he hoped that the trustees of his "English"

school would
" . . . look on the students as in some sort their
children, treat them with familiarity and affection.
. . . " [He envisioned a pleasant and attractive
school life for the students in his hope that] the
school would have a garden, orchard, meadow and
field, and be well stocked with books, maps,
globes, scientific apparatus, and machines.
Attention to physical education was also recom-
mended for its pleasures . . . as well as an aid
to healthy bodies.2

These ideas of useful education were well received by
merchants and others but were
. . doomed to failure for the moment . . .

[Franklin] laid the blame upon the heavy hand

of tradition, power, and prestige of the "Latinists"

in the academy. . . . His beloved English school

had been starved and neglected in favor of the

Latin school.3

The Latin school was part of a "dual system of

education . . . almost universally present in the
American colonies"4 which grew out of the class system
brought from Europe. This dual system was composed of
the Latin grammar schools and colleges for the affluent
and of elementary schools and apprenticeship training
for the poor. Although both systems began as private

schools, the early colonists saw the need for providing

education for those too poor to pay the tuition. These

1 2

Ibid., p. 77. Ibid., p. 80.

3 4

Ibid. Ibid., p. 99.

16

latter were permitted to attend the elementary schools
free of charge. When in 1742 Massachusetts passed an
act "requiring parents and masters to see to the edu-
cation of the children under their control and levying
fines on all adults who failed to do so,"1 it became
more incumbent on the state to provide schooling for
everyone. Parents were to have more control over state-
provided education than they had had over private schools
through an act passed in 1789 whereby Massachusetts2 law
"granted to towns the power to create school districts"3
as a base for school tax support. This law recognized
the town school committee "as an agency for controlling
and supervising the schools."4 These committees being
"composed of lay citizens rather than churchmen or pro—
fessional teachers,"5 very likely had parents among
their members to exercise some control over public
education. Parents were also in frequent contact with
the teachers of many of the schools through the practice

of

 

lIbid., p. 102.

2These developments in Massachusetts are typical
of patterns of the American system of school control in
other states.

31bid., p. 246. 41bid., p. 253.

51bid.

17

“boarding around." By this arrangement a com-
munity paid part of its teacher's salary by
boarding the teacher with different local
families for stated periods of time.1

Parent Involvement with Education
in Industrial Society

 

 

From these little one-room district schools

Supplemented by a few academics and colleges in
the towns, [the public school] has grown [with
increasing industrialization and urbanization]
into a vast and closely organized system . . .
reaching from infancy well into the adult years.
. . . It has tended to become more and more
isolated from life2

wrote George S. Counts, and he might have added, isolated

from parents as well. Industrialization and
. . . the growth of cities and the extension of the
work done by machines had interfered with the
invaluable supplements to school education provided
by active occupational supplements and personal
contacts with people in all walks of life which
[previously] occurred spontaneously. . . .

In the cities the school boards, although elected by the

citizenry including parents, tended to lose contact with

their constituencies and began to run their school systems

 

lIbid., p. 85.

2Counts, American Civilization, p. 304.

 

3Jane Dewey, ed., "The Biography of John Dewey,"
The Philosophy of John Dewey, ed. by Paul Arthur Schilpp
(New YorK: Tudor Publishing Company, 1939 and 1941),
p. 9.

 

18

. . . as though they . . . were their private
domain. . . . They acted as though any suggestion
from parents, teachers, or voluntary groups was
an infringement upon their prerogatives or an
interference with their business.

Some Influences Countering Isolation
of Schools in Industrial Society

 

 

In 1923 the Supreme Court in Meyer vs. Nebraska
declared unconstitutional an Oregon Act of 1922 that
"unreasonably interferes with the liberty of parents
and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of
children under their control."2 "The Fourteenth Amend-
ment protected the liberty . . . of parents to educate
their child as they saw it (right to send their children
to private or religious schools)."3

Besides legal influences countering the isolation
of schools, John Dewey and other educators had begun
writing and lecturing to check the separation of public
schools from home and community. Thinking along lines
similar to Benjamin Franklin's a century earlier, Dewey

introduced a practical useful activity program of school

"work in wood and metal, of weaving, sewing, and cooking

 

lButts and Cremin, A History of Education, p. 574.

 

21bid., p. 527.

31bid., p. 525.

19

as methods of living and learning,"1 which were not to
be taught as distinct studies. They would be rather

the "instrumentalities through which the school itself
shall be made a genuine form of active community life
instead of a place set apart in which to learn lessons."2

He wrote in his School and Society:

 

At present the impulses which lie at the basis of
the industrial systems are either practically
neglected or positively distorted during the school
period. Until the instincts of construction and
production are systematically laid hold of in the
years of childhood and youth, until they are trained
in social directions, enriched by historical inter-
pretations, controlled and illuminated by scientific
methods, we certainly are in no position even to
locate the source of our economic evils, much less
to deal with them effectively.3

Dewey conceived of the school as “simplified social life--
[that] should grow gradually out of the home life and
'take up and continue the activities with which the child
is already familiar in the home.”4 I
Another influence countering the isolation of

schools from their support base, the home and parents,

was the growth of parent-teacher associations. James

B. Conant has written:

 

 

lDewey, School and Society, p. 11.
21bid. 3Ibid., p. 22.
4

John L. Childs, "The Educational Philosophy of
John Dewey," The Philosophy of John Dewey, ed. Paul A.
Schilpp (New York: TudbrPublishing Company, 1939 and
1951), P. 462.

20

No discussion of the role that citizens have in improv-
ing public education would be complete without
reference to the National Congress of Parents and
Teachers, commonly known as the PTA. . . . I think

it is fair to say that these organizations through-

out the United States typify the important roles

played by the parent as contrasted with the situation
in Europe.

Other writers2 corroborated this view, stating that

In the late 1930's . . . the theory that parents,
teachers and community groups ought to be more
widely consulted about school affairs began to
make headway in practice as well as in theory.
Parent-teacher associations grew by leaps and
bounds, and in a few communities even the students
began to be listened to with more appreciation and
respect as the notion of a "community school" began
to capture the imagination and loyalty of those
members of the professional and public who were
genuinely devoted to improving their school.3

The community school concept received early
impetus in Flint, Michigan in 1935 with philanthropic
funding from the C. S. Mott Foundation. It offered and
continues to offer a program of "education, recreation,

and cultural enrichment"4

by keeping its public school
doors open in the late afternoon and evening hours. The

schools become community centers for year-around activity.

 

1James B. Conant, The Child, the Parent, and the
State (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,

1959 , p. 195.
2

 

Butts and Cremin, A History of Education, p. 575.

 

31bid.

4"The Mott Program of the Flint Board of Edu-
cation" (Flint, Michigan), p. 6. (pamphlet)

21

Every school has a community room and a community director
who organizes activities desired by the citizens of all
ages living in the school area. He is assisted in his
work by a citizens' council representing the several
segments of the school's community.

Community schools have spread to over "500

school districts"1

throughout the country with the
assistance of the same funding that C. S. Mott gave
Flint. On August 21, 1974, President Gerald R. Ford
signed the "Education Amendments of 1974 . . . [which]
include the Community Schools Act"2 authorizing federal
funding for training of community staffs. Thus the
national government recognized the importance of "getting
parents more involved in their children's education"3
through the community school concept.

Parent Involvement in Nonpublic
Schools

 

Parent involvement in schools other than public
education appeared in the cooperative nursery school the

first of which began with a group of University of

 

lDonald Riegle, "Congressional Statements on
Community Education Development Act," Community Education
Journal (September-October 1974): 7.

 

2T. H. Bell, "Creative Partnerships for Children,"
Community Education Journal (September-October 1974): 4.

31bid.

22

Chicago faculty wives in 1916. Though parent coopera-
tives sprang up in five other localities from Massachu-
setts to California in the 1920's, the rapid growth in
numbers did not take place until the 1930's and after.
That they developed "largely without the aid of public
funds or private endowments bears testimony to the
vitality of the movement."1 Their operating expenses
were paid out of the tuition charged the member families
in the cooperative. Because the parents helped to teach
in the school and because the teacher was willing to
work for a salary below the public school scale, the
tuition was considerably less than that of nurseries
owned and operated for profit. The parents managed the
nursery through an executive board composed of parent
officers and chairmen of the various committees in
charge of the several aSpects of nursery operation.

The philosophy of education upon which the
cooperative based its program is expressed in Katherine

Whiteside Taylor's Parent and Children Learn Together.2

 

In this book the author stated that the need of parents

for guidance and knowledge in how "to grow children"3

 

1Katherine Whiteside Taylor, Parents and Children
Learn Together (New York: Teachers College Press, 1967),
p. 296.

 

 

21bid.

3James R. Jacobson, "How To Grow Children," The
Christian Home (September 1974), p. 9.

 

23

is met by the cooperative nursery. When parents partici-
pate in the classroom with a teacher experienced in early
childhood education, they learn by doing and following
the teacher model. They learn also by talking with the
teacher after each session about the occurrences of the
school day and by conferences, orientation meetings, and
parent discussion groups.

The program for children is child-oriented and
action-based. Firsthand experiences using all the
senses are emphasized as is a spirit of cooperation,
not competition, and social awareness. Unconditional
acceptance of the child and his parents characterize
the relaxed informal atmosphere of the classroom. The
program is based on the theory that the main business
of childhood is play because through play children learn
what they themselves perceive that they need. Through
play they integrate and make their experiences meaningful
to themselves. The teacher provides an environment rich
and varied in play opportunities through ample time
allowances and through the equipment and materials that
she and the parents have worked together to supply. This
same philosophy is stated in abbreviated form by the
cooperative parent group of this study in their pamphlet,
"Guides for Nursery Parents and Teachers,"1 which states

that a nursery school

 

1Dorothy Komarmy, et al., "Guides for Nursery
Parents and Teachers" ( * , Mich.: Home Printing Co.,
1969), p. 21. (* Information available from writer.)

24

. . . environment, rich in choice—making possibili-

ties where he [the child] can see, taste, feel,

smell, hear, and manipulate is essential. Both

variety and repetition with opportunities to search

for his own answers imply the need for mobility and

sufficient blocks of time for free exploring play.

Mrs. Taylor wrote that because of the rich
experiences cooperative nursery parents have in teaching
and administering their schools, public school adminis-
trators and boards of education in some places try to
enlist their help. They "virtually lie in wait for
cooperative nursery parents to 'graduate' so they may
render such services"2 as assisting teachers, chairing
committees, organizing field trips, benefits, newsletters,
helping in recreation programs and in cafeterias, and
leading small discussion groups. These cooperative
parents are also a source of support to "superintendents
and supervisors . . . often very forward-looking in what
they want to promote in their educational programs but
feelIing] impeded by lack of community support."3
Operating on the same cooperative principle of

parent participation the parents who founded the School
in Rose Valley extended child-oriented education from

nursery school on up through high school for their

children. These parents having studied child development

 

lIbid.

2Taylor, Parents and Children, p. 292.

 

31bid.

25

and consequently becoming aware of the shortcomings of
public schools in meeting the developmental needs of
children sought innovative schools that would serve as
models for their own school. Under the guidance of
Swarthmore College faculty they observed several such
schools where “the children were natural, living and

learning naturally"l

not restricted and uninspired.
They organized a school where parents worked in the
classrooms with the teachers and administered the busi-
ness of the school with the principal. Grace Rotzel,
the principal whom the parents chose, wrote of these

parents: "I was struck by a special quality in them--

the certainty that of course the ideal and the real

 

could be joined."2 These parents and the staff they
hired created together a school in the 1930's that is
still functioning today. It is based on Dewey's and on
other educators' philosophy of education concerning
meaningful learning related to living.

Another group of parents have established a
similar school, the Pacific Horizon School, again based
on the cooperative principle of parent participation

at La Jolla, California. This school carries children

 

1Grace Rotzel, The School in Rose Valley (Balti-
more: The John Hopkins Press, 197I), p. 2.

 

2Ibid., p. 5.

26

beyond the nursery years, also. In Absorbed in Living,

 

Children Learn Ann Shaaker Schulman1 brings to the

 

reader detailed accounts of these children and their
parents functioning in a rich and varied learning
environment.

Public-School-Initiated Parent
Involvement

 

 

Several public schools in California, recognizing
the value of cooperative nurseries as a means for parent
education, have incorporated them into their educational
program.

In the 1930's the Berkeley public schools set up
parent education projects, paying the salary of a
trained teacher with each mother helping one day a
week and attending a child study class once a
fortnight.2

Elsewhere boards of education and administrators
have availed themselves of the skills that cooperative
nursery parents have to offer:

In some communities PTA's have become so interested
in what cooperative "graduates" contribute . . .
that they raise money to help establish coopera-
tives and provide scholarships. Some have even
developed preschool PTA's as junior members of
their own organization.3

 

1Ann Shaaker Schulman, Absorbed in Living Children
Learn (Washington, D.C.: National Association for Edu-
cation of Young Children, 1967).

 

2Taylor, Parents and Children, p. 296.

 

31bid., p. 292.

27

An absorbing account of a public school involving
parents was presented by Julia Weber Gordon in her My

Countrnychool Diary.1 She described how she visited

 

her students' homes, became acquainted with their parents
and invited them to share their skills and knowledge in
her classroom. Fathers helped with carpentry, printing,
dairying, and apple-growing projects; mothers helped with
raising money for school activities, hostessing school
functions, studying in the mothers' club, and sharing
their cultural backgrounds for school dramatizations.
Another eloquent example of school-initiated
parent involvement was the Maury School in Richmond,
Virginia which was described by Marion Nesbitt in

A Public School for Tomorrow.2 Of this school William

 

H. Kilpatrick wrote in the foreword:

Probably the most crucial explanation of the
success of the Maury School has been the pene-
trating educational insight which has from the
first guided those in control. That the child,
even though immature, is truly a person and is

to be treated accordingly; that the whole child

is to be developed, and not simply his intellect or
memory; that real and effective learning is insep-
arable from living; that the chiId learns what he
really lives and then using this learning thereby
rises to the next higher level of living; that

the school must therefore be a place for living,

 

 

 

lJulia Weber Gordon, My Country School Diary
(New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., I946, I970).

 

2Marion Nesbitt, A Public School for Tomorrow
(New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1967), ppJFIx-x.

28

for living of the finest quality that pupils and
teacher, parents and community can togetHer
contrive--these are some of the insights that
have shaped alike the program of the Maury
School. . . . 1 (Italics mine.)

 

Maury School,realizing the importance of teachers and
parents working together,sought to build trust between
them by including parents in the planning processes and
encouraging parents to contribute their talents and
skills to the school in whatever capacity the parents
felt adequate. The school worked "to help parents and
children see the importance of home."2 Visiting back
and forth from the school by the teachers in the homes
and by parents in the school was promoted. Conferences
both individual and group were common. The parents and
teachers participated in study programs together.
Probably more important than anything else is the
quality of the relationship which exists between
school and home. It is in the day by day contacts,
in the sincerity and feeling of warmth, the way of
working that builds and maintains trust and under-
standing.3
More recent examples in periodical literature of
schools involving parents are to be found in various

parts of the country. In Washington, D.C., where a

"Home and School Association"4 made an appeal to parents

 

l 2

Ibid. Ibid., p. 24.

3Ibid., p. 25.

4"Citizen Power; Last One In . . . ," American
Education (June 1969), p. 22.

 

29

for help, twenty parents volunteered to work with forty-
eight children having the greatest need for tutoring.
Besides tutoring, the parents raised money to bus the
children to suburban swimming pools. These parents found
that before they could tutor successfully, it was neces—

1 with the children first.

sary to "sit and talk"
In Detroit, Michigan, a school discovered that

its guidance programs failed because of lack of com-

munication between counselors and parents. The counselors

remedied the situation by a "parent discussion series

. . . [as] one effective method whereby an elementary

school counseling program can implement [what they termed]

2 I I O
This ser1es was more effect1ve

the 'Parent Principle.'"
than a one-shot explanation of presentation about the
counseling program.

A school in a western New York rural farming
community "assiduously sought community involvement"3

in its Right to Read program to such an extent that

the adult-child ratio was almost one to one at times.

 

11bid.

2Ira Bank and Lois Brooks, "Elementary Counselors
Implement the 'Parent Principle,'" Elementary School
Guidance and Counseling (May 1971), p. 274.

3Jeffrey B. Nelson, "Delivering on the Right to
Read," American Education (April 1974), p. 14.

 

30

School officials have been known to bet you your
lunch you can't walk into a typical classroom and
tell which is the teacher, the aide, the student
teacher, or the parent volunteer. . . . All adults
in the room are engaged in instruction. . .

Even the children seem unaware of any flowchart
of competence or authority. They' ll ask anybody
for help.1

The Sinclairville school feels its messages
. . . to tell the world are its community involve-
ment and needs assessment methods. . . . "Of course
we want to be able to sometime wave impressive test
scores and other data,“ says teacher Arlene
Josephson, "but the gain we'd really like to see
is simply to have more children who like to read--
more children with a good feeling about themselves."2
A junior high school in San Diego, California
sought to involve parents through a program set up by
its community relations advisor in order to improve
community-school relations. By means of neighborhood
group discussions in parents' homes during one summer,
they discovered what concerned parents about the junior
high. They surveyed the various elementary school areas
feeding into the junior high through these group dis-
cussions. A member of a "community liaison team composed
of three persons, the community relations advisor and

3

two parent counselors" were always present at these

meetings to take note of concerns voiced and suggestions

 

lIbid., p. 13. 21bid., p. 16.

3George T. Frey, "How One Junior High School
Tackled the Problem of Improving School-Community
Relations," Today's Education (January 1971), p. 16.

 

31

made. Appropriate action could then be taken related to
these matters. Parent group meetings continued throughout
the year with teachers, counselors, and administrators
attending at various times. A rumor center was estab-
lished. Parents began participating in "extended daytime
activities for the students . . . [such as] field trips,
movies, industrial arts, homemaking, art, and recreation."1
Dialogue sessions between parents and teachers were held
regularly through the year. As a result the teachers
could see "a positive impact of the program on their
students, . . . fewer criticisms about the school were
heard, . . . [and] constructive school-community ties"2
were built. The Federal Government recognizing the tra-
dition of local control of education and the importance
of parent involvement in schools stipulated in its Head
Start and Title I programs that parents take an active
role in the classroom participation and in policy for-
mation for their programs. Examples of significant
public school initiated parent involvement in compliance
with government guidelines are almost as numerous as
Title I programs is due to merely token compliance with
Federal guidelines in some cases. Where sincere and

effective effort was made to secure parent participation

the results are noteworthy. For example in Oklahoma a

 

lIbid., p. 17. Ibid.

32

Title I program engaged poor parents to train middle
class teachers in communicating effectively with parents

and children in low-income neighborhoods."1

The assumption
that "more open communication and involvement between
school and home would enhance the educational growth of
youngsters"2 was justified by the results which indicated
"increased attendance and achievement by the children."3
Another example, a Chicago Title I Parent-Child
Center Program, offered a six-year continuous program
that began in the preschool and extended into primary
grades.
The student is not shuttled from one preschool cur—
riculum to another kindergarten curriculum and yet
another primary grade curriculum. . . . The success
of the CPC program has been well documented over
the last three years and at least four dimensions
stand out as major contributors . . . [one of which
is] heavy parent involvement4
and the meeting of parent needs as well as those of

children.

 

1Judith Shelton, "An Analysis of a Family—Involve-
ment-Communication System in a Title I Elementary School,
Final Report" (Oklahoma State University, Stillwater,
Oklahoma), Sponsoring Agency: National Institute of
Education, Health, Education, and Welfare, Washington,
D.C., ERIC Document ED 082 091, February 1974, p. 8.

2 3

Ibid. Ibid.

4A. Jackson Stenner and Siegfried G. Muelier,
"A.Successfu1 Compensatory Education Model," Phi Delta
Kappan (December 1973), p. 246.

 

33

Besides the influence of the Federal Government
on schools to involve parents, universities in at least
two recorded cases have performed a similar encouraging
function for public schools on behalf of parents. Dr.
Vito Perrone, dean of the New School of Behavioral
Sciences, University of North Dakota, has helped schools
involve parents through its teacher training program
in parent involvement and through workshOps and dis-
cussions on parent participation. A statewide Parents
Council which grew out of one of these university-centered
workshops has a membership of parents from all parts of
the state. The Parents Council works with schools to
upgrade parent work in schools. In addition to the
schools' benefiting program-wise from parents they also
save money as in the case of listening centers. These
centers were produced by parents locally at a small
fraction of the cost of commercially produced systems.
Dr. Perrone's "New School staff has found parents and
their children are . . . [their] principal supporters
. . . in fostering alternative educational approaches
in the school."1
In Florida, Dr. Don Dinkmeyer worked through a

'university-based program with elementary school coun-

selors to involve parents. He stated that:

 

lVito Perrone, "Parents as Partners," Urban
Review (November 1971), p. 35.

 

34

. . . it is generally accepted that parents and the
family exert the original and perhaps the most sig-
gnificant influence on the development of the indi-
vidual. Until recently school counsellors have

not developed programs to involve parents.

With elementary school counselors he formed "C"2 groups
to help parents understand and deal wisely with their
children's behavior. "C" stands for collaboration,
consultation, clarification, confrontation, concern,
confidentiality, and commitment--the components of the
program.3 Parents learn growth—promoting ways of

relating to children and acquire self-knowledge through

examining their values and beliefs system.

Parent-Initiated Involvement4
Publication of examples of parent-initiated
involvement in public schools though not as numerous are
effective and influential in their results. Growing out
of the civil rights movement parents developed a sense
of community in New York's Harlem as they worked to
improve their intermediate school. For Intermediate

School (1.8.) 201 they obtained "more qualified teachers

 

1Don C. Dinkmeyer, "The Parent 'C' Group," Per-
sonnel and Guidance Journal (December 1973), p. 252.

21bid., p. 253. 31bid., pp. 253-54.

4See Ellen Lurie, How To Change the Schools, A
IRarent Action Handbook on How To Fight the System’TNew
York» Random House, 1970Y.

35

and administrators, more relevant curricula . . . more
voice in shaping policy in the educational program."1
The relevant curricula included Afram, a program of black
studies which has spread to other cities. These parents
have made the school “an instrument of the community and
not of the school board or system."2

The current crisis in urban education is closely

related to the failure of most public schools to

(a) upgrade the low quality of academic services

offered to inner city residences, (b) relate to

the dominant cultural ethnic styles of black com-

munities, (c) ameliorate feelings of powerlessness

that poor minority-group communities feel toward

the neighborhood school.3

Not only do the poor feel powerless about the

public school at times but so also in one recorded
instance did a group of middle income parents in the
same city. Their disenchantment and frustration led them
to inaugurate changes in P. S. 84, New York City. This
parent-initiated involved with a public school began a
three-year struggle with a calcified school adminis-

tration and board of education to secure curriculum

improvement for their school. These parents were

 

1"Now It's Parent Power," Kentucky School
Journal (October 1968): 28.

 

2Preston Wilcox, "Changing Conceptions of Com-
munity," Educational Leadership (May 1972), p. 686.

 

3Joseph Falkson and Marc Grainer, "Neighborhood
School and Constituency Organization," School Review
(November 1972), p. 57.

 

36

organized through their Parent Association, a small group
of which negotiated with administrators, called meetings,
and kept the process of change alive. They received
their knowledge of how children's needs can be met
developmentally from some of their public school teachers
who encouraged them to read Featherstone, Holt, and
Korol. They brought in consultants such as Lillian
Weber, who contributed to their knowledge of child
development and innovative education. The parents were

1 which some of the

impressed by the "Freedom School"
teachers set up for children who were kept out of school
during a teachers' strike. When the strike was settled,
the parents remembering their children's enthusiasm for
this "Freedom School" as contrasted with their attitude
toward regular school, began taking action. Their
efforts finally led to the creation of an "open
corridor"2 school. Parents were free to come and

go at any time of the day in this school. They had

a special parent lounge-like room near an entrance of

the school where they gathered at odd times to socialize

and conduct parent-related school business.

 

1Hannah R. Hess, The Third Side of the Desk
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1943). P. 85.

 

21bid., p. 315.

37

Of this type of parent room one writer states:

One good way to help parents become part of school

life is to provide an open room to which they may

come at any time. There should be a coffee pot,

magazines, displays of children's work, and

notices for parents in this room. School personnel

should be encouraged to go there during their

breaks and to listen to parents. . . . Classrooms

should be open to parents at all times.1

The parents of a Newark, New Jersey public

school-~a "parent-powered school"2 have also won the
right to come in unannounced at "any time they please,"3
not having to stop by the principal's office. "Parent
power cannot be granted but must be won,“ states Leslie
Rich in describing this school which grew out of a day
care program. This power resulted in the parents having
a voice in teacher selection and determining school
policy. The teacher selection committee is composed of
five parents and four school people to hire the teachers
for their school. The school is run by a 15-member

council of parents representing a broad base of 500

participants both groups meeting once a month.

 

1Shirley C. Samuels, "Johnny's Mother Isn't
Interested," Today's Education (February 1973), p. 38.

 

2Leslie Rich, "Newark's Parent-Powered School,"
American Education (December 1971), p. 38.

 

31bid.

38

Summary and Analysis

 

Parent involvement as an inherent characteristic
of American schools grew out of the democratic philosophy
of local control. Before schools existed parents edu-
cated their children through the informal type of learn-
ing prevalent in agrarian economy. With the rise of
schools which were at first private, learning became
formal and controlled by churchmen and professionals.
When state governments established public schooling,
education control was placed in the hands of lay citizens
and parents via elected school boards and also via tax
support. Thus citizen participation in education
though marginal was established. With increasing
industrialization and urbanization school systems grew
in size, became more formalized, and some gradually lost
touch with their home and community bases.

Several forces began to counter this increasing
formalization and isolation of the school. Educators
such as John Dewey advocated home-like education in
public schools much as had Benjamin Franklin earlier.
Legal decisions recognized the right of parents in
making educational choices for their children. Move-
ments such as the PTA, cooperative nursery, community
school, civil rights, and poverty programs restored
parent involvement to its rightful place in the edu-

cational scheme in public schools.

39

Literature on parent involvement in schools
reveals that increasing formalization of education
brings discontent with the schools on the part of many
parents as well as of many leading educators. The
parents who founded Rose Valley wanted a school where
the children were "not restricted and uninspired" but
were "living and learning naturally."1 The parents
who succeeded in creating open education in P. S. 84

2 where

wanted a school like the "Freedom School"
children enjoyed the educational process. John Dewey
and others described a type of education that these
parents wanted for their children.

Discontented parents have power, which when
organized, brought curriculum improvement to the public
school in several instances. This power to be effective
was composed of a small organized cadre of committed
workers with a broad base of support from other parents.
It has support links within the administrative structure
of the public school system, as in the cases of P. S.
84, Newark, and 1.8. 201.3

Innovative parents who brought curriculum

improvement to schools operated from a child-development

 

1Rotzel, The School, p. 2.

 

2Hess, The Third Side, p. 85.

 

3See pages 35, 37, and 34.

40

background of knowledge as for example, the parents of
Rose Valley who began as a child study group.1 The
parents of P. S. 84 learned child development from
guest speakers and sympathetic teachers. Cooperative
nursery parents of Pacific Horizon,2 as do cooperative
nursery parents generally, learned child development
from their parent education program.3
That parents in general and cooperative parents
in particular are frequently more innovative than public
school people realize and can give support to innovative
public school personnel is supported by Dr. Vito Perrone4
and Katherine Whiteside Taylor.5
Schools where parents were involved were growth
enhancing. The children were enthusiastic learners at
Maury School, Rose Valley, Pacific Horizon, Sinclair—
ville, I. S. 201, and P. S. 84,6 to mention but a few.

7 in these schools.

It seems that no "children are dying"
iNo wash-out effects were reported or recorded.
Schools where parents were involved had continuity

knoth in philosophy from year to year and between content

 

1See p. 24. 2See p. 26.
3See p. 22. 4See p. 33.
5See p. 24.

6See pages 27, 25, 26, 30, 34, and 35.

7Nat Henthoff, Our Children Are Dying (New
York: The Viking Press, 1966) .

 

41

areas. The Title I program in Chicago is a case in point
for continuity in a Follow-Through program that takes
children from preschool into primary grades.1 Rose
Valley and Maury School as well as Pacific Horizon
exemplify this continuity.

The forty-year life span of Rose Valley speaks
to the principle of commitment of parents who started a
school and ran it cooperatively as do cooperative
nursery parents. That the cooperative nursery movement
is almost sixty years old and growing indicates the
vitality and staying power of the parents involved in it.

The issue of accountability was conspicuous by
its absence in parent-involved schools. Reporting to
parents was accomplished by written evaluations in
Rose Valley. A Sinclairville teacher in speaking of
assessment testing said that pleasure in reading and a
good self-image were to be more desired than high
achievement scores.2

Parent-involved schools meant parent education
concurrent with child education. California is so con-
cerned about the parent-education aspect of public
schooling that it has incorporated cooperative nurseries

into some of its school systems.3 Rose Valley, P. S. 84,

 

1 2

See p. 32. See p. 30.

3See p. 26.

42

Maury School and others made parent education a con-
spicuous part of their program. They are meeting a need
of parents that is crucial. Armin Grams writes “that
parenting is a function so vital to the survival of our
society that we cannot leave it to chance."1

Parent involvement with schools meant a partner-
ship relationship with teachers. Partnership is apparent
in Rose Valley where teachers and parents functioned
together as a team in running the school, in Sinclair-
ville where the visitor in the school could not distin-
guish who were teachers and who were aides, parents,
and others,2 in Maury School where parents and teachers
planned together in a trusting atmosphere.3

Parent involvement provided schools with a
living link to the community, its culture, and its
democracy. Intermediate School 201 illustrated this

link with its Afram4 program. Julia Weber Gordon's

country school demonstrated how parents brought school

 

1Armin Grams, "Parenting: Concept and Process,"
Parentin (Washington, D.C.: Association for Childhood
E uca on International, 1973), p. 8.

,ZSee p. 30 3See p. 28.

4See p. 35.

43

and community together in their curriculum.1 Parent
involvement is so vital to the public schools that one
writer stated that the schools "will eventually cease
to be the safeguard of democracy"2 if they exclude
parents. Both at the elementary and high school levels
as well as in the colleges do parents have a significant
role to play.
As model democratic societies, colleges and uni-
versities should provide for appropriate partici-
pation in policy making all who will be affected
by the decisions. Key partners include the
trustees . . . ; the administrative officers;
members of faculty; the students; parents; and
alumni . . . Parents . . . yet remain the silent
partners in higher education. Such disenfran-

chisement should be corrected if balanced judg-
ments in the pursuit of truth are to be achieved.

3
Parents in P. S. 201, Newark, Rose Valley, and
Pacific Horizon have demonstrated their effectiveness
in organizing and managing a school. Parents were
capable of determining policy and making decisions

concerning school administration as well as being help-

ful as curriculum builders.

 

1See p. 27.

2Arthur H. Rice, "Squeeze the Parents Out of
School and See What We Got," Nation's Schools (April 5,
1970), p. 18.

 

3Lindley J. Stiles, "Parents-—Silent Partners
in Higher Education," Journal of Education Reseaggh
(October 1968): inside cover.

 

44

That schools sincerely desiring parent partici-
pation can succeed in securing it is implicit in all
the schools recorded here. It is explicit in the San
Diego junior high1 where a summer was spent laying the
groundwork for parent participation that continued and
grew through the succeeding school year. A recent study
in San Mateo, California showed that 65 percent of the
parents "wanted to play a more active role in the school

system."2

By building on this desire and by overcoming
a belief that "only the well-educated middle-class
successful person can contribute to the improvement of
education"3 school people will be able to find con-
structive methods for including parents in their edu-
cational programs.

Parent involvement saved the schools money by
providing volunteer services. They save the schools
having to hire paid aides in the classrooms and else-

where throughout the building. By supplying free or

below-commercial cost materials and equipment as in

 

1See p. 30.

2”Now It's Parent Power," Kentucky School
Journal (October 1968): 28.

 

3Parent interview, June 14, 1974.

45

North Dakota1 for example the schools were spared
extensive outlays of cash.

The literature indicates a recognition of the
vital role parents have played in public schooling from
colonial times to the present. Schools need the parents
as much as the parents need the schools. When parents
are actively sought after, their contributions benefit
the schools, themselves, and their children in unique

ways that quite possibly would be otherwise unobtainable.

 

See p. 33.

CHAPTER III

PRESENTATION OF THE DATA: AN HISTORICAL

NARRATIVE OF THE PARENT-INVOLVED CHILD-

ORIENTED PUBLIC SCHOOL

Preparatory Steps

 

In the fall of 1971 a cooperative nursery mother
visited her son's first grade classroom in a public
school. That visit was the beginning of action which
this mother, Irene Seamon,l would take with the help of
fellow cooperative nursery parents and other parents to
establish a parent-involved child-oriented school
in a public school system.

Irene Seamon's association with cooperative
nurseries began when her son was three. "Co-op" appealed
to her because it was a place where "parents were involved

2

and parents worked." She felt that the unpressured

atmosphere of the cooperative plus her "presence there

 

lProper names associated with the school and its
locale are fictionalized.

2Irene Seamon interview, February 1, 1974.

46

47

were ideal" for him; the nursery experience proved to

be a happy one for her and for her son Stanley.1

When Stanley entered kindergarten, he was
content in this public school setting, too, related
Irene:

They painted twice, I think, but he was happy.
Then . . . he went into first grade where he had
two different teachers because of substitutes.

The regular teacher came back in November. Stanley
came home and started telling me that some of the
kids were being hit. . . . Well, I decided I had

to find out. So I made an appointment and went in
to observe. The teacher had indicated the kids were
kind of wild when she came back and she had to set
the tone. She never said she hit them, but
apparently there was some fear there. Anyway I
observed . . . and during that day Stanley had

done a piece of work. The whole class was working
on it. There were extra credit problems to do.
Well, the kids would line up and bring the work up
to her. And when Stan brought his work up, she
held up his paper and she said, "Look what Stan
Seamon did! He got them all right!" I thought,
"My God! what did that do to the other kids let
alone the pressure it put Stan under." . . .

Other things I didn't like--the happy faces,2

all the work at the same time. . . . So I just
couldn't stand it.

Then . . . our daughter entered kindergarten
when Stan was in the second grade. She's a dif-
ferent kind of kid. She talks about everything
and always has. . . . She hated kindergarten.

She wanted to stay home a couple of times. My
husband had to take her and she screamed. And it
wasn't that she had a nasty teacher. Marlene has
to talk and there were only certain times when she
could talk and play time is very short. I knew if
she had to go into a traditional first grade it
would crush her.3

 

11bid.

2A symbol of a smiling face put on children's
paper to indicate successful work.

3Irene Seamon interview, February 1, 1974.

48

Irene and her husband considered what to do.
They did not want to move out of the city into a
neighboring school district where there was some open
education, neither did they wish to send their children
to a private school established a short time before.
They felt their children "would be losing so much not
to have contact with all kinds of people"1 in the public
school. Endeavoring to discover how many people who were
as interested as she about an alternative form of edu-
cation in the city school system, Irene began calling
her c00perative nursery friends. She discussed with
them their school plans for their children after
co-op and ideas about making changes in the public
school. She had been attending school board meetings.

She found the associate superintendent, Dr. Clark Wing,

. . . at the time extremely responsive. . . . He
was concerned just because I had a concern. So
when this came up with Marlene, I decided I would
call him. I told him about the idea that I had to
save the schools money as well as to stop the

tide of whites out to the suburbs. Would he be
willing to try to get some unhappy people off

the board's back? Well, he was just a real

nice guy . . . always willing to talk. . . .2

He suggested that Irene get in touch with the curriculum

coordinator, Dr. Lawrence Marshall.

 

Ibid. Ibid.

49

Negotiating Committee

 

Before meeting with Dr. Marshall, Irene went to
a friend, neighbor, and fellow co-op nursery member with
whom she had frequently exchanged views about education,
Mr. Andrew Lyman, "a very bright, sensitive, . . .
extremely articulate" person.1 She felt she needed a
man with her. When Irene and Andrew met with Dr.
Marshall they told him they "were presenting a simple
proposal to the board at its next meeting the following
Tuesday,"2 November 23, 1971.

Feeling they "needed a show of support"3 at
this board meeting Irene called Dana Killarny, teacher
consultant for the area's Parent-Child Nurseries (PCN)4
and said "give me all the names of people you think

5 Dana

might be interested in an alternative school."
gave Irene about thirty-five or forty names of coopera-
tive nursery parents to contact. Out of this number
twenty-five parents attended the board meeting that
Tuesday evening.

At this meeting a negotiating committee of three

cooperative parents, Irene Seamon, Andrew Lyman, and

 

1 2

Ibid. Ibid.

31bid.

4The cooperative nursery organization for all
the co-ops in the area within and outside the city.

5Irene‘Seaman interview, February 1, 1974.

50

Lawrence Shoreham,1 who was also a co-Op parent, pre-
sented a proposal to the board of education. “It was

a very rough proposal," according to Irene. "Our
concerns were out in the open, but there was nothing
specific on remedies.2 It stated that the purpose of
the proposal was to investigate the possibility of
using one of the city's low enrollment schools as a
location for a learning center similar to one in the
neighboring school district. It listed five problems
that these parents were concerned about: structured
programming, impermeable school boundaries, blanket
authoritarian rules, inflexible curricula, and a narrow
view of learning being centered primarily in the class-
rooms. To these problems the proposal recommended such
solutions as: less structure in classrooms, "city-wide,
open enrollment3 in a proposed open school, more freedom
for the children, more individual attention from
teachers, "personalized attention with help,"4 wider

range of curricular choices based on the children's

 

1Lawrence Shoreham was another friend of the
Seamon family interested in open education.

2Irene Seamon interview, February 1, 1974.

3"Preliminary Proposal to Establish Pilot Learning
Center" (n.p.), November 22, 1971, paper in negotiating
committee file, 1005 W. McClelland St., , Michigan,
p. l. (Mimeographed.)

41bid.

51

interests, "ability to explore a wide range of areas of
self interest,"1 and encouragement of learning as an
ongoing process taking place at all times and not
necessarily in the classroom. This proposal ended by
suggesting sources of consultative help in establishing
the school as a pilot project and by offering ideas for
tentative methods of implementation and possible evalu-

ation.

Broadening Support Base

 

At the board meeting where the proposal was pre-
sented about twenty-five parents came to support it.
Five parents of this group spoke of their concerns
related to the proposal. Irene Seamon cited the White
House Conference on Children in 1970 recommending
"Alternative forms of public education to insure that
the individuality of children is not squelched by making

2

them conform to certain rules and standards." She

suggested the use of one of three low-enrollment

schools, one being Gardner "right next to the adminis-

3

tration building" as a location for a "child-centered,

 

lIbid.

2"Official Minutes of the Meeting, November 2,
1971," Board of Education of the School District of the
City of , Michigan, 49 (1971), 550b.

31bid., p. 550a.

52

open classroom, individualized curriculum type of
environment."

Another parent stated that some of the board
members were "sending their children to private schools
. . . because they felt the . . . Public Schools did not
fulfill their needs.“2 He quoted a professor as saying
that a new type of teacher training in universities was

3

turning out "a new breed of teacher" that can function

best in open learning environments. One parent asserted:
Presently my four-year-old is attending a . . .
Parent-Child Nursery. The motto of this nursery
is "Learn through Play." This motto could easilyv
be applied to any level of education, I feel.
Learning can and should be fun, but presently in
. . . [this city] unfortunately, from everything
I have observed, it is not fun. I don't want my
children to . . . dread going to school and to
dread learning. . . . I don't see why . . . [this
city] can't be like Evanston, Illinois. . . . "4
where this parent had gone to school. He spoke of his
enjoyable education experiences in Evanston which were
due he felt to the wide variety of choices and the
stimulation of constant innovation in curricular
offerings by the schools he attended. He said that
"individualized education leads to a good self-concept.

A good self-concept leads to successful students and

 

. . . productive adults."5
1 . 2 .
Ib1d., p. 550C. Ib1d., p. 550g.
3Ibid. 41bid.
5

Ibid.

53

Andrew Lyman voiced a willingness on the part
of his group to build a "more detailed model"1 and
expressed a need on the part of the parents to know
from the board what kinds of problems and blocks
required facing and overcoming. The last parent to
speak opposed the use of increasingly repressive
measures against students as meeting the "wants and
needs of a portion of our community"2 but obviously
not meeting the "wants and needs of the entire com-
munity."3 He mentioned that the cost of the proposed
school need not be any more than that which would
normally be borne "for the education of the same
number of children"4 in the conventional classroom
setting.

Responding to these parents, the president of the
board suggested that he would like the board's cur-
riculum and academic Studies committee

. . . to sit down with Dr. Clark Wing and several
of your group to explore the feasibility, to
explore the methods, and to hear Dr. Wing's and

his staff's input to this. We are very receptive
to exploring it with you further.5

 

1Ibid. 21bid., p. 550h.
3Ibid. 4Ibid.
5

Ibid.

54

Carrying out the president of the board's com-
mission to explore the possibilities of the proposed
school eleven people, more or less, met frequently
for the next six months. These people were "three
from the board of education, . . . three area directors,
three lay people (Irene Seamon, Andrew Lyman, and
Lawrence Shoreham), and Dr. Wing and Lawrence Marshall.
. . . There were always other people there, Mott
interns, etc."1

The three lay people, Irene, Andrew, and Lawrence,
composed what came to be called the negotiating committee
by the parents they were representing. Most of these
parents were or had been associated with the cooperative
nurseries in PCN. At a PCN board meeting, December 1,
1971, after the proposal had been presented to the
board of education

Gen Shoreham2 stood up . . . and mentioned that
Irene Seamon and Andrew Lyman thought that

since . . . their taxes in some measure support
the public school system . . . that the board

of education should provide more than one
alternative for public education. . . . Until
that time if parents wanted something other than
the traditional classroom or whatever the public
school had to offer, they would have to go to a
private organization and spend lots of money in

addition to paying taxes to support a system they
weren't wholeheartedly behind.

 

lLawrence Shoreham interview, April 26, 1974.

2Wife of Lawrence Shoreham of the negotiating
committee.

3Karen Daniel interview, February 22, 1974.

55

As a result of the discussion that followed
concerning this proposed alternative school which the
negotiating committee was working on, the PCN board

passed a motion "made by Karen Daniel to . . . give

support to the proposal for a child-centered school."1

A function that the PCN performed facilitating the work
of the negotiating committee was to publicize the com-
mittee's work throughout its c00perative nursery
membership. One co-op parent, Phyl Hoffer, heard about
it at a co-op coffee where parents were

. . . talking about this neat school that they
were going to start and they needed support. . . .
It was real important that we go to the board and
meet the parents. So I read over the proposal and
we had . . . one of our orientation meetings or
discussion groups about what it was going to be
like. We all went to these [public school] board
meetings and some of the teachers came and we
wrote proposals.

Another co-op parent said:
I didn't know anything about it until a neighbor
of mine said they're having a meeting about an
Open school. . . . It really sounded good so I
went to a second meeting. . . .

and became involved in committee work. Several coopera-

tive nursery parents and other parents worked with the

 

1"Board Minutes of December 1, 1971," Board
Minutes, Office Copy, , Michigan, Parent-CfiiId
Nurseries, I519 Harrison Street.

2Phyl Hoffer interview, February 22, 1974.

3Blythe McCall interview, March 1, 1974.

56

negotiating committee in drafting a more detailed and
specific proposal for the board of education.

It was really hairy, [related Irene]. We were
very disorganized but we had some people that

got a proposal from some of the people in the

U. of M. department of education. We had contact
with some of the teachers at Rye Elementary School
[an open school in a neighborhood district] and
they actually worked with us. And Jean Martin

. . . from Pennsylvania brought in programs they
had used there. We went through all of the pro-
posals. We combined them. We took something from
Chicago, Illinois, The Martin Luther King School
that had started a year or two before.

We also got information from Minneapolis-St. Paul.
They started a . . . K - 12 program in a relatively
short period of time. We got their information

as to how they got public interest, and public
meetings and committee chairmen, the committee
structure . . . and how they built theirs. The
only advantage they had that we didn't have was
that they had the board of education behind them.
We had it in front of us. We met with Clark Wing,
and he was great. I felt he was bucking the board.
He was bucking the superintendent. He was really
working with us. He was our man in the adminis-
tration in terms of somebody we could trust and
believe in.2

The thing that appalled us was the fact that when
we sat down with four or five top administrators

at that first [committee] meeting they had not the
foggiest notion of what we were talking about.

That was the incredible part of it. The whole idea
of an open school was not new and had been building
over the country for several years. There were

a lot of programs and a lot in Michigan and . . .
in . . . [our] county. Either they didn't know

or claimed they didn't know what we were talking
about.3

 

lIrene Seamon interview, February 1, 1974.

2Lawrence Shoreham interview, April 26, 1974.

31bid.

57

Dr. Marshall did not agree with the concept first
of all; he was very open about that. Dr. Wing was
open to having suggestions . . . and to the concept
as well. Dr. Marshall was not open to the concept
itself. We had to specify very carefully what it
was we wanted. . . . My impression at that time

was [that to the administrators who were trained
school people] the terms "open classroom" and

"open school" were very highly technical terms.

To us the concept was a more vaguely generalized
term that seemed to incorporate a lot of things we
were interested in for our children. Because of
that gap . . . between the parents' and the admin-
istrators' understanding of the words, the latter
insisted on us being more specific on what we
wanted so that they could categorize what we wanted
according to one of these technical terms they were
using to describe the concept. Consequently we
were required to continue to work on that proposal
. . . describing what we wanted to give them a 1
better idea of what they would have to provide us.

Our board . . . of education, also, when we first
approached them didn't know anything about open
education. . . . They couldn't really make a
response to us because they didn't know what we
were talking about. They had all these wild far-
out ideas in their heads about it. Most related
it to an open school, private school that's been
around for four or five years. They looked at

. . . [this private open school] which is very
expensive and their immediate reaction was that
it costs too much to run an open school. The
board operates on a cost per pupil and would not
expect that our children would be favored finan-
cially.2

These administrators and board members that were
meeting with us almost constantly actually did no
work at all on the proposal. We did the entire
thing and revised and polished it. They would have
an objection to something and we would refine it.3

 

1Andrew Lyman interview, May 3, 1974.

2Holly Martin interview, March 29, 1974.

3Irene Seamon interview, February 1, 1974.

58

The parents . . . did all the leg work, all the data
gathering, all the proposal building, etc., with
very little aid from the actual educators. They
did not tell us, did not delineate for us, the
differences in their jargon, for instance what
specific terms meant to them. Dr. Marshall did
provide us with some literature from other open
schools in other areas, other cities, etc. It
was expected as some of the administrators talked
at that time that if the parents had to build the
proposal they would become discouraged. But it
didn't happen. We did go ahead and build it and
in fact called the bluff of some people who did
not exactly support it.1

We also had a problem in terms of limitations put on
us by the board. Some of these limitations we
wanted; others were restrictively put on us. For
instance the board said it was going to have to be

a voluntary program. We wanted it to be voluntary.
The board wanted to make sure it did not turn out to
be a gifted school. . . . We had no problem with
that; we wanted a cross section in terms of ages,
socio-economic groups, race geography, intelligence,
sex. . . . We suggested and they turned around and
imposed as a condition that we have . . . parental
involvement. . . . Of course, on parental involve-
ment, with the fact that the board is retaining
control, you immediately see where we had most of
our fights--most of our discussions. Parental
involvement we wanted; that was the whole reason

for being parental involvement.2

Board control, we didn't submit that. No extra
money, we agreed with that. We felt the program
could work on the same per pupil expenditure.

As far as complying with the union contract, we
had no problem there. In fact we met with the
union . . . several times and they promised their
cooperation and then did absolutely nothing. No
transportation being provided did cause us a lot
of problems--probably the biggest problem we have
today.3

 

1Andrew Lyman interview, May 3, 1974.

2Lawrence Shoreham interview, April 26, 1974.

31bid.

59

We met with the committee of eleven and then we
gathered people. We started phone calls [to each
other]; the idea was to write up and report to
each other [the information we were receiving].1
We meshed all of this information the way we
wanted to in a kind of naive way. But it was OK.
We pretty much ended up with at least the basic
structure of the school we started out with. We
wanted to be able to hire the teachers but we gave
way on that because we felt the board would never
approve it at the time. That was our concession
to give up our input into teacher hiring.

The board was never hostile. It was an eerie
feeling because they hadn't done a thing. They're
generally very "uppity" . . . I can't think of
another word, toward parents. They say they want
parents' input and yet parents will present ideas
and they really put them down. . . . But never the
whole time did we ever feel they were opposed to
us. They were working with it. They didn't know
if it COUld be arranged financially. One guy said,
"I wouldn't want my kid to go there"--that was the
president of the board at the time. But there was
never really overt hostility. It was eerie though
because I expected it.

Second More Specific Proposal

 

The work of the negotiating committee with the

board's committee culminated in a second and more

definitive proposal. This proposal began with an

opening, child-oriented, philosophical statement con-

cerning the creation of a stimulating environment that

‘would permit maximum learning and growth for individual

children. Recognizing the importance of social learning

 

lIbid.

2Irene Seamon interview, February 1, 1974.

31bid.

60

the committee asserted that the environment should
encourage group learning as well as individualized
instruction. The students could develop at their own
pace along the lines of their own interests. These
philosophical goals would be implemented by the stimu—
lation, facilitation, nurturance, and promotion of the
children's learning interests, of their independent
creative critical thinking, of a positive self-concept,
and of their "regular achievement in math, reading,
writing, science, and social studies."1

The proposal next addressed itself to the child
whom the philosophy was encompassing. Each child would
be helped in an atmosphere of success to deal with
conflict and the consequences of his own behavior not
in a punitive setting but in a problem-solving atmos—
phere. Children would be encouraged to work out their
own schedules of when to spend time with the various
curricular offerings.2

Another main area of the proposal dealt with
relations between the school and the board of education.

Although the school would follow the general board

policies, the proposal recognized that "some exception

 

1” Child-Oriented School" (n.p.), (n.d.),
paper in file 1005 W. McClleland Street, , Michigan,
p. l. (Mimeographed.)

21bid., p. 2.

61

to existing policies and procedures"1 would be necessary

in order to allow for "maximum freedom to explore alter-
nate modes of teaching and learning."2

Parent participation expectations were spelled
out in terms of the formation of a steering committee

3 between

to serve as a liaison "policy making body"
the school and the board, their establishment of an
alternative school to provide "more of the type of edu-
cational experience desired by the parents for their

"4

children, and to reflect "the changing desires of

parents"5 both in philosophy and curriculum.6
Budget consideration included the requirement

of no more money than other city schools were allotted.

Aside from certain fixed costs such as "salaries, and

building maintenance and operation"7 the board would

allow the steering committee flexibility in use of funds.

(To the continued frustration of the open school the

board has not allowed this flexibility.) Supplemental

 

11bid. 21bid.

4

3Ibid., p. 3. Ibid.

5" Child-Oriented School" (n.p.), (n.d.),
paper in f1Ie, 1005 W. McClelland Street, , Michigan,
p. 2. (Mimeographed.)

6 7

Ibid. Ibid.

62

funding would be sought from governmental programs
"aimed at innovative education. . . . "1
The proposal considered the problem of selection
and admission of students. Any student residing in the
city could enter voluntarily with "the children of the
teaching staff and of the initial Steering Committee
. . . [being] automatically allowed to enroll."2 A
lottery set up to guarantee a prOper balance by sex,
race, socio-economic status, age, and achievement would
determine which applicants would be chosen. These
students would be admitted into heterogeneously grouped
classrooms with thirty students in each. Two classrooms
would include lower elementary students of six, seven,
and eight-year-olds. Another two classrooms would house
the nine, ten, and eleven-year-olds of the upper ele-
mentary school. The kindergarten would accommodate the
fives with thirty in the morning and thirty in the
afternoon. The total of the students in all five class-
rooms would number about 210. Evaluation of the learn-
ings achieved by the students would be through "written
comments and analysis by the teachers"3 rather than via

letter grades.4

 

1 2

Ibid. Ibid., p. 4.

4

31bid., p. 5. Ibid.

63

Regarding staffing, the proposal stated that the
success of the school depended upon the positive atti-
tude of the principal selected to administer the program.
The conventional functions of a principal were listed
with the expectation that curricular programs would be
developed and coordinated in conjunction with the
teaching staff.1 Staff selection was to be on a volun-
teer basis with the teachers choosing to be in the
school coming from both the existing teaching pools in
the city and from new applicants. All teachers would
hold state teaching certificates, would become members
of the teachers union, and would operate under the

. . . provisions of the Master Teacher Contract.
. . . The Steering Committee in consultation with
the office of staff personnel will select the
teaching and administrative staff of the school
with additional selection criteria being added as
are determined to be meaningful toward a subsequent
evaluation of the program.
The teachers would work together in teams--one team of
three working with the lower elementary children and
another team of three with the upper elementary classes.
Each member of the team would have equal status, each
member being designated to develop and coordinate the
curriculum in his assigned area. He would develop and

distribute plans, and give inservice training to his

fellow teachers on the team. During inservice

 

lIbid., p. 6. 21bid.

64

training which would occur during daily planning sessions

an interchange of ideas would take place.1

To provide for coordination and unification of
the curriculum throughout the school vertical teams of
curriculum leaders from all age groups would meet for
further idea interchange and inservice training. They
would give suggestions "for combining the teaching in
various areas."2 Other specialists available to the
school would be the parents of the children attending
"to the extent they have special talents."3 These
parents "will be expected to participate in the school
as teachers' aides or as teachers of special, short-
term projects."4 They would be involved in their own
inservice training "by regular meetings with the teacher
of their children."5 Besides inservice training for
the staff "a four-week preliminary institute"6 was pro-

posed "for all teachers the first year . . . and for all

new teachers"7 in the years following.

 

lIbid., p. 7. 2Ibid., p. a.
31bid. 41bid.

51bid. 61bid.

7

Ibid.

65

The setting for the school could be arranged in
one of six possible elementary schools in the city that
had available space not only for classroom but for lunch
facilities since many of the children would be coming
from all parts of the city not within walking distance
of the school. The self-contained rooms ideally were
to have movable walls or partitions to permit dividing
the room into varying-sized interest areas. Suggested
learning materials available in these areas included
"multi-level books, regular and self-instructional,"l
all types of audio-visual equipment, "art paper and art
materials, globes, maps, manipulative learning aids such
as models, cuisenaire rods"2 and home donated materials.
Classroom rules appearing in this section of the proposal
consisted of not harming "another person or his property
. . . [and] other 'rules' deemed necessary by students
and teachers."3

The proposal recognized the University of
Michigan's c00peration with the project citing that
institution's willingness to help in establishing
evaluative criteria and in gathering and analyzing
evaluation data. In return the school could provide

learning opportunities for the university's student

 

lIbid., p. 10. Ibid.

31bid.

66

teachers and interns wishing "to assist in this type
of learning experience."1

Appropriately the proposal ended with another
statement concerning parent participation citing three
expectations: that parents would meet regularly with
their child's classroom teacher, that parents would
"participate in the classrooms on a day-to-day basis,"2
and that parents would be welcomed to take part in staff

meetings.

Community Support

 

The negotiating committee presented this second
and more specific proposal to the board "subcommittee
and the school administration representatives,"3
January 10, 1973. Again a group of parents, the
majority of whom were co-op supported the negotiating
committee at this presentation. There were probably
thirty or forty parents attending, "enough to fill the

room"4 "which really surprised the board because there

hadn't been that many before. There were teachers that

 

l 2

Ibid., p. 11. Ibid.

3"General History Outline" (n.p.), (n.d.), paper
in file at 1005 W. McClelland Street, , Michigan.
(Mimeographed.)

4Laura Doppler interview, February 1, 1974.

67

went . . . "1 also. The board accepted the proposal but

withheld approval pending evidence of support for the
idea of an open school city-wide. "At this time it was
felt that a survey was needed to determine . . . "2
the amount and source of interest in the cpen school.

To prepare for the survey the parent group met
for a long Saturday session to write up a questionnaire.
They took it, recounted the parents:

. . . to the committee we were negotiating with
for their response. . . . Well, they didn't like
this and they didn't like that. So they changed
it. We didn't like all the changes they made so
we took it back to our committee.3 We spent
hours preparing questionnaires.4. . . We came
out with a compromise. . . . It finally got sent
out, [March 3, 1972]. Some of the principals
[of the schools] were hostile and didn't want to
send it out.5

Prior to distributing the questionnaires the
city newspaper printed "a big article,"6 February 24,
1972, about the plan for an open school that the

negotiating committee and its parent group were working

 

1Phyllis Hoffer interview, February 22, 1974.

2"General History Outline," (n.p.), (n.d.), paper
in file at 1005 W. McClelland Street, , Michigan.
(Mimeographed.)

3Irene Seamon interview, February 1, 1974.

4Lawrence Shoreham interview, April 26, 1974.
5Irene Seamon interview, February 1, 1974.

61bid.

68

on. It announced the forthcoming survey of elementary
school parents to be conducted via a questionnaire and
quoted Dr. Clark Wing, associate superintendent, saying
"if the questionnaire shows there is sufficient interest

to warrant further consideration of the plan then we can

get down to specifics."1

The results of the questionnaire survey were as

follows:

Out of some 25,000 distributed, 913 were returned
with 507 involving 780 children2 definitely in
favor--would want to send their kids (to an open
school), 222 were uncertain representing 243
children, and 184 opposed,3 some vehemently
(saying) "No, I don't think any taxpayers' money
should be spent on it.” So we concentrated on

the yes's and the maybe's. . . . The board com-
mittee we were dealing with was impressed with the
response. . . . They knew something had to be done.
It was at that point that we really got the feeling
things were rolling.4

The negotiating committee, then, on the basis of
the interest shown by the returns of the questionnaires

called a public meeting to be held at a high school.

 

1Louis A. Morrissey, "Parents.To Have a Say on
Alternative School," Journal (February 24, 1972).

 

2"Official Minutes of the Meeting May 10, 1973,"
Board of Education of the School District of the City of
, Michigan, 50, p. 437.

3Irene Seamon interview, February 1, 1974.

4"Official Minutes of the Meeting May 10, 1973,"
Board of Education of the School District of the City of
, Michigan, 50, p. 437.

69

This meeting on the evening of March 20, 1972 was called
to answer questions, give more information on the open
school, and "explain the philosophy in detail."1

Supposedly everybody who had indicated a favorable
response to the questionnaire was notified to get
to the meeting which was widely publicized through
the press and through phone calls. We used the
names from co-op [recalled Irene Seamon] feeling
these peOple would be supportive of the idea. It
was very important to get as many people to this
meeting as we could for a convincing show of
support.2

[At the meeting] Lawrence Shoreham made the intro-
duction to the idea of the open school. He said
that an alternative method of public education
would be offered stating the motivation for it

and the philosophical reasons behind it. There

was a question and answer period between him and
some of the parents who weren't really sure what
this meant--what kind of a program it would be,
what problems there would be. It was very inter-
esting because I think [recounted Karen Daniel] it
showed . . . that for three- and four-year-olds
many parents are setting up free situations such as
co-op . . . because it's legitimate for the . . .
[young] child to play. But for even the most

solid co-op parents once that child takes a step
into kindergarten, it's a different situation.

Then they're very concerned about how that child
compares with other children. They tend to take
very seriously academic achievement and how essential
that is to the child's success as an adult. They
don't want a milkman for a son or a daughter. . . .
They were very concerned about what would happen if
the child goes into this kind of situation . . . and
graduates from the open school sixth grade into
seventh grade and a traditional classroom--what's
going to happen to him. They were concerned about
their child's going to be a misfit and not going to
have the skills that he needs in order to success-
fully compare with his peers. Even though the room

 

lLawrence Shoreham interview, April 26, 1974.

2Irene Seamon interview, February 1, 1974.

70

was filled full of co-op parents there was still
this old concern about achievement. . . . It's
something very strange to me . . . why what can be
true for a three-year-old can't also be true--but
even more so for an older child-—that learning
happens in spite of what we put our kids into—-
It's the quality of what happens after the learning
that we're concerned about and how the kids feel
about themselves.1

It was sort of a humorous but somewhat serious
example of the parent's dilemma that they want
their kids to be A students but how can they be
A students in a nongraded situation! It really
bothered them. When there's no comparison, how
can you have self worth! Competition for some
people may be the only way that you can develop
your self-esteem. Only in comparison with someone
else's achievement and being better can you feel
good about yourself. It's an extrinsic kind of
activity. It's a basic disagreement with my way
of thinking. I found it very interesting that
this would come into play that night with many
of the questions.

I was rather remorseful because Dr. Marshall was
listening to all these questions--the parents really
questioning whether it was the best thing or not;
but I think basically everyone felt that as long

as they were assured that there was going to be

math and reading and writing . . . we'll give it

a go. So that was the first time a large group

of people had gotten together in this city con-
cerning the conduct of an open school.3

The day following this mass gathering the city
newspaper reported it announcing that the school admin-
istrators would appoint a parent advisory committee to

work with them in designing the proposed school.4

 

lKaren Daniel interview, February 22, 1974.

2 3

Ibid. Ibid.

4Louis A. Morrissey, "New Parent Panel To Be
Named," Journal (March 21, 1972).

 

71

Reference to this meeting appeared in the school board
minutes of March 22 when two members of a citizens'
group spoke before the board. This group, Save Our
Schools (SOS), was known in the city as Opposed to
school busing for integration of the public schools.1
One of these citizens, the president of SOS, asserted
that if any new school were established it should be
a strict one for troublemakers. The other SOS member
Opposed introducing any new school plan by an "indi-
vidual or particular group in the schools other than
the PTA, PTO. . . . "2 This Opposition view printed
in the newspaper was recalled by Karen Daniels:

I remember reading one particular article . . .

about a parent who was opposed to it [open

school]. . . . The Opposition was something I

was able to agree with . . . because if you can

have an open school, you can have a vocational

school . . . a school that is just for children

who are behavior problems and that kind of thing

. . . whatever you want. The sky is the limit.

I don't believe in the specialization of edu-

cation necessarily.

Members Of the board meeting responded to this

Opposition explaining that (l) the idea Of the proposed

school was introduced by a group of parents, (2) the

 

1Louis A. Morrissey, "SOS Against Proposed 'Child
Learning Center,'" Journal (March 23, 1972).

 

2"Official Minutes of the Meeting: March 22'
1972," p. 254b.

3Karen Daniel interview, February 22, 1974.

72

schools belong to the parents not to the school admin-
istrators, (3) "it is our desire to provide a type Of
education that the parents of this community would like

1 and (4) the idea for

to have their children Obtain,“
the school was just a proposal which needed much further
study according to certain stipulated guidelines before
the board could make any recommendations regarding it.2
The negotiating committee announced a second
general mass meeting for which notices were sent home
with the elementary school children. The newspaper
publicized this meeting in an article stating that the
purpose Of the meeting was to solidify the support for
the proposed school and to establish "an advisory com-
mittee to work with the school administrators in
designing the proposed center and to set up sub-

3

committees to study" problems connected with the

functioning of the center.

 

l"Official Minutes of the Meeting March 22,
1972," p. 254C.

2Ibid.

3Louis A. Morrissey, "Parents 'Rally Set on
Learning Center,'" Journal (April 7, 1972).

 

73

Many parents with cooperative nursery experience1
and other parents attended, making a gathering about equal
in size to the first public meeting. Most of the parents
were "pretty serious about the meeting because it meant
business; it meant making a decision"2 to give working
support to the open school. This meeting was chaired
by the negotiating committee--Irene Seamon, Andrew Lyman,
and Lawrence Shoreham. They divided people into eight
groups according to junior high areas.3 Each group
chose a chairman and an alternate to be sent as a
representative to form a parent advisory committee to
the board of education. This advisory committee became
known as the steering committee for the parents group
then being called the Committee for Alternate Schools.
The steering committee replaced the negotiating committee
whose three members continued working with the school

board as members of the steering committee.

Sub-Committee Organization

 

Parents at this mass meeting signed up to work

on sub-committees such as student selection, parent

 

1'"I saw a lot of familiar faces-—a lot of co-op
parents. I'm sure most of the co-Op parents who lived
within the city or had had past experience with co-Op
were there." (Karen Daniel interview, February 22, 1974).

2Ibid.

3Phyllis Hoffer interview, February 22, 1974.

74

involvement, curriculum design, publicityl transportation,
staff selection, and evaluation. Some sub-committees
were eliminated and others were added as needs changed.
These sub-committees worked through the spring and
summer of 1972 making reports to the steering committee
and preparing position papers which were concise state-
ments of philosophy and goals of the task area being
dealt with. The steering committee2 informed all the
parents interested and working on the various committees
through the chairmen of the eight regional groups and
through the sub-committee chairmen. The regional chair-
men and sub-committee chairmen "would report back to
their groups and sub—committees to let these parents
know . . . what was happening"3 and "to answer questions

in a small group setting."4

 

1As part of the publicity for the open school a
television show was narrated by two cooperative nursery
consultants using "parent-child nurseries and focusing
on differences between traditional settings and Open-
classroom learning-center setting. The TV show was broad-
cast two or three times." (Dana Killarny interview,

July 13, 1974)

2Steering committee meetings were open to any
peOple interested in attending. SO some parents found
themselves "going both to the steering committee meetings"
(Ibid) and to their sub-committee meetings although they
didn't vote in the steering committee meetings unless they
were bona fide members.

3Jane Masters interview, March 8, 1974.

4Lawrence Shoreham interview, April 26, 1974.

75

The student selection committee working with the
steering committee and the board began to prepare a
computer lottery as a means of selecting 200 students
out of the large number expected to apply for the new
school.

In terms of student selection we had to be fair.

. . . We were advised by the computer people

. . . how to set the parameters so that the com-
puter could select on a random basis those para-
meters we fed in [to get the proper distribution
by age, sex, socio-economic mix, race, geographical
location, and achievement]. The plan for student
selection was presented by Dr. Marshall. . . . I
remember, [recounted Karen Daniel] the board laying
down some very firm stipulations with conditional
acceptance of the program. . . . Some of these I
felt were a little unrealistic considering the
failure of the city's education to be really
integrated when it wasn't that virtuous in its

own schools. . . . This school was going to be a
feather in its own cap . . . to say here was a
perfect program in terms of population represen-
tation. . . . SO there were criteria percentages,
a minimum and a maximum, that we had to meet in
terms Of the population. . . . These percentages
were to be fed into the computer for the lottery.

I remember a steering committee meeting where the
possibility was discussed that the children Of the
original members and of it those who had worked
most vigorously with the program might not be in
the school because of the random computer
selection. A proposal was suggested that Seamons',
Shorehams', and Lymans' children would find a safe
place for education, in the Open school. I took
grave exception to this because I felt that the
reason, the basic motivation for working in this
school was not one where our child would find a
safe place for education, but that the idea was one
that was worth supporting regardless of whether your

 

lIbid.

2Karen Daniel interview, February 22, 1974.

76

kid was in it or not. . . . I was not the only one
who took exception to it. So it was voted down
and shortly thereafter a proposal was made that
whatever community the school was in the parents
of that community school would automatically be
accepted and would be given choice over and above
the lottery. At that time it was Johnson School
and we felt that our relationship with that imme-
diate community was very important for our survival;
and since we were using their materials and their
building, we felt that they should be given first
choice.

Johnson School was announced as the school to
house the new program at an Open meeting held by the
school board, May 3, 1972. At this meeting a "majority

2 the

Of the board members present appeared to favor"
establishment of the proposed school with "formal

action . . . [to] be taken next week."3 Johnson was a

 

1Ibid.

2Louis A. Morrissey, "Board Favors Open School,"

Journal (May 4, 1974):

 

3Ibid. Besides the impressive amount Of community
support which the Open school had engendered, another
possible reason why the board may have looked with favor
on the school was given by two parents. They said at
the time the Open school "was being talked about, the
board didn't sound that encouraging. I really didn't
think the board would do anything about it. SO a group
Of co-Op parents got a wild idea that we have a private
kindergarten. . . . We were busily planning this because
we just knew the open school would never go." (Pam Harri-
son interview, April 19, 1974.) A public school teacher
working with the committee for Alternative Schools "told
me that the board Of education was very concerned about
these thirty or forty co-Op kindergartners affecting the
enrollment in every one of the schools where they would
have been attending. They would lessen the enrollment
in those schools by one or two kids. The loss wouldn't
have been enough to decrease a teacher at any one school
but the board would have lost the state aid money for

77

school with declining enrollment in a predominately
black community. The announcement that the new learn-
ing center would be located in six of Johnson's class-
rooms came at about the time of registration for the
computer lottery. A parent related:

[With so few signing up for the lottery] it was
interesting because you tend to place people in a
stereotype [said Karen Daniel]. You call them
liberal because they want Open education. You
feel their liberalism is a genuine attitude, but

I knew better. . . . There was behind the scenes

a lot Of concern about sending a child to a school
that had a black population in it. The area of
town that the children had to be transported
through was a concern.1

[However the parents who did sign up felt that
Johnson] wasn't a bad school. . . . It wasn't a
run-down school. It was just not handy [not being

 

the kids anyway. When you get into economics, the board
Of education is [very conscious of money]. (Laura
DOppler interview, February 1, 1974)

"This was probably one of the few times the board
faced a group of parents who were pressing for a phil-
OSOphy and concept and who were persistent in that, who
did a lot of work on it. I don't think the board would
have been impressed by any particular person's power.

. . . The thing that did impress them was not the power,
political power, but that these parents of the children
were that concerned about contributing to do something
about it . . . cared enough about it to come up with a
proposal . . . a program. Acceptance, I guess, the
support we got also stemmed from the fact that the board
Of education was and is proud of its testing new concepts.
. . . Dr. Marshall just rattled Off a list of alternative
procedures they had been testing in the schools--a com-
munity school system for one . . . which they suggested
started there . . . then saw progress in other places
too." (Andrew Lyman interview, May 3, 1974)

1Karen Daniel interview, February 22, 1974.

78

centrally located].1 It would have meant for us
taking our kids I don't know how many miles for
kindergarten for a half a day; that was a lot Of
driving. . . . Well, I accepted the fact we'd
carpool.

The problem with Johnson was it was a large school
[400 students already attending traditional classes
with 200 added for the Open program would total 600]
and you went from one end of the spectrum to
another--from Open to traditional with wholly
different sets of problems. The principal was
quitting so we could have a voice in selecting a
replacement. This was going to be great except

for the fact that we couldn't find a principal3
that could handle Johnson.4

With Johnson assigned to house the open school,
the Committee for Alternative Schools met several times
there.

We got to the point where we said "Look, the mass
meetings only serve a limited purpose. We had
enough people we felt to work with and get the
program going. . . . We started having meetings
[at Johnson] because we were talking about a
specific location and who we were going to adjust
the program to fit into Johnson.5

 

lPhyllis Hoffer interview, February 22, 1974.

2Pam Harrison interview, April 19, 1974.

3"It had to be a teaching principal. How could
you be in favor of Open classrooms when you were teaching
Bereiter-Engelmann in the same school? I remember that
question being a real hassle. We felt the board didn't
want us to have our program. The same Old run around
and the parents were getting real uptight. At one time
we were going to disband everything and not have the
program because of the board's attitude. But these
were real interesting meetings." (Phyllis Hoffer inter-
view, February 22, 1974)

4Lawrence Shoreham interview, April 26, 1974.

51bid.

79

The steering committee brought in speakers and experts
to meet with all interested parents to inform them about
Open education and "matters related to the proposed
school. We had a whole series of meetings."1 Some
of the meetings arranged by the publicity committee,
too, were held elsewhere than at Johnson in various
parts of the city. An Open classroom teacher from an
inner city school in Detroit gave a talk and slide
presentation at a church in May; a professor Dr. Tony
Milazzo, from the University Of Michigan, spoke on the
Open classroom approach to teaching with parent involve-
ment another time. The parents

. . . went from parent group to story hour group

to various other groups throughout the city in

schools telling them what Open education was,

what exactly the Open school was. Our publicity

committee worked to make the community aware Of

what was going to happen concerning the Open

school because the school administration did not

do anything like this.2

In making preparation for the school the steering

committee faced a problem with the board over transpor-
tation.

In May [the 10th, 1972] the board Okayed the Open

school program subject to meeting the transportation
money problem. . . . Transportation was a problem

 

lIbid.

2Jane Masters Interview, March 8, 1974.

80

because the board was not going to provide it.
. . . The transportation committee agonized over
car pools, cabs, busses, minibusses. . . . We knew
we were going to have parents involved who could
not afford bus transportation. We went to the
Charitable Trust with a proposal to give us money
to defray the cost of the busses. . . . They ulti-
mately gave us . . . [$15,000] on a one—year basis
for chartering busses from the MTA [Mass Transpor-
tation Authority] as a supplement to car pools."1
When the board gave its approval to the Open
school program it set two conditions to be met in order
to begin in the fall of 1972.2 The one was that the
Committee for Alternative Schools provide the trans-
portation with no help from the board and the other was
that teachers must be found to staff the project. This
latter condition was also budgetary in nature, as was
transportation, because the board stipulated that the
teachers being already under contract and needing place-
ment must be hired from within the school system. The
administrators saw no problem in finding a staff who
could teach "under the open school concept"3 because
a number of city teachers "had shown interest in the

program."4 However, the steering committee felt

differently:

 

1Lawrence Shoreham interview, April 26, 1974.

2Louis A. Morrissey, "Decision on Open School Due
This Week," Journal (June 25, 1972), Sec.
C01. 1-8' p. 35.

 

3 4

Ibid. Ibid.

81

We didn't think there were enough competent teachers
within the school system to do the job. We ran into
these philosophical problems. We still run into
them as to what extent the parents participate in
the teacher-selection process.1 I was on the
teacher selection committee. . . . My concern was
how are we going to get teachers in that building
that are really sold on that philOSOphy; to me that
was the most important thing. . . . I just felt

that we had to have top-notch staff. Of course
when we started out, we had these great ideas of
how we wanted to sit in on the interviewing. We
were told to forget it--you can write up the cri-
teria you might like us to follow but in no way

will you have a say in the hiring.2 They went
through the roof on that one because that infringes
on the prerogatives of the board.3

We had a very firm feeling about the parents having
the right to be involved in the hiring process.

Not that we wanted to see anybody's records . . .
or even their recommendations. I wanted to be able
to sit down and talk to the teacher applicants and
find out do they really like kids, for one thing.
DO they need a job or do they need a job and like
kids? Are they willing to work with parents; are
they willing to put up with the hassle that they're
going to have because the Master Teacher Contract
says one thing and that doesn't go along with our
philosophy?4

The teacher selection committee prepared the cri-

teria for staffing the Open school and handed it to the

board. The only assurance that these criteria would

be used was that the head of personnel "said he would

read them and use as much as he could. Whether he did

 

lLawrence Shoreham interview, April 26, 1974.
2Pam Harrison interview, April 19, 1974.

3Lawrence Shoreham interview, April 26, 1974.

4Laura Doppler interview, February 1, 1974.

82

or not," said one parent, "I don't know although he
wound up choosing a principal who has grown a lot in
the last two years."1

The principal chosen for the new school was

Donna Oak.

She was in charge of the academically talented
program which was already in Gardner, [the school
that ultimately housed the Open program], before
the open school began. This academically talented
program was supposedly an Open type program itself.
. . . Theoretically she was the most experienced
local principal in terms of an Open school. . . .
There are a lot Of people who have never been
satisfied with her. . . . She's got a real problem
with two separate programs to administer [the
traditional and the open] and that's tough. The
parents felt she was not particularly helpful with
us in relationship with the board and the admin-
istration and with the teachers in terms of guidance
and freedom to experiment with open situations.2
[However] we have been very fortunate to have an
administrator who's willing to back us up. . . .
But she can't do it all. She needs us--but even
with backing from us, she's not high enough in

the power structure to be able to do anything
about it.3

With the news that Donna Oak was chosen to be
principal came the announcement late in the summer,
August 3, 1972 that Gardner Community School had been

designated the place for the Open school.

 

1Irene Seamon interview, February 1, 1974.

2Lawrence Shoreham interview, April 26, 1974.

3Laura Doppler interview, February 1, 1974.

83

. . . the superintendent of community education
said it was decided that it would be more practical
to use Gardner because of a greater decline in
enrollment as compared with Johnson.1

Gardner had Space for 200 children in seven empty
classrooms. It had a very small enrollment of
about 75 children from the neighborhood. It had
the academically talented program in the basement.
It was convenient for the administration keeping

an eye on it, [being across the street from the
administration building].2 They could bring

people through to see it. [One parent felt that]
the board gave us Johnson to test us. They figured
if they would stick us way out on the north end in
the middle of an inner-city school such as Johnson,
the whole program would collapse. Well, it didn't.
SO we met that test. . . . But once . . . they knew
the program was going to be there, then they too
could recognize that it just would not work for all
the reasons I mentioned before (p. 77ff). We had
wanted Gardner early in the game because it's so
well located. The board had a hundred reasons why
we couldn't use Gardner. . . . Then all of a sudden,
bingo, we go to Gardner. Say what you want about
how we participated in that decision, we didn't as
a matfier of fact.3 It was just an arbitrary deci-
sion.

Reactions to the board's announcement that
Gardner Community School would house the open program
were mixed. While members of the Committee for Alter-
native Schools resented the arbitrariness of the

decision, some were relieved because of the convenience

 

1Louis A. Morrissey, "Open School Program Is
Shifted to Gardner," Journal (August 3, 1972):

 

2Lawrence Shoreham interview, April 26, 1974.

3Phyllis Hoffer interview, February 22, 1974.

4Jane Master interview, March 8, 1974.

84

of the central location. Others were disappointed that
a cultural and racial mix would be harder to achieve‘
at Gardner and saddened because many children in the
Johnson area would be denied the Opportunity to attend
Open classrooms. Parents who had not signed up to send
their children to Johnson now felt left out. "When it
came out that the Open school was at Gardner, everyone
wanted it. Well by then it was too late," recalled a
parent.1

Neighborhood parents were reassured because
they had been meeting with the administration to keep
the school Open for their children. Plans to turn the
school into an administrative Office building had dis-
turbed them. Although assured that their children
could go to Gardner, they now knew it to be a fact.
As far back as February, 1972, property owners in the
Gardner community were concerned about saving Gardner

School. In a news sheet, the Central Park News

 

(February, 1972) the Central Park Property Owners
Association had expressed interest in the "continued

discussion on the Open school which we would like to

 

1Phyllis Hoffer interview, February 22, 1974.

85

1

see in our Gardner School." The article was headlined

"Save Gardner School."2
That Gardner School was "saved" and very much
alive could be seen by all the parents and their chil-
dren enrolled in its new open school as they visited it
at the Open house, August 23-31, 1972. The principal,
Donna Oak, had sent notices to them for this event to
take place the week before school. She invited the
parents and children who were entering the open school
from all parts of the city to come and get acquainted.
Parents of the committee for Alternative Schools hosted

the visitors escorting them through the halls and rooms

and introducing them to teachers.

First Year Of School Begins

 

On the first day of school, September 6, 1972,
the children gathered in the gymnasium. About that
gym meeting the principal recounted:

We introduced the staff . . . and gave [the chil-
dren] a little welcome. We said they would be in
an attendance group with some member of the staff.
We called their names and had them all get together
in little groups with their teachers who intro-
duced themselves. Then they went off to their
classrooms to get acquainted.3

 

1"Save Gardner School," Central Park News
(February 1972), Col. 1-2, p. 1.

 

21bid.

3Donna Oak interview, May 3, 1974.

86

There were six classrooms, five of which were
for first through sixth grades and one for kindergarten.
The children were grouped heterogeneously in the five
classrooms. The principal related that:

We had a tremendous amount of fourth graders . . .
which we had to spread in two directions-~down
with the third and up with the fifth.1

The children were arranged in the six classrooms thus:
the fives in kindergarten, sixes in a room to themselves,
sevens and eights together in the next room, eights

and nines next door, nines and tens together next, and
in the last room tens and elevens. They all had

. . . the same range of child-like qualities that
you'd find in any student body. That was by
parent desire and also one of the guidelines the
board set up. . . . [However] it was rather
counter productive to say voluntary enrollment

and also to say the parents provided the transpor-
tation. . . . We found that [transportation] was
rather difficult for some of our parents whom we
were most interested in having enroll their chil-
dren in the program. This was a point that we made
in the evaluation process. As far as the academic
representation is concerned . . . we had children
who have some difficulties. We have children who
are very capable and would learn in spite of us as
they do in a traditional program. We have some
who are very stable, well-adjusted children . . .
[a few] who have some rather severe problems.2

[Adapting to the Open program] was much more diffi-
cult for the Older children at first. . . . With
them we never were too successful in our learning
centers. We couldn't really figure out why. We
didn't really teach youngsters how to Operate in
the learning center situation. Some of the older
ones were fairly frustrated and wanted their books
back. "Can we have a spelling book?" "Can we

 

1 2

Ibid. Ibid.

87

have a social studies book?" and so on. So we
realized that we hadn't started from there in
weaning them away from the textbook. . . . 1

Younger children learned very quickly how to talk
out their differences. It was quite beautiful to
watch. Their solutions were sometimes in need of
a little arbitration. . . . Their arbitrating
sessions were rather lengthy and wordy, but the
process was there. . . . It's a process they will
certainly develop as they get Older.2

Many times Older children don't want to . . .
accept this kind Of responsibility. It's much
easier if the adult in the situation lays down

the rules and makes the final decision when the
rule is broken. The most difficult thing for them
to understand in their relationship with me was
when I said, "Well I'm fairly disgusted with this
whole thing, and I'm not going to decide how to
settle it. Let's just sit down for a while and see
if we can come up with some mutually acceptable
solutions." This kind of threw them because my
goodness! a principal's supposed to tell you what
to do and deal out the punishment and here's some-
body who says, "I'm walking away and not doing
this." At first the reaction of course was
"You're not doing your job." It's kind of funny
to watch this process take place, but it was a
growing process for them. The next time we came
back into the same situation, they knew what to
expect and they said "Well, maybe we can come up
with something--some solution."3

As the children were finding new challenges in
the open program so were the teachers. The principal
related:

They found the new program much more demanding of
their time than the traditional programs they were
accustomed to. . . . It was never an 8:00 to 3:30
job. Teaching methods were never prescribed. It
was never a matter of following the manual or . . .
the curriculum guide. The program was much more

 

1 2

Ibid. Ibid.

3Ihid.

88

demanding also [in terms of] . . . creativity,
ingenuity, ability to interact positively with
kids, to handle some trying situations. . . .
There's no way a teacher can walk in that class-
room in the morning and say, "Well today, I guess
we'll work on chapter so and so because this just
doesn't happen. . . . In an open setting where
children are making choices and moving around . . .
it takes more energy.

The satisfaction that the teachers get is a much
more close relationship built up with children.
They get tuned into the child much sooner and are
much more aware how he is feeling about his school
day. The positive feeling comes through more Spon-
taneously--so do the negative ones. . . . There is
warmth and camaraderie that's built up in this
situation with parents and other staff members.

It doesn't happen in a traditional building neces-
sarily. It does happen, but it is not so quickly
built; it's built over a longer period Of time.2

People who come in [to visit] who are not accustomed
to . . . an Open classroom atmosphere or the
structure don't see rows of chairs and tables.

They don't see the teacher in front of the room.
They never see total attention of the group except
in a group meeting. I'm sure their first reaction
is that this is a rather chaotic atmosphere.3

Design Committee

 

This seeming chaotic atmosphere reflected the
desire of the Committee for Alternative Schools' design
subcommittee to plan a child-oriented school by creating
a learning atmosphere based on the interests and needs
Of the children. The design committee began work on
the plan for the school in January, 1972. According

to one member of that committee:

 

1

Ibid. Ibid.

3Ibid.

89

We didn't know at first what our purpose was.

Part of the group process was defining our task.
Eventually we wrote some position papers. . . .

We decided that we would try to take a position
partly on physical facilities, the design of the
building, but mostly on the way the philosophy
would be expressed in the function of the school.
. . . I did a little research and I wrote a
position paper. . . . Then I brought the rough
draft to one of our committee meetings. We talked
it over and changed some wording here and there.
For example, I used the word pupil and we decided
that pupil had the connotation that we didn't care
for. SO we called them students because they're
self-directed in their study wHereas pupil implies
a teacher on a high plane directing everything.
The pupil is like a puppet going through the
motions. We didn't like that. Some of the basic
ideas we probably changed a little. Somehow we 1
got it typed and copied [by the end of the summer].

With the completion of this position paper
entitled "The Curriculum of the Child-Centered School"2
the first phase of the design committee's work was
finished. The next phase Of its work involved the
facilitation Of getting this curriculum into practice.
As early as the spring of 1971 before school opened the
design committee began work on this next phase. NO
teachers having been selected at that time they could
not be consulted. The parents "were trying to get as
much of the organizational stuff done as possible"3

before the Opening of school so they contacted "highly

qualified"4 consultants from Pennsylvania to come and

 

1Beverly McCall interview, March 1, 1974.

2Appendix B, p. 190.

3Dana Killarny interview, May 10, 1974.

4Ibid.

90

work with the staff in August holding a workshop on
interest center. The teachers "not being used to this
involvement with parents at that time felt very put
upon"1 that parent-chosen consultants were working with
them.

One of these consultants came back on two more
occasions in October and November to work with the staff
in their rooms. The principal usually set aside one
inservice afternoon for a workshop when this consultant
came. He also worked individually with teachers and
children.

He did some diagnostic stuff on kids with potential
learning problems. He helped the kindergarten
teacher a lot to reorganize her room. She was an
ex-co—op teacher who was very receptive. Several
other teachers he also helped with reorganization,
but a few teachers he simply was not able to help
at all. They were just not very happy with him
because they didn't feel he could help them.2

One of the problems . . . and I think one of our
biggest mistakes was, that the parent board decided
to have private meetings with him. The parents
felt they just had to know what was happening with
the school. So one night he would meet with the
staff and parents and then another night the board
would meet privately with him at the "Y." The
staff was very suspicious about what was going on
at that meeting. If I had it to do over again, I
would not have any private meetings. At that point
Of the year the parents were very upset with the
way the school had started. Their expectations

had been way up in the sky and coming down to earth
with the realities of starting a program with some

 

lIbid.

2Jean Martin interview, May 31, 1974.

91

teachers starting in a very traditional way was
very upsetting. The parents wanted to know from
this consultant just what was going on so we had
these private meetings. He wanted to invite the
principal to them. He said, "I would not say
anything at those meetings that I would not say

to Mrs. Oak.“ But the parents felt that they would
be so inhibited by having the principal there that
they wanted to see him privately. That was a big
error; it made the staff feel that we and he did
not trust them.1

The other big mistake we made when he first returned
in October. We had a big parent meeting to have the
consultant answer questions on the program. At

that time a lot Of rumors were Spreading and some

of our parents were upset with things that were
happening in the classrooms. Many Of the parents
who came were very upset and started asking questions
about specific teachers-~specific situations. The
staff was all there. The consultant had never been
put in a situation like that before. He was upset
because all these parents would take an incident

and ask "What do you think about this?" They
wouldn't name the teacher but of course everybody
knew who had a kid in that teacher's room. We
didn't handle it very well because we were an
inexperienced board. We really didn't have the
political and social skills. We should have cut

Off the discussion immediately when it became so
personalized.2

The consultant didn't handle it very well because

he had come from a school system where the parents
were not really that involved so he had never had

to COpe with something like this before. That
combination Of factors just spelled disaster--

just increased the ill-will and made the situation
very difficult. It was very very unfortunate.

When he came back the last time in November, he felt
it was almost helpless for him to come again and
relate to the staff. I think he felt there was sort
Of a futility. He had a very good relationship with
Mrs. Oak which was a strong point for him-~his
ability to work with her.3

 

1

Ibid. Ibid.

3Ibid.

92

We didn't have any other consultants for the rest
of the year. We kept thinking he was going to
come back. I really felt he was top-notch and
would do a lot for us. We scheduled a couple of
meetings with him but they fell through on our
side gne time and he was unable to come back after
that.

The design committee's work basically the first
year was pretty much what I did. Most of our com-
mittee unfortunately are one-man committees even
though you would like to think that you have a

lot Of people working on them. It's very hard tO
get a lot Of people to do a sustained effort on
anything. So mostly what the design committee did
was what I initiated or delegated.

Parent Involvement Committee

 

The teachers at the school ”had a great dis-
trust in the beginning of having parents in the class-

room Or involved."3

The job of the parent involvement
committee was to orient parents to the classrooms and
to help teachers to utilize parents' talents. Since
parent participation and development was just as
important in the minds of the architects of this

school as was child development, the work of the

parent involvement committee was crucial to the success
of the program. This committee was composed of liaison

parents--one from each classroom, special liaisons in

charge of certain aspects of the program, such as field

 

1Jean Martin interview, May 31, 1974.

2Ibid.

3Dana Killarny interview, May 10, 1974.

93

trips or cooking for the entire school, a liaison coordi-
nator, and the chairman. A liaison parent, said Karen
Daniel,

. . . was supposed to be in charge Of scheduling

the parents to come in and work, helping the teacher
about the quality of parent involvement-~how to

make it more effective, and to handle the organi-
zational matters of the classroom so that the
teacher could focus basically on the program.

. . . A liaison is not a room mother, although I
think that would be a comfortable notion for many

Of the staff members who thought of her as someone
who comes in to help with parties.1

The liaison was more than a room mother; she was
comparable to a chairman of a co-op. Maybe even
broader than that because of involvement in the
programming, field trips, resources. HOpefully

the liaison in partnership with the teacher would

be well versed enough in Open education to deal
with the orientation of the parents coming in to
assist in the classroom getting them philosophically
in line to support the teacher and facilitate the
program. Orientation could help make their approach
to the program and the children as consistent as
possible.2

[In terms of improving the quality of parent
involvement] there was not complete agreement

among the liaison parents. One group Of people
like Dana Killarny saw the parent involvement in
the school as an integral part of the Open program
in the education of their children. Other parents
felt that the Open program's first obligation is to
the child with the parent as more of a helper--to
raise money. They met together with the principal
to talk about the involvement of the parents.

[As chairman of the parent involvement committee
the first year of school] I was able to make myself
heard at least Officially enough so that she
realized that possibly parents even though they've
enrolled in the school do vary philosophically and

 

1Karen Daniel interview, February 22, 1974.

21bid.

94

that we can't just have a program for kids. If
we're going to have parents in the program, we
have to deal with them just as seriously as we do
the children.1

I felt that the parents were sort of left out in
the wilderness without support from the staff.
The kind Of support and rapport between teacher
and parent that was and is the rule in co-Op is
so important for an open interchange of ideas and
involvement between teacher and parent. We don't
get that rapport by having opposite poles talking
at each other and not with each other.2

Because parent involvement was not a built-in

commitment by the staff to the program, the teachers3

had to be convinced. When the convincing is directed
to the staff by the parents rather than to the parents
V by the staff, "it's really tough. We didn't have the
commitment from the tOp on down . . . that we do in
co-Ops. We [were and] are working the back door kind
of thing," stated Karen Daniel, parent involvement
chairman the first year.4 For orientations at the
beginning of the year she continued

. . . you went into the classrooms and sat around
while the teachers talked at you. They told you
very pragmatic specific things that are going on.
You signed up to work. NO one dealt with what
happens when a child comes up to you for help
with multiplication or when Johnny hits somebody.
Such situations call for some response and a
quality of involvement and interaction. What is
the Open thing to do? Parents need to know the
guidelines. These meetings were not what I would
call real orientation in terms of becoming
acquainted with the meat and potatoes of stuff

 

l 2

Ibid. Ibid.

3 4

Ibid. Ibid.

95

that goes on in the classroom. That was the
situation . . . the first year, and I felt there
were some things we could do to alleviate it.

The parents needed to be introduced to the class-
room and informed how they could be effective--
what kind of interaction is expected from them--
and not given just a list of the don'ts.l

By the end of the second year of school the
parent involvement chairman, Dana Killarny, could say
the teachers had

. . . found out that parents are indeed capable
and had been moving in the direction that if they
are capable, it's okay for them to be involved in
the education program. Now I think the staff is
almost to the point as it is in co-Op--if you're
a parent, you're Okay. That's a long way to go in
respect to parents--from qualified acceptance to
complete acceptance. In other words just because
you're you, it's okay. So you come in, even if
you make mistakes; we can grow together; we can
work together. For a long time we got the defi-
nite feeling . . . that we weren't really wanted
at all. That was at the very beginning; then we
were wanted if we were skilled. Now it's suf-
ficient to be a person--everyone has skills and
qualities that we need to at least respect. No
parent is going to damage the over-all atmosphere.
We're not going to have too many of those parents,
and we can cope with that. I know a few parents
have been asked not to work and to leave. It
makes me very very angry.2

In co-Op we don't have that [asking a parent to
leave]. We don't have that at all. At co-op
staff meetings I have to deal a lot with what do
you do when mothers hit their own children. I
don't ever think I've ever heard a teacher say she
didn't want a parent to come at all. Sometimes a
teacher might have been very justified because a
parent can be very negative in a classroom. It's
hard to deal with this situation--how to make
parents feel more wanted and more skilled.3

 

lDana Killarny interview, May 10, 1974.

2 3

Ibid. Ibid.

96

Toward the end Of the second year the principal
viewed parent involvement as

. . . absolutely necessary for the teacher to work
with the children in the way in which they like to
and in order for the children to have as varied a
learning experience in any one day as we would
hope they would have. Teachers are very aware

of the fact that parents are a resource for them.
Unfortunately we can't get them [the parents] all
involved the way we'd like to because Of the many
difficulties in earning a living and keeping a
family going. We do wish we could make more use
of them.1

To discover and make available parents' talents
for the enrichment Of the program, parent involvement
questionnaires were filled out by the parents at the
beginning of the year. The parent committee in charge
transferred the information from these questionnaires

2 in the

to a card file called "the Helping Hand"

principal's Office. A teacher needing a resource person

in a certain curriculum area could go to this index to

find a parent with the particular ability or talent

and contact him "whether the child is in that teacher's

class or not."3
Most of the parents, however, worked with the

teachers and the children in the classrooms of their own

child. They came in and knitted or cooked with the

 

lDonna Oak interview, May 3, 1974.

2Jane Masters interview, March 8, 1974.

31bid.

97

students and were "not necessarily under the direction

1

of the teacher." They assisted in whatever interest

centers the teacher felt she needed extra help in and

had "quite a bit of influence on deciding how the day-

to-day educational activities were carried out."2

Parents and others coming in to the school from the
surrounding community enriched the program by sharing
their knowledge of meteorology, origami, glass bottle
cutting. Interest centers not devoted to those par-
ticular skills of reading, writing and computing,
broadened children's understanding of money, dinosaurs,
Spanish, stitchery. One parent said:

Lots of classrooms, I think, are doing stitchery,
various kinds of embroidery, knitting, crocheting.
As I sit out in the hall with a knitting group,

I have kids from all the Open classrooms coming by
and asking if they can sit down and learn to knit
from me. Being only one person and having enough
interest in one classroom to involve me, I can't
take them all. My hope is that I can teach a few
Of them and then they can go around and teach the
others.3

One parent that could crochet came in, sat, and

crocheted with the kids regularly. She got some
of the boys doing the most gorgeous work that I

have ever seen--girls, too. But I think that

 

1Laura Doppler interview, February 1, 1974.

2Blythe McCall interview, March 1, 1974.

31bid.

98

having boys crochet is really super. She felt
comfortable with that. The parents have freedom
to choose in the classroom that I'm in.1

It's very important that the teachers be very
accepting Of parents, and I have found them to be
[said one parent toward the end of the second
year].2
Culture Differences Committee
Acceptance of minority parents and children was
also a matter of growth at the Open school. Late in
the fall of 1972 racial concerns were beginning to
mount as minority parents were becoming more and more
concerned "about whether there was subtle discrimination
in the school."
For many of the teachers and parents there was a
lot of education necessary in terms of how do you
deal with the self-concepts of minority children;
how do you Optimize them. . . . In December, 1972
[related a parent] we had a major confrontation.
I don't think that's the right word. Our minority
parents became very upset that their concerns were
not being represented in the school. The teachers
tended to sweep them all under the rug and say
"let's not even talk about it."3
This of course was not working out, so the question was

how to bring positive minority concerns into the class-

room.

 

Laura Doppler interview, February 1, 1974.

2Blythe McCall interview, March 1, 1974.

3Jean Martin interview, May 31, 1974.

99

These minority problems climaxed at Thanksgiving
time when a program at school was so white oriented
that minority parents raised Objections. They pre-
sented:

the parent board with a list of concerns at the
next . . . meeting in December [recalled Jean
Martin]. We didn't handle it very well at the
time because we were new at this whole thing.

I got very upset and angry with some of the alle-
gations because I didn't feel they were fair.
Their concerns were all legitimate.1

I remember they accused (or the implication was
certainly there) the teachers, the white parents,
the principal, and anybody who wasn't a minority
group member of being insensitive. Some people
quarrelled with that designation. They said, ”We
think we're as sensitive as anybody; it's just
that we're not aware." They, [the minorities]
said, "Well, that's what we mean; you're not

as aware. Insensitive is one word you can use
to mean unaware?Ir Somebody checked the dic-
tionary and sure enough--they wanted to make
that point.2

 

There were a few allegations I felt were unjustified
but basically we had not confronted the question of
how do you deal with minority concerns and how do
we develop minority and cultural appreciation in

the school. A number of us got angry . . . and

our minority parents went away feeling turned down
by the board.

A lot of us were very upset for a month about the
whole minority question. . . . There was strong
emotional feeling running at the time. Subse-
quently because this was a serious problem, a
very serious problem, the cultural committee was

 

1Ibid.

2Blythe McCall interview, June 14, 1974.

3Jean Martin interview, May 31, 1974.

100

established to . . . face the problem and do some-
thing about it. Our school has come a long way
since then as a result of this Cultural Differences
Committee.1

Now the culture committee is working extremely
graciously with the whole staff. We've had a lot
of black kinds of things going on--African units--
lots of excitement in this area although in the
beginning the teachers were in Opposition to this
kind of thing . . . professional should understand
human nature enough to deal with over-reaction, so
that instead Of closing the door maybe they should
Open it wider.2

'One of the things that the cultural committee
helped with was the celebration of the Christmas season,

. . . so that parents came in and shared all the
holiday things that were possible with all the
ethnic groups instead of just the traditional

Santa Claus, Christmas tree atmosphere. A second
thing in February, we had a parent-student inter-
national potluck to which parents brought dishes
representative of various cultures. Our entertain-
ment was through various ethnic groups in the city.3

I'm sure our school has a long way to go in this
respect of inter-cultural acceptance, but at this
point the minority parents and white parents are
working together to improve the school.‘ This
[second] year there has been no problem at all.4
One parent whose husband is a teacher in the
public schools reported that he told her after visiting

the Open school the second year that he found the spirit

 

lIbid.

2Dana Killarny interview, May 10, 1974.

3Donna Oak interview, May 3, 1974.

4Jean Martin interview, May 31, 1974.

101

between the races and the inter-racial atmosphere more

relaxed at this school than at any other school he

knows of in the city.1

[One reason we sent our child to the open school]
was we are in an integrated neighborhood and we
felt that the Open philOSOphy is Open to all
cultural and ethnic backgrounds. It's very
important to know how other people live, to accept
them no matter where they live, what sort Of a
house they come from. In today's materialistic
society, to so many people, how much you make and
what you do for a living and what kind of house
you live in is the ultimate.2

I think we at least have to get these kids back
down to really important things. At the Open school
they are exposed to other colors and cultural
backgrounds and different sounding names that are
not the American Johnson, Smith, Anderson. Things
I had to go through as a child not having a normal
common everyday name and having to explain what it
was--the background and why it was that way. At
the Open school they accept it knowing that family
is from another country and not thinking it's
funny. The cultural aspect--they seem to be much
more aware of going to and studying at the art
institute or the museum, becoming comfortable
going to these places that I want them to get so
used to it that it becomes an everyday situation.
They can feel it's still special but feel com-
fortable when they go, not overwhelmed by the size
of the building and everything so they can learn
something from it.3

 

1Holly Martin interview, March 29, 1974.

2Midge Sommes interview, March 29, 1974.

31bid.

102

Goals Committee

 

A major problem confronting the school the first
year was philosophical, relating to goals——what is the
meaning of Open education and a child-centered cur-
riculum?

The parents had their goals but they were floating
around in their head. The staff would say it's
philosophy not goals (that the parents were voic-
ing.1 [A goals committee was formed which together
with] just about the whole parent board met at the
chairman's house. We met Thursday nights for
board meetings, Tuesday nights for goals every
single week--quite an undertaking! Some of the
teachers came too . . . Mrs. Oak came once or
twice but most of the staff was not involved
generally. . . . We hammered out a set of goals
because our feeling was that we were talking
around and around issues with the staff. We
couldn't come to any agreement. We felt as long
as we didn't have a concrete set Of goals how
could we really even talk with them and try to
express ourselves.2

We argued hours over one word; we're not profes-
sionals used to writing goals slipping off our
tongues.3 It took us months. we started in
January and worked through till May practically
every week.

We developed the goals and presented them to the
staff. Then we had two or three meetings with
the staff where we sat down and discussed the
goals. The principal spent one whole weekend--
at Easter time, writing goals. She came up with
a counter set which we discussed at length. We

 

lIrene Seamon interview, February 1, 1974.

2Jean Martin interview, May 31, 1974.

3Dana Killarny interview, May 10, 1974.

4Jean Martin interview, May 31, 1974.

103

used her goals as a working paper to develop our
final set on which the staff and parents could
agree. We sat down together. Sometimes we'd
spend an hour on one goal, we agreed with. It
was a compromise for the staff and parents because
it was not an ideal set of goals that each of
would espouse. We took them to the board of edu-
cation and asked them to pass them for our school
so that in future years we could always say, "Well
look, we've got this set of goals you agreed with.
This is what we're trying to accomplish."1

[As a result of writing these goals] the parents
and teachers had a great deal more respect for
each other. I don't think there's any doubt that
the teachers were Often uncomfortable in the
process. When they really started talking
philosophy, they found the parents had some deep
feelings about some things. Some of these feelings
were based on very intellectual reasons. One of
the issues that brought this to a point was
"dependent" and ”independent” learners. We could
agree on the goal of helping children became
independent learners but to reach the goal some

Of the teachers were saying you had to tell kids
what to do [advancing from dependent to independent
learning. The parents maintained that] . . . you
give kids responsibility to develop independence.
It's a basic difference in process even though
both agreed that we want the child to be able to
choose activities and to be independent."2

[The accomplishment of the goals agreement] was a
very critical point in the development Of our
school because since then we've been sort of
pulling in one direction instead of all different
directions. The first year was a very difficult
time. We're really lucky we came out of it in
one piece. There were times when we were at real
cross-purposes. This year has been entirely dif-
ferent.3

 

lIbid.

2Dana Killarny interview, May 10, 1974.

3Jean Martin interview, May 31, 1974.

104

Staff Selection Committee
Another difficulty surmounted during the first

year stemmed from the parents' inability to have a voice
in the selection Of the school staff. The issue reached
a degree Of settlement when the parents were permitted
to talk with any future staff persons that were to be
hired before they came into the school. One parent
recalled the circumstances Of this decision thus:

We had two kindergarten teachers before the present

one came last year. Rita, our present kindergarten

teacher, was the third one in one year. Before she

was hired, we almost threatened in order to get at

least a couple of people from our parent body to

meet with that teacher to have a chance to present

our ideas and expectations. We did not want to

interview because the board just got all uptight
when we'd use that term, interview.1

 

We just wanted to present a typical situation of
our school and say "Can you handle that? Can you
fit into that? Do you want to work with us?"

and then let the teacher make the decision. We
felt that if she really knew where everybody was,
she would make the choice herself. I think that
had we been able to do that with the original
staff from the beginning, we might not have had
some of the problems we had. There are those
staff people, at least one and maybe a couple who
really resent involvement of parents and feel
threatened by it.2

About the time the second kindergarten teacher3
left, the parents pushed to really get in on at
least talking with the teacher candidate so that
she would know what she was getting into.4 When

 

1 2

3The first, a former co-Op teacher, left when
her husband was transferred out of town.

4Pam Harrison interview, April 19, 1974.

105

the second teacher left, talking with the candidate
teacher became a parent issue. There were parents
who felt she was working with the kids in the right
way. There were parents that didn't think she was.
Some were in the middle of the road. Those that
thought she wasn't doing it were kind of on the
principal's side. The principal made her decision
that the kindergarten teacher was not going to be
in that classroom and the one group of parents was

determined that she was.1

The kindergarten teacher left. Since then the

principal has granted parents an opportunity to meet
with the teachers as they come into the school. The
new and present kindergarten teacher, another former
co-Op teacher as was the first one, met the approval

Of the parents who talked with her upon joining the

staff as did the three new teachers hired for the second

school year. Permitting the parents to talk to new
teachers brought almost a turning point in teacher

staff relations. Said a parent:

There was a realization on the part of the principal

that the parents wanted some meaningful dialogue

with the teachers. We wanted to work together and

there was some progress. At least we've made it
to the point where Mrs. Oak is very involved with
us in our meetings. She's almost always there
as is Rita [our co-Op kindergarten teacher].
That's the kind Of difference between the first
and second year.2

 

1The first, a former co-Op teacher, left when
her husband was transferred out of town.

2Dottie Byers interview, May 31, 1974.

106

Resources Committee

 

Because the school budget for supplies had been

set for Gardner before the Open school occupied the
Gardner building, a continuing problem of securing
materials and equipment with which to work faced all
who were teaching in the school. A parent resources

committee struggled constantly to meet the need.

A special order was put through for paperback books

and to requisition whatever was available in the
central supply building for the city schools.
Teachers and others scoured the city and their
personal libraries for any kinds of books and
texts. Sample books from companies were located
and put on the shelves for use and reference.1

The resources committee sent out a mimeographed

list of needed items and solicited donations. This
committee succeeded in Obtaining such equipment for
the school as

. . . two couches, occasional chairs, an old
treadle sewing machine, a woodworking bench,
tables, drugstore book racks, and two refriger-
ator-size cardboard boxes. . . . There was no
end to the creative materials being acquired
[and stored for future use]. Local shopkeepers
contributed wallpaper sample books, . . . an
outdated cash register, a slightly Off-balance
meat scale. Someone located a scales used in
medical Offices.2

The last week in September an ice cream social's
proceeds . . . gave each teacher $14.00 to spend
on whatever . . . was needed in the classroom.

 

lEd Peterson and Sherrie Peterson, "Parents

and Open Education," Gardner Community School (unpub-

lished manuscript, 1974), p. 19.

2Ibid., p. 20.

107

In December a book fair raised $53.00 to purchase
minority and cultural material. A February bake
sale brought money for cooking materials. In
May a school carnival . . . provided money for
playground equipment.

Playground Committee

 

There had not been any playground equipment since
the school started which was ridiculous [said the
chairman of the playground committee, a standing
committee]. I went to a parent board meeting in
April saying I would really like to see something
done about the playground--is anyone doing anything
about it? Nobody was so I was asked if I would
like to be in charge of it.2

We held a carnival in May and . . . the money went
for playground equipment. We made between $600.00
and $700.00. That money was just a drop in the
bucket when you know how much playground equipment
is. SO . . . we found out that two-thirds of the
playground was going to be taken away because of
the highway coming through. Why should we invest
all this money in a playground if we might have

it here a year or less. We decided we're going

to get something on the playground that wasn't
going to cost a lot of money and invest in a piece
of playground equipment that can with ease be
transported to a new location. So we got the
tires and Spools and the cement tile with a great
deal of effort, time, and trouble. Now the highway
department says '79 if we're lucky.

With the involvement of this playground I began
doing some research and reading about the best
use of the land there. Across from Gardner is a
big housing complex for the elderly. Investigation
showed me there is not place for these people to
walk, to sit down. They have only two picnic
tables in the parking lot behind their building
and no park benches within walking distance. I
thought it'd be sort of ridiculous if that area
around the school is used for a softball diamond
and some play equipment when it should really be

 

11bid., p. 22.

2Jane Masters interview, March 8, 1974.

108

used for a vest-pocket type Of park which could
accommodate the elderly and the surrounding com-
munity in addition to the school children who
would be using it during the day.1

The principal got in contact with . . . the physical
education department of the city schools, and the
neighborhood group. We went over the housing com-
plex and got their input to see what their feelings
would be. We got a city planner, a landscape
architect who has done some drawings. We'd like

to get some outside money funding to turn this into
a type of park area instead of just a playground
for the school children alone. Of course this is
just a dream and many years away. But it seems

to me it's the ideal location. You can't waste
this expensive urban land. You just have to make
the best possible use of it considering the fact,
too, that it's right in the pathway between the
cultural center and the new university.2

[The resources committee] talked about having
money available for parents who come in and dO a
special activity with the kids. At this point a
parent has to come up with materials by himself.
If we had some money available so that a parent
wouldn't have to take the money out Of his pocket
to buy the materials for a weaving or an art pro-
ject, there would be money to draw on. Because
we weren't successful in changing the procedure
for getting basic supplies through the school, I
came to the conclusion that fund raising should
provide money for activities that parents bring
in whether it be cooking or art, to make parent
involvement possible.3

Parent Board

 

To alleviate such budget problems for the next

year, the parent board4 petitioned the board of education,

 

lJane Masters interview, March 8, 1974.
2Ibid. 3rbid.
4

The parent board which had been the steering
committee adOpted the name O.P.E.N. (Organization for
Positive Education Now) in the fall of 1972. It held

109

April 18, 1973 to be granted special project status for
the Open school. Under this status the school's allo-
cated funds could be more flexibly used
. . . to purchase whatever supplies, furniture,
books, and equipment are necessary . . . from any
source as the need arises rather than through the
annual requisition and through normal channels
only.1
When the parents presented this request to the board
some fifty or sixty of them were present.2 The board
told them the petition would require further study.
Although by the end of the second year special project
status had not been granted, one parent felt this con-

tinuing budget problem was gradually being resolved.3

 

an election at which time Laura Doppler "became the head
Of the . . . [board]. . . . She did a . . . [great] job.
There's nobody like Laura. She finds time and energy to
do more things than three other peOple combined.“
(Beverly McCall interview, March 1, 1974) "I think one
Of the things that made us go from the first year was
that we had so many people who put in so many hours.

. . . Laura's doing it [again] this year. . . . You have
to have at least one person who's willing to be the
anchor person to keep on top Of everything." (Jean
Martin interview, May 31, 1974).

1OPEN (Organization for Positive Education Now),
"Request for Special Project Status for Gardner School,"
paper in file 1005 W. McClelland Street, 1973. (Mimeo-
graphed.)

2"Official Minutes of the Meeting April 18,
1973, Board of Education of the School District of the
City , Michigan, 52, p. 281C.

3Lawrence Shoreham interview, April 26, 1974.

110

In the spring of 1973 three members Of the parent
board worked on a constitution and by-laws for the parent
body. The parent board felt that

. . . until it was a legally constituted body voted
on by the board and the parents, the staff would
not accept its authenticity. [A parent related]
we were constantly being challenged whether we
represented the parents or not. SO we wanted to
make this constitution a formality, voted on by
the parents. We could then say we indeed did
represent the parents. . . . We wrote the con-
stitution; the initial board almost passed it.
Then we had elections and the new board completely
reworded it. . . . I'm praying it gets passed
before the next board because any twelve to four-
teen people are going to write a different con-
stitution . . . and that would be a terrible waste
of time. . . . But this year our authenticity has
really not been a problem.1

During the summer of 1973 the parent board held
regular meetings at the "Y" because the school was
closed. The board met "every week or every other week
. . . trying to get transportation [arranged for the
next school year]. Transportation has been the mill-
stone around our necks," said a parent. "We were also

developing fall workshops during the summer."2

Second Year Of School Begins

 

For the workshops, August 28 to 30, 1973, the

parents had scouted six or seven open schools or

 

1Jean Martin interview, May 31, 1974.

2Ibid.

111

classrooms. They found that most of the schools1 they
visited were not as advanced as theirs or were

. . . working from an entirely different premise
[As Jean Martin said]. But we found a school in
Plymouth, Michigan where this one teacher was
doing fantastic things and several other teachers
were doing quite well. This one teacher had
taught in Britain so we invited her and her
principal to do the fall workshop for us. These
two did three days with the staff. Mrs. Oak, the
principal, worked with them for two days--all paid
for by . . . [the Charitable Trust fund].2

The parent board that met, September 4, 1972 in
evaluating the workshop found it adequate in most
respects. [One parent board member] . . . while
especially impressed with . . . [the teacher from
Britain] was disappointed that the consultants
didn't give more Of the reasons underlying their
suggestions. She felt their ideas concerning
discipline could be disputed.3

An experienced teacher in the Gardner Open school felt
that Gardner's education was "on a par with theirs"4
(the consultants) and that they did not appreciate what

had been accomplished in Gardner the past year. The new

 

1"Oakland [University] gave us the names of most
of the schools we visited; we've tried to tie in with
the other universities around in terms of helping us
find people."

2

 

Ibid.

3"O.P.E.N. Board Minutes, September 4, 1972
(on file at 3505 Sherwood, , Michigan), p. 2.

4

Ibid 0

112

teachers appeared to have benefited more than the
experienced ones from the workshop. One new teacher
stated:

. . . that having the visitors' help in setting up

her classroom produced ideas that she might not

have thought of working alone. The visitors helped

her get the job done more quickly.1

This teachers' workshop was.completed before a

teacher strike in the city which delayed the Opening of
Gardner that fall of 1972. When the school began after
the strike, the children found that a new classroom had
been added making a total of seven rooms now available
to them. The enrollment in the regular or traditional
classes had dropped because among other reasons several
Of the traditional students were now attending the open
classes. The children also discovered that pairs of
classrooms had been joined by having doors cut through
the walls between them so that the rooms were organized
for the second year thus: a kindergarten room; a pair
Of rooms for grades 1, 2, and 3; one room for grades 1,
2, and 3 adjoining through the newly cut doorway, a room
for 4th, 5th, and 6th grades; and a paired room for
grades 4, 5, and 6. One Of the two new teachers hired
for this latter room.was a male and a black. A husband

and wife team worked in the paired set of rooms where

lst, 2nd, and 3rd grades were joined with the 4th,

 

Ibid.

113

5th, and 6th graders, the wife teaching the younger
children and the husband the Older.

On the first day of school instead of meeting
in the gym as in the previous year, the children pro-
ceeded directly to their classrooms. For a kindergartner

. . . the way the first day started was kind of
neat [told his mother]. My husband took Jerry to
school . . . and we kind of wondered how he would
do going into a brand new group. [We had been in
co-Op for two years.] But it was just so beautiful
because Rita, [the co-op kindergarten teacher], was
able to focus her attention on the children. . . .
It was so different from when I had taken my Oldest
son to his first day at kindergarten [at another
school] where the teacher was so concerned with
what was happening with the parents and how they
would perceive her that the children were on a
lower level as far as her consideration. It was
like "Here's your name tag; go in and get your seat
in the circle while I reassure your parents." My
Oldest son was in tears. He just couldn't quite
handle that. Rita that first day of school was
sitting in the corner with her guitar and as the
kids came she just kind of included them like she
had been there a hundred times with them before

. . . later she said . . . my business was with

the children. . . . There was not one child that
whole day that cried being sent to kindergarten.1

For an upper grade child who had the black
teacher, the first day of school affected him thus
according to Irene Seamon, his mother:

He came home the first day with "Oh, I just love
Mr. Aaronson." He's a marvelous marvelous man.

SO Stanley is very happy. He did complain that
Mr. Aaronson wasn't letting him go as fast in math
as he wanted to. We had a conference . . . and
got it worked out. Now everything is fine. He's

 

lHolly Martin interview, March 29, 1974.

the

114

happy. You ask him if he'd like to go back to his
Old school. Oh, no, he doesn't want to go there.1

The Program

 

In characterizing the upper grade children of
second year, the principal, Donna Oak, said:

With the Older children that had been here last
year we didn't feel . . . [we had to wean them
from the textbook], but some of the newer ones
still had to have their reading, math, and work-
books. They quickly went through this phase,
some of them. Some of them didn't; they're still
in that security blanket atmosphere. We also
found that the planning session in the morning
had to have certain ingredients for all children
to understand how they were to Operate. There
were still those who were left behind in their
understanding. They had to have a different kind
of agreement, a work agreement with the teacher,
whether it be a contract, or a half-hour check
with the teacher to see where they were and what
they needed to do--what help they needed. SO we
found many different ways to work in developing
this self-direction and responsibility and have
used them much more wisely this year.

The greater heterogeneous grouping of children

in the paired classrooms increased the contacts between

the Older and younger children giving the former more

. . . Of a chance to teach the younger ones and
vice versa, I suspect, [mused a parent]. My
daughter's a better reader than a lot of the

Older kids in her class, and that's good for her
ego. . . . She feels a little lacking in self-
confidence, but when the other kids say "Gee, you
read like a third grader" and she knows she's only
a first grader, that really makes her feel good.

 

1Irene Seamon interview, February 1, 1974.

2Donna Oak interview, May 3, 1974.

115

Also, according to her teacher her art work is

often praised by the other kids. At least in

those two areas she's getting some feedback from

the environment that really boosts her.1

One parent expressed regret that the sixth graders

being the Oldest did not have the opportunity to enjoy
the stimulation of contacts with children Older than
they. However, she felt that younger children being
available for them to help enhanced their learning
because teaching them makes their own learning “more
solid"2 when they can "demonstrate to the younger ones
how to do these things. It's going to prove to them
[the older ones] that they really know what they're
doing."3 This same parent remarked about the Open
classroom situation enabling teachers and students to
take advantage of field trips "on short notice . . .
[whereas] in a structured classroom you maybe can't
because you have to get this and this and this done."4

Because the Open school was within a few blocks

of the "college and cultural center"5 encompassing the

 

1Blythe McCall interview, March 1, 1974.

2Avis Rose interview, March 22, 1974.

31bid. 4Ibid.

5Open School Evaluation Task Force, "Evaluation
Of Gardner Open Program ( , Michigan, April 1974),
p. 27.

116

community college, a branch of the University of Michigan,
Central High School, the library, museums, and audi-
toriums, walking field trips were frequently taken to
these places.

They walked to the college and to Wayside Church

to hear speakers. They have been able to go over

to Central High School and watch the dramatic group
there put together the big play "Fiddler on the Roof"
and see the final production. Sometimes [said a
parent], I don't know they're even going on a field
trip until my daughter comes home all excited telling
me about it. We signed a blanket note at the begin-
ning of the year so they can get in on a few things
immegiately, that Otherwise teachers couldn't plan
on."

That not all Of the co-Op parents as well as the
teachers in the school entertained quite the same concept
of Open schooling was evidenced by these parents'
remarks:

The children are free to move around but this
teacher doesn't believe that little kids should
be left on their own to do all kinds of things.
She has a list Of kids on the board--you wouldn't
find this in open schools as such--for those who
haven't done any creative writing. She says to
them, "You haven't done this for three days. . . .
Get it done today." The kid may say "I don't
want to do it" but she says "You haven't done it
and this is something you have to do before you
run around and do whatever you want to do." I
don't Object to that at all because I have this
feeling that some of these kids would do nothing.
I've been there and they do nothing unless . . . you
[speak to them]. A lot of parents . . . , peOple
on the steering committee, don't go for that [way
Of dealing with children]. They think it's Okay
that these kids kind of wander around; I don't.

 

1Avis Rose interview, March 22, 1974.

2Phyllis Hoffer interview, February 22, 1974.

117

My husband went to the first meeting at the begin-
ning of the year and he came home just in a rage.
He said when Erin says he doesn't do anything all
day, he doesn't. SO we sat down and we said to
Erin, "You have a choice. You can go there because
we want you to go. You can do your work . . . or
you can go to [regular] public school and sit in a
desk and do everything that everybody else does and
get it done. You have a choice, but you can't go to
Gardner and do nothing.“ In the first grade the
choice is a little much to handle, but he's sharp.
He knew we meant it. We would not have left him
there. Now he's getting so he does more things.
The things he doesn't want to do he's starting

to do anyway.1

Another parent and a teacher dealing with a

similar situation:

My Kent's a goofer-Offer. His teacher does have
to say "Okay Kent, have you read today?" She has
to keep reminding him. On the days I've worked
[in the classroom] I'll say to him "Let me see
your lesson plan." I'll see where he's maybe
missed a couple centers and I'll suggest going
over and seeing what's going on over there. I
think it's going to take time for these kids
going from kindergarten to first grade. They're
being held responsible for so much more. Kent's
big thing is reading and math. Getting him to go
to those other interest centers is kind of diffi-
cult, sometimes. He loves the games center,
reading, math, and games. His teacher has to
really know what's happening with all those kids.
She encourages them to find something interesting
to go and check out at such and such a center.

. . . I feel as time goes on he's going to find

new interests.2
Parent Involvement
Dealing with these somewhat divergent feelings

about open education among both parents and teachers

 

lIbid.

2Pam Harrison interview, April 19, 1974.

118

was the function Of teacher education (workshops and
inservice training) and of parent education in the

Open school. The second-year parent education chairman
said:

I wish we could really focus on some parents' and
teachers' interaction as it relates to school and
child development. . . . I think the one hot issue
we had this year about swearing might not have
happened had there been some continued kind of
preventative parent education [initiated by the
staff].1

Donna Oak [the principal] is a wonderful gal to

work with. For her first human relations day in

the fall dealing with values clarification and

the last one in the spring, she invited the

parents. This . . . I admire her for. We did a
transactional analysis at the last meeting and
interestingly enough the leader gave as an example,
swearin . Transactional analysis is a very positive
approacE to the problem. The parents were com-
fortable with it. I hOpe the teachers are becoming
more comfortable with it because it's still very
hard for teachers not to send kids to the principal's
office. [They seem to feel] if a kid does something
wrong he should be punished for it. You don't hit
him any more but you've got to make him sit or
something. You just can't really let him Off the
hook. SO there's some very basic kinds Of dif-
ferences in these areas. I think the teachers are
becoming much more skilled in avoiding these prob-
lems. Some teachers are more skilled than others.

I wish we could make considerable improvement with
parent education, but I really don't think the
skills are there yet.2

This issue of swearing came to the attention of
the parents when a principal of another school whose

child was an Open school student attended a parent

 

1Dana Killarny interview, May 10, 1974.

2Ibid.

119

board meeting one evening, having been invited by Donna
Oak. He said the school he administered followed the

board of education guidelines on discipline1 and that

 

the open school should, too, shouldn't it?

Donna Oak said, "Yes, we did. We indeed did send
kids home. We had suspended kids, and we had
paddled kids." This surprised the parent board
members [related a parent]. We didn't know this
was happening. We talked about when you're
respecting children, they're inclined to respect
you back. Parents should not be held responsible
for their children's behavior in school. We know
that all Of our children maybe do things that are
inappropriate. We talked about the double
jeopardy kind of thing. We had experienced some

 

1Swearing was not the only problem. This parent
said, "My son comes home and he tells me there's a . . .
lot of violence going on. One boy has brought cigarettes
to school three days in a row; another boy urinated in
the wash basin of the bathroom. What are you people going
to do about this? This is terrible. Are we raising a
bunch Of kids to be respectful of their elders? do the
right thing? and have good values? . . . or are just
letting them do what they want to do regardless Of any-
body else's rights and feelings?"

"This guy came twice and nothing has really ever
been done, but he hasn't been back. . . . It's funny how
these things come up and an individual or group airs what
they [sic] have to say. Sometimes really no action is
taken but just to be able to have the chance to come
before a body of so-called official people and . . .
[talk about it] seems to be enough. . . . I think Dana
and a couple of other people were sure that kids were
just acting like kids. If they don't do it overtly the
way it comes out in the Open school, they do it covertly
as in a traditional school, but it's there. Kids are
going to write four-letter words on bathroom walls no
matter where they are. It might be better to have it out
in the Open where it can be dealt with and channeled
rather than have it hidden so that whenever you open up
a textbook the first word on the page is--whatever it
might be. After kicking these ideas around for a while
and hearing people's feelings whether or not better
guidelines for students and teachers were needed, we
wound up doing nothing." (Blythe McCall interview,

June 14, 1974).

120

teachers who would be comfortable letting parents
put the screws on kids after they had gotten in
trouble in school. I'm inclined to say to a child,
"It must have been rough. Now that you know the
rules and what's expected, it'll be easier from now
on." In other words try to be helpful to him
instead of to punish. I think that's a very basic
thing--to help children know what to do instead of
punishing them for what they do wrong. There's a
distance to go in school with that attitude. I
think from the whole parent board that evening we
only had a couple of members who would not be
comfortable with that.1

It was almost amazing that night that our principal
would say to parents "what do you expect us to do?"
I have to respect a faculty who would say that.

In a way, if I were in that position, I wouldn't
necessarily say that. I'd say "you view positive
guidance in one way; I'm sure there are as many
ways to be positive with children as there are
children--because interactions are different.

You told me you wanted positive guidance. Now

this is the way I view it."2

One suggestion came from that meeting, to set some
guidelines, but that was never done unless the
staff's done it independently. It wasn't done with
the parents because I would have known. That sug-
gestion was made by the parents3 and some of the
teachers thought it would be a good idea, too. I
really spoke out against that. I interpreted the
suggestion for guidelines to mean a code similar

 

lDana Killarny interview, May 10, 1974.

2Ibid.

3The parents who had wanted guidelines were more
in accord with Dana Killarny than she realized at the
time. They had wanted guidelines that spelled out
feasibility and such principles as teachers being accept-
ing, positive, warm, and individualized--guidelines that
focused on teacher behavior rather than on child behavior.
Both the parents and Dana were uncomfortable with any
guideline that would set a "specific punishment to a
specific 'crime.'" (Dana Killarny interview, May 10,
1974 and Blythe McCall interview, June 14, 1974)

121

to the board of education guidelines-~certain
punishments for certain Offenses. I learned later
that the parent was referring to a previous piece
of work parents had worked on before the school
Opened. The parents' guidelines dealt with class-
room atmosphere, positive adult attitudes, and
helpful techniques. I said some children you should
ignore. Some children do it for shock value. Some
children had never done it before and ignoring
might be the best policy. SO I could . . . never

. . . be comfortable with setting one rule of
punishment for one misdemeanor. That's kind of

the way the board of education's guidelines go.
Well, sure, we're Operating under the board of
education, but we're trying to get some flexibility
in those areas Of discipline.

We did get flexibility this year [1973-1974] with
scheduling. We have made recommendations that we
get more flexibility with learning and with hiring.
[The school board] allows flexibility in scheduling
to the extent that we had a total of hours that
complied. SO we cut out of the noon hour thirty
minutes. But we want to go further. We would

like to have a community day for example when the
children go on field trips under volunteer super-
vision.2 We might not be able to have that because
of the contract. A grievance can be charged against
the teachers by a teacher in a completely different
school even if our teachers are happy with it. If
I'm not mistaken teachers only have to go to one
meeting in the evening a semester. Well, I can just
see any parent education [being accomplished with
that restriction].3

I'm parent education chairman and I don't want
parent education as an autonomous kind of thing;

I want teachers involved, too. They must be com-
mitted to it. I can't organize the parent edu-
cation program; I'm only a parent and I wait for
them to take more initiative than they do. We have
a long way to go, but I don't want to sound critical
because we are so much further along than any Of

us have ever experienced before [in a public
school].4

 

lDana Killarny interview, May 10, 1974.
2Ibid. 3Ibid.
4

Ibid.

122

Partnership--Parents and Teachers

 

. . . The partnership kind of thing is growing.
Their [the teachers'] trust that the parents can
really work academically with kids reading and so
forth is growing. [Parents working academically
with children] . . . wasn't an easy-come-by
decision. If we let the teachers know when we
want to come in so that it doesn't upset previous
plans we can do anything we want with the children.

At first the situation wasn't quite that Open.

The teachers had said you can come in every other
week in the afternoon, e.g. Their directive was
very interesting reading-~about when we could and
couldn't come in. It was so complicated I couldn't
understand it. When we could come in, we weren't

to interfere with the academics in any way in some
classrooms. We would do any project we wanted with
the kids. We would also come in and help on a
casual basis, but we couldn't interrupt the academic
day. The classrooms were structured differently in
those days, so that a child really had to finish

his work before he could do special things. I think
the school is still pretty heavily oriented that
way. A child can do his special stuff in his free
hour or after he's finished his regular work.2

There was a shift in the attitude toward parents
[the second year. A parent could] . . . pretty
much say to a teacher "I have a couple of hours
Monday morning. I'd like to such and such. May

I come in?" My teacher'll say, "Yes, that'll be
fine" unless she really has a conflict. In other
words this year it's legitimate. But sensitivity
to parents; where they are; what they can do; what
they should do; how they can be redirected; and
the conversation about it to try tO explore and
become more effective--this kind of thing wasn't
happening much. I think Rita does it, but she's
had the co-Op experience that's extremely helpful.3

After the teachers were selected last fall [1973],

we met with them and talked about parent involvement.
I talked about the importance of parents in the
education of children. I got some raised eyebrows

 

1 2

Ibid. Ibid.

3Ibid.

123

because I just point blank said that the parents
were more important than schools in terms of the
success or failure of their kids. Some research
shows it. In fact it's interesting that all the
new teachers [those who had conversed with repre-
sentative parents before deciding to teach at the
open school] were saying "yes" and some of the
other teachers were questioning it. I really feel
strongly about . . . [the importance of parents in
the education of their children]. I think teachers
should know some Of these things we really feel
strongly about.1

[The teachers] . . . had a copy of our position
paper and one that I wrote about significant
aspects of Open education. They had our parent
involvement sheet. I had a philosophical statement
that the original committee worked up about parents
having life skills that can be shared with the
children. But these papers kind of go over the
teachers' heads . . . because they haven't exper-
ienced them in the past or helped develop them.
[These things] . . . take time to understand and
appreciate.

A consultant, Dr. Christopher Mare, suggested
to the parents that they listen "to the teachers' con-
cerns and express a desire to work on problems con-
structively.3 He also thought "a purely social
gathering of teachers and the steering committee
members avoiding school business would improve

relations."4 The steering committee held such a social

 

lDana Killarny interview, May 10, 1974.

21bid.

3"Steering Committee Board Minutes, November 11,
1972" (in file 3404 Sherwood, , Michigan), p. 4.

 

41bid.

124

in January of 1973 which improved parent-teacher climate
of cooperation and parent involvement. Of this event
a parent related:

I was one of the last ones to leave [the social]
and I said that I thought we don't tell our
teachers Often enough and announce that we
appreciate them for all they do, how hard they
work. I wanted them to know that I think Of it
every once in a while though I don't always say
it. [One teacher's] . . . response was "But we
couldn't do it without the parents . . . being
there and working." . . . The fact that that kind
Of expression [from teachers] comes out so
naturally and readily when comments [such as mine]
are made is an indication that parents and teachers
can work together.1

Professionalism

 

Part of the difficulty teachers had accepting
parents working in the classrooms stemmed from their
conceptions of professionalism--"that awful aura Of

2 that tends to intimidate parents.

professionalism"
Teachers aren't "trained to really view parents as
equals or partners in the educational process,"3 said
an ex-co-Op mother and present school board member,
herself a former teacher. She continued.
I don't know of any teachers college where the
concept of involvement of parents is even dis-

cussed. Unless a teacher just happens to be in
a school system where parents are involved or

 

1Blythe McCall interview, June 14, 1974.

2Jan Rawleigh interview, April 26, 1974.

31bia.

125

happens to have other experiences [with parents],
it really never occurs to a teacher [to view
parents as teachers, too].1

One teacher at a parent board meeting in the

fall of 1972

. inquired about a definition Of "profession-

alism" [because] there seemed to be some confusion
as to what is solely the teacher's area where the
parent must stay out of the teacher's decisions."
[A parent recalled]: We did a lot Of battling
last year over that term pgpfessionalism--what
does it mean. My feeling is that it's kind of a
cop-out, you know. When there's no answer you
just say "It's a professional decision."3

Eva1uation--Accountability

The professionalism issue faded as the partner-

ship grew between parents and teacher through working

together in classrooms and on committees. The feeling

of respect was improving between parents and the admin-

istration together with the board of education through

a mutual effort in evaluating the parent-involved Open

school. Evaluation had been written into both first

and second proposals the parents had submitted to the

board

ation

to establish an open school. The need for evalu-

had been recorded at various times in the parent

board minutes from the beginning of the school in 1972.

 

1972"
p). 3.

1Ibid.

2"Steering Committee Board Minutes, November 14,
(in file, 3404 Sherwood Street, , Michigan),

3Holly Martin interview, March 29, 1974.

126

The school board requested an evaluation toward the end
of the first school year when parents made a progress
report to the board Of education.1 An evaluation com-
mittee, all the parent members of which were former
cooperative nursery parents, called the Open School
Evaluation Task Force was organized. Co-chaired by

a representative from administration and a representative
from the parents, this task force

. . . was made up Of parents, administrative people
and teachers that evaluated the Open school. The
process was difficult for everyone because unfor-
tunately the project had no clear-cut measurable
Objectives. So the group had put together some
measuring tool because there weren't really all
that many such tools available for Open schools.
From the board of education's standpoint we were
not only interested in evaluation Of the school

as an open school but of it as an educational
process compared to the other kinds of education
that was going on. SO it really took an awful lot
Of very hard work to come up with an evaluation
instrument and then to administer this instrument
for an evaluation.2

The task force began working in November, 1973.
By December the group had decided to meet "every Thursday

,,3

at 4:00 p.m. and to begin reviewing the "Statement Of

Goals for the Open Classroom Project"4 which had been

 

lJan Rawleigh interview, April 26, 1974.

 

2Ibid.

3"OPEN Board Minutes, December 4, 1973" (in file
3404 Sherwood Street, , Michigan), p. 2.

4

See Appendix A, p. 185.

127

completed the previous spring. "People with an interest
in and/or knowledge of assessment materials were asked
to bring them for the committee's consideration."1 In
January parents began collecting data "on such items as
time Spent on school matters, parental attitudes and
Observations, students and teachers evaluations Of the
schools."2 The task force had prepared a parent Obser-
vation form, after spending much time on the wording

in order to Obtain "the respondents' views of actual

«3

practices. The committee gave these forms to five

parents from each classroom having the highest attendance
as aides "since the school Opening in the fall."4 In
February while waiting for "reports from several sub-
groups, including outside evaluators, teachers, and

members who are compiling students' views,"5 the com-

mittee discussed at a parent board meeting a working

 

paper entitled "Evaluation of the Open School."6
1"O.P.E.N. Board Minutes, December 4, 1973," p. 2.
- 2"O.P.E.N. Board Minutes, January 8, 1974" (in
file, 3404 Sherwood Street, , Michigan), p. 2.
31bid.
4"O.P.E.N. Board Minutes, January 15, 1974" (in
file, 3404 Sherwood Street, , Michigan), p. 2.
SIbid.
6

O.P.E.N. Board Minutes, February 19, 1974 (on
file, 3404 Sherwood Street, , Michigan), p. 2.

 

128

Identified and discussed were the reading and math
scores contained therein, the "individual statements
and entire sections in the report"1 that needed to be
"reworked for greater accuracy and/or Objectivity."2
Half the length Of time from November to March had been
taken by the task force "just feeling each other out and
establishing their relationships with each other . . .
and getting a group feeling . . . before they could
really tackle the task"3 at hand.
The evaluation committee's work showed that, in

one parent's words:

We had more parent involvement this year than last

year--the first year of the school. Almost as much

by mid-year as we had all last year in terms of

the number of hours, number of people, etc. So

that was a very strong voice impressing the board

of education. Some school board members said,

"Maybe we disagree with the philosophy, but any

school that gets this kind of involvement and
commitment from people, I'll vote for it any day."

4
Differences in philosophy between the board of

education and the parent board were demonstrated by

reactions of both groups to the outcomes of the evalu-

ation. The school board was pleased that the open school

 

1Ibid.

21bid.

3Blythe McCall interview, March 1, 1974.

4Dana Killarny interview, May 10, 1974.

129

students achieved as well if not better than regular

program students in the traditional schools of the city.1

One parent voicing the parent board reaction said:

I'm not sure if the evaluation itself really
evaluated the . . . kinds of goals that the

parents set up for the school. Instead it tended
to say whether or not this was an effective sys-
tem. I think the evaluation was looked on by the
parents as a period of time when they had to defend
the program not necessarily to prove that the pro-
gram was meeting its own goals. I was a little bit
upset about that. I finally accepted it only
because it was a survival thing. . . . 2

It was amazing to the school administration that
the parents' number one goal for their kids was
to be happy with themselves. The three R's were
lower on the list--they were important but they
were not the most important thing.3

Possibly something else came out of the evaluation
and that was that the involved parents' evaluation
was less positive than the outside evaluators.

The parents were still not satisfied . . . in
terms of seeing the program as not quite yet what
it should be. I think almost every parent who

was in the involved parent group was a co-Op
parent. I had in my own mind my dissatisfaction
with the program based on the things I saw work at
co-op. SO if I have a model in my own mind, it's
not the British Open school that everybody keeps
comparing it with. It's co-Op.

The ex-co-Operative nursery parent member of the

board of education, however, thought

 

lJan Rawleigh interview, April 26, 1974.

2Kerrie Howard interview, May 3, 1974.
31bid.

4Morris Howard interview, May 3, 1974.

130

It really was a very positive evaluation. The
parents were pleased; the teachers were pleased;

the administrative staff was pleased. Of course,
achievement scores which are not important to a

lot of Open school parents, but are one Of the
things unfortunately that the school district looks
at, were very favorable. All of the children had
made above normal growth in the school. My per-
sonal feeling is that it was an exceedingly positive
evaluation.1

School Extension Into Junior
HigH*Schoo1

 

 

Because the evaluation by the task force so
favorably impressed the board of education, board
members gave approval for plans, to establish an Open
junior high school, that a parent board committee had
been working on. A member Of this committee said:

When they started talking about the junior high,
even though we don't have any children that are
close to junior high age, I felt strongly enough
about it to know that our city needed one [an
Open junior high school]. . . . My concern for
our type Of program--I don't just call it Open
but parent-involved Open which is something just
a little bit different--has enough to offer that
more children in our city, not just this city but
in Michigan and in the United States, should have
the Opportunity to participate in this kind of
learning process.

The parent board sent an invitation to the board
of education to attend a parent meeting at Gardner

school in the spring of 1974. A parent related:

 

1Jan Rawleigh interview, April 26, 1974.

2Morris Howard interview, May 3, 1974.

131

I frankly think this meeting was of great sig—
nificance. It was just a simple little meeting

but several board members and administrators were
there; Jan Rawleigh [the cooperative-nursery-parent
board member] was there. Mr. Glenn Enos [our guest
speaker] from Minneapolis talked about the Southeast
Alternatives Program there. He was talking about
those Open schools. I think he had a great deal to
do with the board members' enthusiasm, their
questioning. Suddenly they began to say "You know
they might have something here coming from Minnesota
so enthusiastic." People had been really opposed

to what we were doing at our Open school in the
past; the board had been lethargic to say the least,
but it became enthused. I think there were two
things . . . [awakened the board]: the parent
involvement [as documented in the evaluation
report] . . . was so impressive it was overwhelming
and it didn't fade (they, I'm sure, were suspicious
that it would) and [this meeting with Glenn Ennos].1
I think [said another parent] all the school board
needed to see was that the parents were really
serious; they would be involved; and they wanted

to have a say [for not only had the board given the
green light for the junior high, it had consented

to let the parents] be involved in the hiring pro-
cess, one of the recommendations of the evaluation
committee. . . . We just pulled teeth to try to get
this. . . . 2 It's hard to give up that authori—
tarian role. That authoritarian kind of structure
is not appropriate in school.3

Final Parent Board Meeting4

 

At the final parent board meeting for the second

school year, June 19, 1974, the chairman called the group

 

1Dana Killarny interview, May 10, 1974.

2Pam Harrison interview, April 19, 1974.

3Dana Killarny interview, May 10, 1974.

4The writer's Observation.

132

to order and gave the floor to the (city) elementary
science consultant. After he distributed colorful charts
of the E85 (Elementary Science Series) curriculum, he
asked the parents and teachers what materials and units
they would be using for the coming year, so he could
order supplies.

The parent involvement chairman spoke Of the
possibility of the Open school acquiring a full-time
community school coordinator to perform innovative
functions because of this school's parent-community
spread throughout the entire city.

The treasurer reported on the O.P.E.N. board's
bank balance and raised the question Of how to designate
the account, who to assign as co-signers so that the
moneys would not revert to the board of education in
the event of the Open school being divided among other
city public schools and ceasing to exist as an entity
in itself. The group agreed that the principal and the
parent board chairman be co-signers for the account and
that it be designated as O.P.E.N. board account rather
than the public school account.

Since so much money had been raised by the
auction-ice cream social in May, the parents voted to
give each teacher a petty cash fund of $50.00 each to
use for the coming year. They also agreed to present

a gift to the art volunteer who directed the children

133

decorating the cement foundations Of the school with
brilliant and attractive primitive art paintings.

The design committee chairman reported that the
remaining Charitable Trust funds would be closed out
to pay for a consultant from a nearby university to
run a teachers workshop in August at the Open school.

After a discussion of transportation for the
next year, the parent board chairman announced that she
and three other parents were going to a nearby city to
talk with a group of parents about setting up an Open
school there. This group was paying their lodging and
other expenses. She invited anyone from the school who
would be interested to join them.

The principal and a teacher described how
expected enrollment for the next year would be dis-
tributed throughout the classrooms to give as equitable
heterogenous groupings as possible. Only seventeen
students will be attending the traditional classes next
year. Scheduling for the new school year will be changed
to afford a much needed planning afternoon by the
teachers.

An evaluative discussion followed--about half of
the group remaining to take part. The chairman of the

parent board began the session by distributing copies

134

of "Statement of Goals for the Open Classroom Project"1

which parents and staff had prepared the previous year.

Parent-Member-

at-Large:

Parent Board

Chairman:

Principal:

First Early
Elementary

Teacher:

Second Early
Elementary

Teacher:

Another
Teacher:

Parent Board

Chairman:

I'd like to know how the staff and
parents view the differences between last
year and this year in terms of openness--
the way the school is working.

Can't we start with something smaller
than that?

Let's start with learning centers. We've

~succeeded in using them with more children

this year. The children were more book
oriented last year. Some children have
been occupied whole days this year without
books. [For teachers] it's a very dif-
ferent way to Operate because Of the time
and expertise required for setting up a
learning center to appeal to a range of
interests and ages and [to offer] a variety
of subjects and a depth of study.

The children this year aren't so subject
oriented. The subject matter was more
integrated. Children could see that they
had done math, e.g., in connection with
some other activity. The teacher didn't
have to say at the end of the day, "You
did art even though you were not in the
art center." Art work was more valued.

The children took greater pride in taking
care of one another's things. They showed
more responsibility in clean-up. Every-
one pitches in picking up after themselves.

They have ability to participate in large
group experiences in the gym. The kids
can move and go without interfering with
others' enjoyment of the program.

Were there any weaknesses?

 

See

Appendix A, p. 185.

Parent-Member-
at-Large:

Parent Board
Chairman:

135

DO we give thought in the spirit of open?
The music program was a marvelous program.
The length of time each group was up [may
have been too long]. We should all think
"Is it realistic to expect kids to sit for
so long?" The Christmas holiday program
was horribly long. Are the productions
in the spirit--they've been done beauti-
fully. Do we have to give everyone a
chance to participate, or do so many
pieces need to be played by each group?

It's geared to performing not sharing
"My music."

The staff responded about the difficulty of

cutting out parts of the program with the help Of the

children. After more discussion on this topic, the

attention Of the group shifted to mathematics.

Principal:

Parent-Member-
at-Large:

Ex-Co-op
Kindergarten
Teacher:
Upper Elemen—
tary Teacher:

Principal:

Parent Board
Chairman:

We need to pursue the idea that manipu-
lative materials in math after transfer

to symbolism--the children don't need
counters. We should judge math on whether
it's meeting the needs of kids. We don't
see enough transfer to every day situ-
ations, such as when the children were
using small rug samples to carpet a

floor. They didn't know how to use
multiplication instead of addition.

I'm seeing little application where math
skills are used in every day situations.

Setting up situations like a store, etc.,
would help.

It's extremely difficult to get parents
to work in math and science and carry
through.

We would appreciate any help parents
could give in setting up math and science.

Parents could be sent to math and science
workshops.

Parent:

Parent Board
Chairman:

Ex-Co-Op
Kindergarten
Teacher:

Upper Elemen-
tary Teacher:

Parent:

Ex-Co-Op
Kindergarten
Teacher:

Parent Board
Chairman:

Ex-Co-Op
Kindergarten
Teacher:

Principal:

Parent:

136

Parents are afraid Of math because of
experiences with it as children.

Many parents are afraid to go into the
classrooms because they feel they don't
know anything.

The atmosphere should be that nobody
around here is dumb.

Anybody who comes is welcome.

Adults have been told all their lives
what to do. Let's get down and plan
together what pg can do. There is not
appreciation for my openness. It's
viewed as weakness. Teachers should
abolish rules and say, "I'm going to
give you support--support you in what
you want to do." I don't know my role
in the classroom. I do know it at home.

You can grow out of rules. In the class-
room we can say, "This is so-and-so's
mom." We can make specific kinds of
requests of parents. Give a mom a shoe-
box activity that has inside a stated
purpose, e.g., to have fun. After she
has worked with several of these shoe-
boxes with the kids, she'll say, "Say,
I've got an idea for an activity!"

If parents aren't comfortable the first
time they're in the classroom, they won't
come back. Some communication isn't
happening. We've lost some good parents--
that's grass roots. This is something

to be working on over the summer.

We could be working on specific things

for parents over this summer. Insecure
parents don't know what's expected.

It's like hiring into a new job and being
told, "Okay, you'll find something to do."

We need to know how to help parents feel
comfortable with Older children.

I don't feel confidence no matter what
my involvement would be.

Principal:

Parent:

Principal:

Parent-Member-
at-Large:

Parent Board
Chairman:

Second Lower
Elementary
Teacher:

Parent Board
Member:

More discussion

Publicity
Chairman:

137

The liaison chairman had great difficulty
getting parents to sign up.

How to get parents to find what role
expectations are--we need more value
clarification to help parents feel com-
fortable about themselves--I'm Okay.
What about a person who doesn't feel
comfortable with a sixth grader at home
or at school? [This parent's oldest

is eight.]

Maybe that person doesn't belong in the
classroom.

Older kids are truly embarrassed having
parents come. Sons don't want their
moms to come.

If your kid doesn't want you to go to
the upper el, go to the lower e1, to the
kindergarten. The lower e1 parents
could go to the upper el.

They want their own parent to be in their
own classroom in the lower e1.

My child doesn't consider I've been at
school the day I come if I don't Spend
the time in her classroom.

about parent participation.

[Gave the principal recognition for
attending almost every O.P.E.N. Board
meeting the past year and indicated that
more teachers might come if the meetings
were not entirely devoted to business].
Maybe we should be patterning ourselves
to have staff and parents discuss like
this tonight once a month next year.

Those in attendance agreed with this last sug-

gestion and the meeting adjourned.

138

Summary of the Steps to Establish
’The_School

 

 

Preparatornyteps

 

November

-One concerned parent approaches sympathetic
school administrator about the schooling her
child is receiving (See p. 48)

-This parent forms a negotiating committee of
three to inform the curriculum coordinator
(See p. 49)

-Negotiating Committee drafts proposal and
secures support base of cooperative nursery
parents (See p. 49)

-Negotiating Committee with support base present
proposal to the school board (See p. 50)

-School board asks for more specific proposal,
refers Negotiating Committee to a board com-
mittee of eleven (See pp. 53-54)

-Negotiating Committee and supporters draft
second proposal (See p. 56 ff)

January

-Negotiating Committee submits second proposal
to school board which tentatively accepts it

if community desires it (See p. 66)

139

February
-Negotiating Committee and other parents draft
questionnaire for survey Of elementary school
parents city-wide (See pp. 67—68)
March
-Survey results impress school board which gives
approval with reservations. First public
meeting called by Negotiating Committee
'(See p. 69)
April
-Second public meeting organizes parents into
representative groups and subcommittees the
chairmen Of which form the steering committee
replacing the Negotiating Committee to work

with the school board (See p. 72 ff)

May

-Board announces nondesired school location and
gives tentative approval for open school
(See p. 76)

-Board and steering committee conduct widely
publicized computer lottery for pupil
selection (See p. 77)

June
-School board gives formal conditional approval

for parent-involved open school (See p. 80)

August

140

~School board announces change of location to
school desired by parents and appointment of

principal (See p. 82)

First Year of School

 

Second

-Steering committee becomes the parent board for
the new school (See p. 108)
-Design committee brings consultants (See p. 89 ff)
-Culture committee deals with discrimination
(See p. 98 ff)
-Staff selection committee resolves problem with
principal (See p. lO4.ff)
-Playground committee makes contact with com-
munity (See p. 107 ff)
-Goals committee achieves greater rapport between

parents and teachers (See p. 102 ff)

Year of School

 

-Parent Board, now O.P.E.N. (Organization for
Positive Education Now) Board deals with dis-
cipline (See p. 118 ff)

-Partnership with teachers grows as "profes-
sionalism" issue wanes (See p. 122 ff)

-Evaluation committee reports and finds favor

with school board (See p. 125 ff)

141

-School board approves expansion Of Open school
to other elementary schools and into junior

high school (See p. 130)

CHAPTER IV

INTERPRETATION OF THE DATA

The Process of Curriculum Change

 

The change that tOOk place, as narrated in
Chapter III, proceeded in five steps or phases that
Stephen Corey identifies as "aims and aspirations . . .
diagnosis, choice Of behavior, action, and Observation
Of consequences"1 or evaluation. This chapter will
examine and interpret the data with reference to these
five phases to accomplish the purposes of this study
which was to investigate a curriculum change that
cooperative nursery parents brought about in a public

school.

Phase One

 

The first phase, aspiration, deals with an ideal
or a vision Of better conditions that the OOOperative
nursery parents had in mind. These aspirations are
illustrated in the data by the proposals that the

parents of this study wrote for their child-oriented

 

 

1Stephen M. Corey, Helping Other People Chan e
(Columbus, Ohio: State University Press, 1963), p. 31.

142

143

open school and which they presented to the school board
Of their city. The first proposal made such statements
as "personalized attention will help," "ability to
explore a wide range of areas of self-interest," "city-
wide Open enrollment will Offer a choice," "a learning
environment similar to"1 an Open elementary school in a
suburb. They envisioned a school where children could
attend from all parts of the city, where children would
be free to explore fields of knowledge unstifled by a
"standardized curriculum"2 under the guidance Of teachers
ready to give individual attention when needed. The
second proposal entitled "Child Oriented School"3
began with an Opening philosophical statement concern-
ing the creation Of a stimulating environment that would
permit maximum learning and growth for individual chil-
dren. The students could develop at their own pace
along the lines of their own interests. Each child
would be helped in an atmosphere of success to deal with
conflict and the consequences of his own behavior not in
a punitive setting but in a problem-solving atmosphere.

Children would be encouraged to work out their own

 

1See Chapter III, p. 50.

2"Preliminary Proposal To Establish Pilot Learn-
ing Center" (November 1971), p. l. (Mimeographed.)

3"Curriculum of the Child-Centered School: A
Position Paper," 1972. (Mimeographed.)

144

schedules of when to spend time with the various cur-
ricular Offerings. The committee writing this proposal
recognizing the importance Of social learning asserted
that the environment should encourage group learning
as well as individualized instruction.
These parents also described their school in
a position paper written by the design committee com-
posed at the time entirely of cooperative nursery
parents:
The teacher starts with each child where he is and
provides an environment in which he can grow in a
direction and by means that are socially desirable
and personally satisfying. The children set their
own goals within that framework and progress toward
them at their own pace, imposing their own psy-
chological structure upon the material at hand.
In this pursuit, artificial limits set by subject-
lines, timetables, and classroom walls are ignored.
The entire school and the community at large become
learning laboratories, where children engage indi-
vidually and in small groups in many differing
activities on various levels.1
Their aspirations were also apparent in the
expressions by two cooperative nursery fathers stating
that the source of their vision of a better school for
their children was the OOOperative nursery. The one
father speaking before the school board explicated that
the cooperative nursery where his child was enrolled

"2

has the motto "Learn through Play. He believed that

 

1Ibid.

2See Chapter III, p. 52.

145

this motto could be applied to any level of education."1

He said that "individualized education leads to a good
self concept. A good self concept leads to successful
students and . . . productive adults."2 The other father
stated that if he had in his own mind a model for the
new school they had established, it was "not the
British Open school that everybody keeps comparing it
with. It's co-op."3
Thus, in the words of the cooperative parents
both written and Spoken, can be seen the aspirations
that constitute phase one of their curriculum change
process. These aims were clearly defined and based

on experience that these parents had with their cooper-

ative nursery schools.

Phase Two

 

The second phase, diagnosis of the situation
requiring change because it doesn't meet the aspirations
held, is exemplified in the first parent and the
initiator Of the change process when she visited her

child's school. She found there a lack Of play time

 

. . . "Play time is very short,"4 extrinsic rewards
lIbid. 2Ibid.
3 4

Ibid., p. 129. Ibid., p. 47.

146

for learning--"happy faces,"l emphasis on quiet--"Marlene
has to talk" and first grade . . . would crush her,"2
children lining up to wait for teacher attention,3

academics crowding out the arts--"they painted twice,
I think,"4 punitive measures-~"there was some fear,"S
pressuring and competition--"he got them all right,"6
children working on the same subject-matter tasks at
the same time--"the whole class was working on it."7
On the basis of this diagnosis She was prepared to take

the next step in the change process.

Phase Three

 

This next step is choice of behavior or consider-
ing various plans of action to improve the situation for
children as an immediate goal. This parent contemplated
sending her children to open schools that she knew of.
One was a private school which would have been too
expensive. The other was in a suburb, which would have
meant an undesired move out of the city.

Later in the change process and also illustra-

tive of this choice phase a group Of cooperative nursery

 

lIbid. 2rhid.
3Ihia. 4Ibid.
51bid. 6Ibid.
7

Ibid.

147

parents (becoming discouraged with the progress their
committee was making in establishing an Open public
school because they "just knew the open school would
never go,"1) began planning for an Open private cooper-
ative kindergarten. This alternative plan was abandoned
as it became unfeasible due to the increasing possi-
bility of success of the committee activity.

As this initiating parent was considering plans
for action, she discussed with her cooperative nursery
friends their ideas for schooling following their chil-
dren's preschool years. Gradually she reached a
decision which involved working within the public school
system as the best course to follow.

With this choice which evolved while She was
attending school board meetings, step four which is a
plan for action began to take shape. She contacted an
administrator who gave her advice. She Obtained the
help of two OOOperative nursery fathers to work with her
as a committee Of three to meet with the curriculum
coordinator and to draft a proposal to present to the
board Of education. The plan of action began to take
shape as they proceeded through it becoming more
defined with the calling of cooperative nursery parents
for support at the presentation of the first proposal

for the new school to the school board. These parents

 

1Ibid., p. 76.

148

and other parents joining her was the first milestone
Of the launching road to establish a parent-involved
Open school within the public school system.
Although these parents were disorganized at the
beginning, they gradually began to function together
as they gathered information for writing their proposal
and performed other functions necessary to achieve their
goal. A unifying factor was their strong commitment to
the open school philosophy born, in the case of the
cooperative nursery parents, of their common experiences
in the cooperative nurseries of their area. Another
unifying factor may have been the common Opposition and
seeming Obstacles they faced and struggled to overcome.
Their recurrent meetings together may have had
unifying effects also. The negotiating committee of
three, for example, met more or less “frequently for
the next six months,"1 with the curriculum coordinator
and a committee of eleven or more school people. Through
these meetings the parents worked out a second more
definitive proposal for their school which the school
board and administrators accepted. They also devised
a questionnaire and conducted a survey of the parents
in their city with the approval of this public school

administrative committee. They worked on a computer

 

lIbid., p. 54.

149

lottery for pupil selection with the same board com-
mittee. When the school people had an Objection, the
parents would study it and return with another more
acceptable version.

The process of working with school board and
administrators continued as their negotiating committee
was replaced by the larger steering committee represent-
ing a better organized city-wide group of parents. This
city-wide organization resulted from the survey conducted
of all elementary school parents. The organization was
based on the eight junior high school areas. Represen-
tative parents from those eight areas sat on a steering
committee which was composed of chairmen of several
subcommittees working on specialized tasks to establish
their own school.

As well-organized and effective as the steering
committee was, it still was unable to persuade the school
people to allow the parents to have a significant voice
in staff selection for their school or to underwrite
tranSporting children from all parts Of the city to their
school. They did succeed, however, in their principal
goal of winning approval for the parent-involved Open
school to be housed finally in the building they had

originally desired.

150

Phase Four

 

The change process continued in the fourth phase,
action, through the first two years of the school as it
became more firmly established with a reasonable outlook
for a successful future. The success Of the school
depended upon the parents and the teachers building a
good working relationship. Since the parents had little
or no voice in the selection of their teachers, building
a partnership relation progressed through stages of
distrust to mutual faith. Misunderstandings at the
beginning of the first year of school grew out Of the
parents' engaging a consultant to help the teachers
who were unfamiliar with Open education and working
with parents. As a result Of a suggestion from this
consultant that parents and teachers get together for
an informal social evening, relationships began to
improve. They embarked on a joint undertaking of
writing a goals statement to which both groups could
ascribe. When they finished the goals, a cooperative
nursery parent said they "had a great deal more respect
for each other."1

A partnership between parents and principal as
well as between parents and teachers was growing. It
received impetus when the principal granted an Oppor-

tunity for the parents to talk with teacher candidates

 

1Ibid., p. 103.

151

as they decided to teach in the parent-involved Open
school. By the second year Of school the principal

was attending the weekly parent board meetings regularly.
She helped the cooperative parent playground chairman

to make contacts with appropriate school and community
people in planning a mini-park near the school. Her
relationship with the parents is illustrated at the
final parent board meeting of the second year where a
spirit of sharing between her and the parents pervaded

the discussion.

Phase Five

 

The last step in the change process, evaluation,
occurred at the end of the second year of the school.
An evaluation task force was organized which was com-
posed "Of parents, administrative people, and teachers."1
The evaluation report that this task force compiled was
favorable to the extent that the public school people
approved continuing the Open school and extending it
as well into the junior high school years. However,
from the COOperative nursery parents' perspective the
school's success was not unqualified with reference to
their vision based on the cooperative nursery school
model. For example, the parents hired their teachers

for the cooperative nurseries but not for their

 

1Ibid., p. 126.

152

parent-involved open public school. The evaluation
report made a recommendation that parents be involved
in the staff selection process, a point that the
parents had been Striving for but had not yet achieved.
The parents of this study did achieve a cur-
riculum change in a public school from traditional
to Open education with a degree of parent involvement
new to the system. This change proceeded through
aspiration of a better curriculum, diagnosis Of exist-
ing school conditions, choice of a plan for action,
execution of the plan, and evaluation of the school
program that resulted. Examining the change process
through its five steps or phases reveals certain
principles of curriculum improvement that are recog-

nized by Alice Miel and others.

Principles of Curriculum Change

 

Discontent with "existing conditions seems to be
a prerequisite for intentional change."1

The cooperative nursery parents became dis-
satisfied with the effects Of public schooling on their
children who were advancing from the Open schoolrooms
of their cooperative nurseries into public school

classrooms. These parents were joined by other parents

 

1Alice Miel, Changing the Curriculum, A Social
Process (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc.,

1946). p. 40.

 

153

feeling a similar discontent in sufficient numbers to
provide 200 children for a parent-involved school within

the public school system.

A small cadre Of parents with a wide base of
support is necessary for change.1

In the present study the cadre was first the
three parents of the negotiating committee and later
the several parents of the steering committee. These
parents initiated proceedings with the school board
and continued their work with it finally leading to
the establishment of the open school. This cadre
obtained first broad support from the cooperative
parents and second broader support from other parents
throughout the city. They contacted the city-wide
organization of cooperative nursery parents for their
first broad base of support. They secured their second
and.broadening support base by word-of-mouth, by media
publicity, through guest Speakers, a survey, and two
large public meetings held in a high school auditorium.

Support from within the power structure assists
change.2

The associate superintendent listened to the

<iiscontented parents and gave their negotiating committee

 

1William Firestone, "Community Organization and
School Reform," School Review (November 1972), p. 119.

 

2Ibid.

154

advice. Some teachers worked with the parents in writing
proposals and position papers for the new school. A
newly elected member of the school board was supportive
of the cooperative parents. An ex-cooperative nursery
parent was elected to the school board a year later to
whom the parents could turn for help. Thus, the parents
had these several sources of support from within the
structure of the public school system to assist their
change efforts.

Broad long-range goals provide unifying and

"liberating"1 purposes and guidelines for
change.2

The first proposal which the negotiating committee
submitted to the school board was a very general goal
statement. It served to indicate direction and coalesce
supporting parents into a working body capable of devising
a more specific proposal. It also alerted the school
‘people to an awareness of the kind of education the
parents were working for and caused the school board
to recommend a more specific prOposal. The parents
*were freed in a sense to continue.

Specific immediate goals provide concrete plans
and methods for attaining long-range goal.3

 

1Miel, Changing the Curriculum, p. 53.

2Ibid. 31bid., p. 58.

155

The second more specific proposal, although
containing an extensive philosophic statement of the
educational rational for the Open school, presented
details about relationships between the school and the
school board, about selection and admission Of students,
about staffing and inservice training, about curriculum
coordination, about school organization, about funding,
about room arrangement, and about parent participation.
This proposal also suggested possible sites for housing
the new school.

A coordinating committee organizes and unifies the
working elements of the change process.1

The negotiating committee which later became
the steering committee served as a coordinating body
which maintained contact with and gave direction to the
sub-committees working on various aspects of the
emerging school. It also served as a coordinating
between the parents and the school people. The sub-
committees reported to the steering committee which
relayed development to the school peOple's committee.
It also served as a coordinator between the parents'
committees and the school peOple's committee. The
school committee set certain limitations within which
the parents' committees had to work. Some Of these

stipulations were compatible with the parents' desires;

 

1Ibid., p. 77.

156

others worked hardships on them such as having to provide
transportation and not having a voice in teacher selection.

Face-to-face communication is conducive to cur-
ricular change.l

Face-to-face communication began when the negoti-
ating committee met the curriculum coordinator. It pro-
gressed to the confrontation with the school board when
the first proposal was submitted to them. Face-to-face
communication was characteristic of the continuing
relationship between the parents' and the school people
during the period covered by this study, as they worked
out the details of the proposal, the questionnaire for
the survey, the computer lottery for pupil selection,
and transportation. Parents invited school people to
attend the public meetings. Parents and school people
‘worked together in evaluating the school making a joint
report which recommended expanding the open-school
operation to other schools.

The expert, consultant, plays a role in curricular
change.2

The parents corresponded with personnel in Open
schools from the beginning. They called in consultants
:Erom universities to work with them and with the teachers
when their school opened. Experts spoke at meetings.

Itt one of these meetings to which the school board had

been especially invited the members' reactions

 

lIbid., p. 119. 2Ibid., p. 128.

157

illustrated this principle. "Suddenly they began to say,
'You know they might have something there.‘ . . . The
board had been lethargic to say the least. But it
became enthused."1

The power of cooperative action produces curriculum
change.

The sub-committee members cooperated in perform-
ing the specific tasks set for them. Through the work
of the coordinating steering committee, the sub-
committees cooperated with each other on the over-all
goals creating an open school for their children. The
steering committee cooperated with the school board
committee in the task of launching the new school.

In the parent-involved Open school parents and teachers
cooperate on a partnership basis in developing the edu-
cational program.
Participation of lay citizens in curriculum
planning and in operation of the school program
is directly related to and essential to curric-
ulum improvement.3

Lay citizens, the cooperative nursery parents,

initiated and sustained the process that led to the

establishment of the open school. They were closely

involved with the major steps Of the change process

 

1Chapter III, p. 131.

2Miel, Changing the Curriculum, p. 116.

3Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development, Action for Curriculum Improvement (Wash-
ington, D.C., ASCD, 1951), p. I02.

158

from the first meetings with the school board and with
administrators to the organizing of working groups that
wrote prOposals, devised the questionnaire, set up the
survey and student-selection lottery, called public
meetings, and contacted consultants. Other lay citizens
becoming interested joined the cooperative nursery
parents in the formation Of the school and in the
classroom participation adding enrichment to the school

activities.

“Evaluation planned and carried out in terms of
the specific purposes of the curriculum program
furthers curriculum improvement.

«1

An evaluation committee composed of parents,
teachers, administrators, and school board members
devised and administered evaluative instruments to the
students, participating parents, and the teachers of
the parent-involved open school. This evaluation which
took place toward the end of the second year Of the
school's Operation began with a request from the board
of education at the end of the first year of the school
for such an assessment. An evaluation committee composed
(of parents, staff, and administrators submitted a report
to the board of education in the spring of the second

year of school.

 

1Ibid., p. 215.

159

Curriculum improvement furthered by this evalu-
ation resulted in a decision by the school board to
extend the parent-involved school program into the
junior high school. This report also recommended par-
ticipation by the parents in teacher selection as a means
of instructional improvement.

The analysis in this chapter of the data pre-
sented in Chapter III lends greater insight into the
role played by one group of parents in bringing cur-

riculum change in one school in one city.

CHAPTER V

SUMMARY, RECOMMENDATIONS, CONCLUSIONS

AND EPILOGUE

Summary

The purpose of this investigation has been to
delineate and analyze the process of curriculum change
as it contributed to a parent-involved public school.
The need for this study stems from increasing parent
involvement in school and from growing numbers of pre-
school programs or parent-child centers in the public
schools. The review of literature in Chapter II shows
that parent involvement with schooling is an integral
part of the American public educational system as it
developed from colonial times and that this parent
involvement is not only the right of mothers and fathers
as citizens but the responsibility of the schools to
foster and encourage. The literature makes clear that
parent involvement means participating in fundamental
decisions about school policy and administration as
well as teacher-aide functions such as running Off
didrtos, taking attendance, or tutoring.

The parents who involved themselves with the
Enflolic school of this study were affirming the Often
160

161

forgotten but traditional role of the parent in public
education--that of partner working with the professional.
These parents' efforts to establish their role in the
particular school Of this study make up the story of
curriculum change in Chapter III.

In achieving curriculum change the parents of
this study overcame several difficulties many Of which
stemmed from complex factors growing out of our indus-
trial urban society. In such industrial urban centers
large aggregates of people become less and less involved
with decisions that affect their governance. City
councils and school boards grow more and more remote
from citizen control.

Fortunately in the city Of this investigation
the board of education had a 35-year history of work
with the citizenry through the community school which
had become a model for school systems across the
country and the world.1 This school board's accom-
plishments working with citizens and with parents
regardless of a degree of remoteness that Obtained
resulted in some sensitivity to parents' wishes which
was lacking in a few of the school systems described

in the literature. That the parents of this study

 

1"Fantastic is the best word to describe how
Community Education is being accepted around the world,"
in "From the Desk of the Editor," Communigy Education
Journal (July-August 1974): 4.

162

were able to establish a parent-involved Open school
in nine months as compared with three years for P.S. 84.
e.g., indicates the degree of receptivity of the school
board and school administrators as well as the commitment
and ability Of these parents.

Despite the inclination of the school people
to be Open to community needs and notwithstanding the
commitment Of the parents to their children's education,
several Obstacles had to be surmounted in achieving
curriculum change. One of these Obstacles lay in the
varying perceptions of what constituted an Open school
on the part of the school people and the parents. To
communicate with each other and to reach agreement on
concepts was the first difficulty to overcome in the
change process. The school board asked the parents to
rnake their proposal more definitive. In the process
of defining exactly what kind Of school they wanted,
the parents met together, among themselves, and con-
versed with the school people, regularly exchanging
ideas. By this communication they reached understand-
ing and agreement on the meaning of a parent-involved
open school and how it would function.

Another difficulty was convincing the school
lmoard that these parents represented a broader group
<of parents than cooperative nursery fathers, mothers,

land.interested others, and also that these parents were

163

committed enough to follow through in working with

their school once it was established. The parents
conducted a survey which provided enough evidence to

the school people that interest was widespread for the
prOposed school and warranted serious consideration of
the parents' proposal. Furthermore, the persistence

Of the parents in their work with the board of edu-
cation, in their organizing all the interested parents,
in conducting a computer lottery, and in c0ping with dis-
appointment over not getting the school of their choice,
was impressive witness of their dedication and per-
severance. On the basis Of this evidence the Open
school was established. Further manifestation of

their commitment, brought out in the evaluation report
at the end of the second year of the school's Operation
‘which showed that parent participation in the school
had been sustained and increased the second year, helped
to induce the school board to approve establishment Of
an.open parent-involved junior high school as well as
continue the Open elementary school.

The staff difficulties that the parents encoun-
‘bered.after their school was instituted grew out Of the
school people's inability to allow parents a voice in
choosing the school faculty and out Of the parents'
tuifortunate decisions regarding relationships between

consultant, teachers, and parents. Through efforts

164

by both staff and parents--the staff's overcoming their
"professional" stance and the parents' manifesting
appreciation for the staff's performance in new and
difficult Situations--they surmounted these difficulties
and fostered an emerging partnership between the

parents and teachers.

Other difficulties were encountered in working
out relationships between the minorities in the school
and the majority white constituency. The parent board
and the teachers resolved these through Open communi-
cation made possible by the parent board. This board
created a cultural-differences committee that addressed
itself to all minority concerns.

Transportation and lack of money posed continu-
ing problems for the school because the parents had only
very limited success persuading the board of education
to provide both. They secured a grant from a private
foundation which supplied some funding for two years.
This money helped to cover transportation costs when
supplemented by student fees and it paid consultant
and.workshop expenses.

Although the parents succeeded in their main
goal of establishing a parent-involved school, they
failed to gain control of teacher selection for their
school and to have tranSportation and certain funds

provided by the public school system. They were able

165

to operate in the face of these failures but with hard-
ship. Their success in coping despite privation can

be ascribed to their commitment. They knew from
experience that their school would work. They had

seen the parent-involved Open school concept in Oper-
ation in cooperative preschools.

The success Of these parents was due not only
to their commitment born of experience but also to the
backing of an organization which was common to many Of
them as members Of the area parent-cooperative pre-
schools association. They could draw on the strength
of a well-organized group of COOperative nursery parents.
Their success was also due to the ability of both the
school board and the parent group which included non-
COOperative as well as COOperative nursery parents to
work together for a common purpose--the provision of
sound education for all the children in the city.

This sound education Offered continuity from
pre-primary schooling on through elementary and even-
tually into junior high school and beyond. The parents
had been concerned that the continuity of their edu-
cational experiences that their children were receiving
in the cooperative nursery school was being interrupted
by the public school. Through providing for an elemen-
tary school that was parent-involved and that Offered a

type of learning environment Similar to that of the

166

cooperative nursery, they secured a continuity of edu-
cation for their children that they had not previously
experienced.

Such a parent—involved open school could afford
the same continuity for children coming in from parent-
involved Head Start, Title I, and parent-child center
classrooms. Evelyn Weber states "as we approach the
last decades of the twentieth century . . . we find no
greater discontinuity than that which still exists in
the early childhood years."1 The parent-involved
school of this study presents a possible remedy for
this discontinuity.

Continuity between subject matter fields as well
as between educational levels was being achieved in this
school, also. The children themselves could see that
they were, for example, doing mathematics "in con-
nection with some other activity,"2 and they "did art
even though . . . [they] were not in the art center."3

Sound education from some parents' points Of
view lay in the replacement Of teacher-based discipline
by problem-solving child-responsible conduct. "Younger

children . . . learned very quickly how to talk out

 

1Evelyn Weber, Early Childhood Education: Per-
spectives on Change (Worthington, Ohio: Chafles A.
Jones Puinshing Company, 1970), p. 177.

 

 

2See Chapter III, p. 134.

3Ibid.

167

their differences. . . . The Older ones [began to know]
what to expect and they said, 'Well, maybe we can come
up with . . . some solution'"1 when they discovered that
the adult whether principal or teacher was not going

to settle conflicts for them. "The children showed

more responsibility in clean up. Everyone pitches in
picking up after themselves (sic)."2 Punishment was

so rare that the parents were surprised that corporal
punishment was used at all. Punishment was not part of
the design for their school which was to be nonpunitive
in a problem-solving atmosphere. The goals that the
parents and teachers wrote together stated "Each
classroom will set its own ground rules . . . [and

spoke to] prevention Of physical and mental stress,"3
from punishment.

Because of the amount of parent involvement,
this school had built-in accountability. The par-
ticipating parents knew from direct observation the
progress their children were making. They were in
frequent contact with the school as they helped in
setting goals, teaching, administering, and evaluating.
If they or the teachers were not satisfied, fairly

immediate feedback could be resorted to in their daily

 

1 2

Ibid., p. 87. Ibid., p. 134.

3See Appendix A, p. 187.

168

contacts with each other or in the weekly parent board
meetings. The school sent evaluation reports home at
regular intervals and set aside times for parent
conferences about student progress. Accountability
was a natural process of daily interaction and com-
munication between school and home.

When an organized group Of parents interacts
with the schools as in the case of this study, will
the effects be salutary? Certain conditions were
present in this case that influenced the beneficial
effects of these parents' efforts. These conditions

were:

1. The parents' prOposal was based on educational
practices that had been proved effective in
their cooperative nurseries and in the British
Infant School as well as in Open classrooms

in other places.

2. Consultants in education from universities

gave advice which was heeded.
3. Research was referred to and proved profitable.

4. The school people and the parents were willing

to and did learn from each other.

Recommendations

 

This study Opens several avenues for further

investigation. How does parent participation in this

169

school differ from parent participation in other schools?
How do parent conferences in a school such as this differ
from parent conferences in traditional schools? How do
cooperative nursery parents, Head Start parents, and
Title I parents in elementary schools or in the school

Of this study compare in involvement with parents who
have not had experience participating in preschools?

How do children in this parent—involved Open-school com-
pare with those of other schools in self-discipline,
social responsibility, self-image, creativity, peer and
teacher relationships? How do children whose parents
participate in this school regularly compare in attitude
toward learning with those whose parents do not? Is

the Open school capable Of meeting the needs of all
children? What range of needs can the open school

meet as compared with the range of needs met by other
schools? Is the student population of this Open school
typical Of the student population of the traditional
school? How does the parent education of this school
compare with the parent education of other schools?

What is the teacher attitude toward parents in this
school as compared to the teacher attitude toward

parents in other schools? What Skills do the teachers
have in this school in working with parents that teachers
in other schools may or may not have? A study should be
made of the empirical data gathered during the evalu-

ation at the end of the second year.

170

What skills do the parents in this school have
in working with teachers and administrators and children
that parents in traditional schools may or may not have?

Researchers interested in the diffusion Of inno-
vation could study the process of the formation of this
parent-involved Open school for elements of the change
process through communication to be found Operating
in this study.1

Recommendations based on this study are: that
cooperative nursery parents, Head Start and Title I
parents be actively sought after and encouraged by
public school systems to work with administrators and
teachers in preschool programs; that parents with a back-
ground in preschool participation help school staff with
parent education and parent involvement programs; that
a pilot study be made and tested of the expansion into
the junior high school and into the elementary school
which houses the traditional and Open education in the
same building; that a Similar effort as that made by
the parents Of this study be made on the part of other
parents or be encouraged by public school staff for a
middle school or a high school; that communities dif-
fering from this urban industrial community might
attempt to apply the steps taken by these parents to

their Situations for pilot studies.

 

1Everett Rogers and F. F. Shoemaker, Communi-
cation Of Innovations: [A Cross Cultural ApproacH (New
York: IThe Free Press, 1971).

 

171

Conclusion

There is every reason to have confidence that
desirable social change can and will increase in
number and importance as more persons in more
communities deliberately pool their wisdom and
their efforts to secure such changes. If this
confidence has no basis, there is not justifi-
cation for organized education. The school is
one of man's attempts at deliberate social change.
Unless some control Of the process of social
change is possible, the school curriculum has no
function to serve.1

The purpose Of this study was to investigate
curriculum change in a public school brought about by
cooperative nursery parents in order to understand how
two current needs of public education are being effec-
tively met in this school. These two needs are for
expertise in involving parents significantly and in
providing programming for pre-primary children to
assure continuity into the elementary years. This
study revealed the cooperative nursery parents in one
city achieved curriculum change to a parent-involved
Open school and in accomplishing this change made some
contributions to the needs of their public school.
They evolved a teacher-parent partnership. They

achieved a pre-primary and elementary type of schooling

that assured continuity through the elementary years
and beyond. They brought educational experiences to

their children that were related to their needs and

 

1Miel, Changing the Curriculum, pp. 17-18.

172

interests and provided for parent education as well as

teacher education in working with parents.

The action that the cooperative nursery parents
initiated made possible a more democratic form Of edu-
cation for their children. They gave an alternative
type Of public school to the parents and the children

in their city. They organized and carried out a

planned democratic change process that resulted in

a more democratic school for both children and parents.
Planned democratic change such as these parents

engaged in is a desirable ingredient of a democratic

society. Individual citizens with broad vision,

commitment, and ability to act ensure the responsible

exercise of their and their children's birthright--

freedom.

EP ILOGUE

Epilogue

The following are statements concerning the

status of the parent-involved Open-school during its

third year of functioning—-a year after the data for

this investigation were gathered.

This conversation took place with Laura Doppler--

President of the Parent Board Johnson Open School,

Dana Killarny--Representative from the Open Junior

High School, Donna Oak--Principal of Gardner Open

School, and Irene Semon--Representative from Gardner

Open School, Friday, March 21, 1975 at the Gardner Open

School, Agate, Michigan.

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Johnson opened this year and the junior high opened
this year. Both of these schools were the results
of the efforts of parents.

We have four classrooms in Johnson with 105 children.
The open junior high school has about an enrollment
of 120 in the 7th and 8th grades. A 9th grade

will be added next year. Both Johnson and the
junior high programs were parent-initiated. The
junior high is funded partially through Lott.

They're still board Of education but they did get
some starter money, some "seed" money from the
foundation this year. I imagine this will be the
last year [for funding]. The director to the
[junior high] school is director of five programs:
the continuation school for pregnant girls, the
alternative high school, the alternative junior
high, the fine arts program, and the Open junior
high.

There are lots Of interesting rumors going around
what might happen next year. We want to add
another grade and that was kind of the implied
promise that we would have Open-junior-high 7th
and 8th this year and 9th next year. I don't know
what will happen the next year. I don't know if
they will become a 10th, 11th, and 12th.

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There is no Space for this kind of expansion.

And I'm not sure that the mixture is comfortable
for everybody. I haven't found it very bothersome
at all. We have the third floor. The high school
has the second floor and the continuation school
has the first floor so the girls don't have to

run upstairs.

The junior high is doing a responsible job. It's
not open in any sense the way Gardner is open.

I think they say and we say there is some growing
to be done.

Is there a parent board there?
Yes, there's a parent board.
A parent board or a board?

It's a board with staff. They don't have very
much staff input. They're working on the same
problem [as Johnson and Gardner getting staff to
attend].

Is the parent board at Johnson functioning as it
is here at Gardner?

Yes, we have between ten or twelve members that
Show up regularly. . . . We held elections but
most of the people since then have been appointed.
I guess we're a representative body by default
because many who were elected to the board origi-
nally have for one reason and another resigned
since September. We have appointed new people.

I guess about 50% were elected and 50% are
appointed.

But we run very much like Gardner board. We don't
have enough staff input mainly because it's the
first year there. We're supposed to have a staff
member at each meeting on a rotating basis so that
they would only have to attend one out Of four
meetings.

Is this because you meet every week?

NO, that isn't even the reason. We couldn't get
anybody to come anyway. We tried to get all four
teachers once a month and that didn't seem to work.
We didn't get anywhere with that so it was discussed

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at a staff-parent meeting on a Tuesday afternoon
and they decided maybe if they could just come
once a month but not all four together that it
might work. Well, we have a couple that come
regularly.

Oh, you do have a couple that come regularly--

On their turn. And then we have an orientation
committee that . . . [one teacher] shows up
regularly for. So they are involved a little bit
but not as much as we would like them to be. So
we planned a joint meeting out at the extension
service for April 10 to iron out some curriculum
things because we don't feel that our curriculum
is on the right track to becoming integrated.
There still are a lot of workbooks. Although the
principal has put a curtail on them as of last
week. They aren't allowed any new workbooks.
They've got to work out some way to stretch the
workbooks they have. SO I guess they're going

to go to plastic Sheets and not have a workbook
for every kid.

That could generate a grievance. It's basic
material to be furnished by the board.

Well, I think we've overused our supply. We've
used more than the normal classroom would be
allotted for.

We have run out of some because kids have gone
along faster than we anticipated. They need the
next one. Math is the biggest problem. We have
to go borrowing from other schools.

We traded and traded. We didn't have enough in the
building to start with. We didn't get any until
very late. Anyway we've used more than our allot-
ment. SO we have some big ideas of stretching what
we have left for the kids that are going to need
them. But a lot of parents feel that there's still
too much Of everybody working out of the math book
and everybody working out of the reading book

and everybody working out of the--

I was going to say maybe they'll get into the
creative math.

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Yes. We don't use nearly enough manipulative
things in math. That could be worked on in that
area especially with the younger ones. Test
scores are back but I haven't seen them.

Sixth grade results are very good. We are having
more Chapter III kids coming through for next year.
We'll have our ups and downs from year to year.

One of the teachers did some attitudes measures

. . . in the fourth grade about how the kids felt
about the school and about themselves. It was
interesting that both the traditional and Open
school said that they felt very good about the
school, but the kids in the Open school were way
up on how they felt about themselves as compared
with the traditional school. SO I think that was
very interesting.

The junior high is also involved in internal evalu-
ation. It's very interesting that the board of
education isn't pushing with this and are not
really involved. It was really a parent move.

I know that they have to report to Lott Foun-
dation about results but they are not directing

the evaluation. I worked with the evaluation
there.

Why is it important to have alternative programs?

I think they are long overdue. It is interesting
that one Of our guests at our meeting last week
was the headmaster of our private school, the Dale
School. His philosophy is that we Should all be
working together to plan a sharing kind Option for
Agate. He said he thinks this is the way we ought
to go. Dale is just one of the options for those
who can afford it. It's going to take us a while
because (unless we can change the board or get
Laura [Doppler] on) our board members don't
realize this is a direction people are interested
in going. And many of our Agate peOple are not
like the reactionary group who think it is terrible
that you offer taxpayers' money to those who want
other things than the traditional program. The
first year we were in operation we were visited

by this delegation who said that they did not
approve of giving Options to people.

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We have two board members who came [to that meeting]
who didn't know what direction that would mean. I
think they're certainly becoming more aware or
sensitive. You know a couple Of years ago they
might not have even come to the meeting. They are
much more aware that maybe may--be--

Of course our suggestion was let's do some long-
range planning and not wait for a crisis. For
instance supposing this summer Agate was mandated
to desegrate. I would hate to think that we
wait till that happened before we Offer any other
kinds of options.

It would really work to our benefit. We might get
transportation.

How well integrated is Gardner racially?

Last year our total minority percentage was higher
for the whole school. Some of that was because

Of the youngsters here in the traditional school
who were neighborhood youngsters. And when they
chose not to enroll in the open program this year
many of those who chose not to were black families.
Most went to Price as an Option. I don't know what
the percentage is right now. At that last count
for HEW it was 27%.

That's terrible. We thought we had a foolproof
method to insure that our minority enrollment would
not drop. We've never had a lottery as such.

We've used a random number system so that if things
didn't work out right racially, we could toss the
whole lot back and start over again. We had set up
minimums like one minority child out of three
chosen for each grade level. I think that was the
balance and we thought by that we would be insuring
that at least our minority population would not go
down. Actually we were insuring nothing because
statistically and mathematically there was no way
that that was going to help the situation. But we
didn't realize it at the time. It would have to be
two out of four or two out of three or something
much more substantial.

What would insure that they would in fact enroll?
Well, we had enough kids on the waiting list. If

we had taken all the black kids, we wouldn't have
had the problem. I think part of the problem was

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that as school opening drew closer, people got in
who weren't in position on the waiting list.

I wanted to ask a question about what was the
percentage Of black-white transferred to Johnson.

There were a few blacks and mixed who transferred
to Johnson. Our minority population is 56%.
In the traditional school it's over 90%.

We have a problem too, as to whether it is realistic
to enroll people without providing some Options

for transportation and child care because several

of the families that we lost to neighborhood schools
we've lost because of child care problems.

For example what do you do with them after school
if you work and can't get here to pick them up?

That's the one reason why I think if we are on that
list that can only benefit us. . . . It's making
Gardner very middle class if not white [not

having transportation].

I wish we could get some foundations to say OK,
we think this is a cause: we'll let you use our
money this way.

Bussing is expensive there's just no doubt about
that and it's a never-ending process. $14.50 an
hour.

Agate at this point isn't committed to that
Objective [bussing].

Well bussing sure does away with the community
school concept that says every kid should walk to
school--your neighborhood school. If you start
bussing kids, they aren't going to schools in
their neighborhoods anymore. SO it kind of blows
that image. If they don't do something with the
housing patterns, and they can't do anything with
that either, we'll have very segregated schools.
The regular Johnson population I'd say is 99.9%
black. . . . They're all as far as I know black.
But Johnson loses population every year. They're
down to 407 with us, so that's 300 in a school
that holds 500. SO they're down quite a bit in
the last couple of years.

So most of the whites that are there are in the
open school?

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Yes, it's been interesting--we've desecrated the
school by our presence there. I think it's helped
the interaction between the two groups of children
and more all the time. And we've been hOping that--
if we're there next year that we'll be able to

do more things with the traditional and Open
programs together.

How does the parent board of the open school work
with the community council Of the regular school
at Johnson?

We have representatives who go to their meetings
and they're supposed to send a rep to ours. Now

so far they have not come to our meetings. They've
been invited. They're invited every week.

At Gardner your parent board meets every other week?

Yes, we used to meet every week. This is the first
year we haven't.

Johnson's advisory council meets once a month.

SO we do send a rep to their meetings and then he
comes back and tells us what's going on. The
parents of the Open school board at Johnson have
told the council about [difficulties of the two
programs being in the same building].

We have had a similar thing at Gardner with the ATP
[Academically Talented Program] and the Open school.

The Open kids at Johnson can go to the toilet any
time they want to and the other kids all have to

go down at the same time by classrooms to use the
bathrooms. SO there could be a little bit Of
rebellion against the fact that "here we know these
kids can just grab a hall pass and walk out in the
hall any time they want to or do whatever they want
in the hall." There are those kinds of problems
with the two programs in one building. You know
how hard it is administratively.

We find the conflict between staff members when
we're using same special staff for music, art,
social work, home school counselor, math and
reading Specialists. When we're using them and
the traditional program is also using them, the
conflict we have in philosophies between what is
going on in our classrooms and what goes on in
those classrooms and those special rooms seems too

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very difficult at this point. We just don't send
kids to the . . . [home-school counselor aide]

any more at all. She's just a very traditional
lady . . . she makes contracts to have kids
spanked. SO the Open teachers have stopped sending
anybody there. In the other rooms, the Special
reading . . . and math rooms . . . when a kid comes
from one atmosphere into a different atmosphere

and back again-~switches around, it really causes
some confusion.

The only supportive service that we have [at
Gardner] on a daily basis is Chapter III which is
the initial funds from the state for youngsters
who need help in reading and math. Our chapters
III person always has to understand that we cannot
function by the guidelines written in the state
proposal. So instead of having 90 kids a day
which is ridiculous (which is what they wrote into
the proposal this year) . . . our teacher has 46.
And instead Of teaching them in groups of up to
ten and fifteen youngsters which is ridiculous,
she has them one and two at a time because these
are youngsters who need that kind of one-to-One
relationship. SO we always put on the memo this
is what we're doing in case the inspectors come

in to see that we are not following the guidelines--
that's the way it should be.

[At Johnson] there was an instance before the
holiday season where the music teacher had every-
body singing and she went around saying "you, you,
and you are in the chorus because you can Sing
well. The rest Of you are la, la, la-ers." You
know the kids were just crushed because here they
thought they were going to be in the chorus and
they had been practicing and practicing since

the middle of October and it came December and
they found out that fifteen of them were going

to be in the chorus. The rest of them weren't
going to be able to sing in the Christmas Show.

The same thing with art projects. They allow the
Open kids to go to art. I thought it was rather
nice of them to allow them to go, but only five
in the classroom at any one time so they can
integrate them in with the other kids. Which is
very interesting because when they go with other
kids of the same age group they must do exactly
the same thing that everybody else does. SO

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they're not allowed to do what they want to when
they go to art. Everybody works on the same
project so we can't even count on the art teacher
when she's there.

DO the children from the open school want to go to
art?

They've stopped. They did in the beginning and they
used to gO to music, too, and that stopped. Some

of them still go to instrumental music but that's
kind of dropped, too. It's a shame; it really is.
It should be available to the kids. There are a few
who like art so much that they'll do anything to go
to art. They do art in their classrooms and then

to art, too, because they like it. There are a
couple of girls that have very nice voices that are
in the choir. They go to music.

We have [at Gardner] a woodworking shop.

The woodworking center is run entirely by scrounging
and contributions from our own advisory council
with funds for tools $200.00. We submitted pro-
posals for funding both [the clay room and the
woodworking] but the group who reads these proposals
liked the clay center proposal better than wood-
working which we thought was needed, tOO, and were
kind Of disappointed. Anyway we now have a
Federally funded unemployed person who Spends his
time in woodworking more or less successfully.

We're trying to train him to work in appropriate
ways with children, to be patient, and let them do
the sawing and the hammering. . . . He thinks he's
running a ShOp, and he's not. SO we're working on
that one. The clay center is our Old Shower room
and our board Of education did do some minor kinds
of renovations . . . to give us some floor Space

for tables to work on clay in a place that could be
hosed down if we needed to.

I think you need to know about the Umbrella Com-
mittee. This is just getting under way. The
Umbrella Committee is being organized to represent
all the Open schools to help the three to work
together more effectively. We haven't devised the
organization structure; we are in the process of
devising that. We feel some comradeship between
the open junior high [and the Open elementary
school]--in fact some parents have overlapping
interests. I do with a child in Gardner and in
the junior high. Many of the Gardner parents

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expect, I would assume, to go into the Open junior
high program. We think it would serve our interests
and the interests of the children and maybe facili-
tate communication between the schools and the
administration if we did some coordination. One

of the things we're trying to do is work on a hand—
book which might encompass the broad kinds of
directions for all three schools . . . to express
what we think we're all about for the public, for
some interested people.

Representatives from the three schools appointed

by their boards--there are two or three from each
of the three schools--come to the meetings Of the
Umbrella Committee.

We've been working with the assistant director of
elementary education in defining our role. In our
discussions with him apparently he thought we would
be a liaison between this Open group and the board
Of education.

He wants us to go through channels.
I cannot personally accept that.

I don't mind communication with the elementary

and secondary offices, if we might be more per-
suaded that going through channels worked. I
wouldn't mind not being directly in touch with the
board of education, but would like to have the
Option, if they were going to put that on paper,
we need to have some kind Of--

But it is the three groups working together and
this is important. It would be nice if we could
have some new blood on the board. [Laura is
running for the board.]

[The board doesn't plan far enough ahead.] This
fall it was the same thing that happened initially
with the Opening Of the new program [at Johnson].
It was last minute--a week-before-kinds Of
notification Of parents. And it just drives you
batty. Talk about long-term long-range planning--
no way is it even allowed. I think the sensitivity
is better. They listen more carefully and they
move a little faster, but the decision making pro-
cess is still coming from here [the board Of edu-
cation] down to here. There's a lot Of talk about
having the decisions coming from here [the parent

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board] to here but in practice it's hard because
the board of education has been Operating the other
way so long and it's just a new way of relating to
a community.

There should have been some planning going last
year that was leading some place not just finding
out what the interest was--some kind of time line
where by February this decision, by March this
decision, and so on. The decisions all came at the
end of the school year.

At the junior high on Friday the students can choose
which subjects they want to go to class for that
day. They could take two sessions of art and no
math. They have a really nice array of interest
groups that meet. They have the Wednesday afternoon
for community. They've a neat tutorial system with
a mother working on this. She has about 30 kids
running all over the city to tutor on a one-to-one
with young children.

We're going to have kids from the junior high coming
to Johnson on the bus which ought to be an interest-
ing thing. They're going to ride the city buses.

. . . They're going to be working with our new 4-H
program as team leaders. We're going to have a
parent and a team leader [for each group]. We're
going to be a pilot for the city which is providing
the seeds and the supplies for gardening [and
supplies for other things]. This is going to be
during the school day for the total Open school.

The children have nine choices for five weeks

and they're going to switch. If they want to
continue the same thing [the next five weeks] they
can or they can switch and do something else. The
program provides everything but leaders. We've got
four teachers and five parents. They've got a
garden plot right next to the school. They're

going to be doing some archery if they can find an
archery leader. A lot of kids want to learn about
archery.

Those are all the things on Friday afternoon.

In the junior high it depends on the teacher how
much choice the students have. I think some classes
have almost none and some quite a lot. At the
beginning Of the year, I think none essentially.

But the principal is important in establishing the
climate of the school. Our principal is very open
and comfortable with the parents. When the parents

184

have suggestions, she is receptive in discussing

their ideas with them. [Because she is supportive

Of the Open kinds of activities, the junior high

is becoming more Open.]

This conversation indicates a continuing interest
on the part of parents for their new program. The
interest is strong enough to attract white parents to
an almost all black school thus providing it with a
degree of integration. Difficulties of housing two

diverse programs—-traditional and progressive--under

one roof are pointed up also by this epilogue.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

STATEMENT OF GOALS FOR THE OPEN

CLASSROOM PROJECT

APPENDIX A

STATEMENT OF GOALS
FOR THE OPEN CLASSROOM PROJECT

* Community School

 

The parents and staff of the Open Classroom Project

at

Community School believe that effective

 

communication and close cooperation among all concerned
are essential to implement and sustain an Open classroom
plan Of education. We agree that certain common under-
standings are necessary. Some of these are:

1.

Learning is evidenced by changed behavior and is
the result of many and varied experiences dic-
tated by the needs and learning style of the
individual.

All children want to learn and can learn; it is
the responsibility of adults to help the learner
find ways to deal with the environment SO that
he feels good about himself and his learning
experiences, is self-directed, and responsible.

Respect and consideration for others, for the
right to be different from, as well as the same
as, and a willingness to seek mutually satis-
factory solutions to problems encountered in
working toward this goal, are an essential part
of everyone's learning experience.

TO equip children to live in a pluralistic
society composed of racial, cultural, and
socio-economic differences, those differences
must be reflected in the learning environment.

A learning experience must be personally important
and useful to the learner and must lead to a
broadening or a higher level of understanding.

 

*
This information is available from the writer.

185

186

Instructional Goals

 

1.

Children will identify, plan, and pursue mutually
acceptable learning experiences with the teacher
based upon developmental level, interest, need,
and learning styles. ‘

Teachers and parents will provide a continuously
stimulating climate for learning, to expand
student experiences and to build upon each stu-
dent's interests and needs. These experiences
will emphasize concrete learning and use of

many community resources.

Activities will be planned utilizing differences
reflected in the racial and cultural composition
of the school.

Through asking, suggesting, demonstrating, and
directing, teachers will counsel with individual
children to assist them in setting realistic
goals which enable them to know success.

Children will take part in individualized
language arts activities in order that they may
become free and independent learners with an
honest sense of accomplishment. Such instruc-
tion will provide realistic alternatives for the
learner in terms of interest, time, materials,
pace, and learning styles.

Teachers will work with students to encourage
that the learner find his own solutions to
problems, always considering the rights of
others--including the teacher's.

Teacher-student evaluation of student work will
be in terms of the mutually set flexible goals
with continuing reassurance by the teacher.

The child's pride in workmanship will be
encouraged for all student activities on a non-
competitive basis, respecting the right to
experience some processes for creative expression
rather than finished production.

Teachers and other adults with interest, ability,
and commitment to a given activity, will assist
students in pursuing a variety of individual
interests and skills on a noncompetitive basis.
Such instruction may be on a one-to-one or small

10.

11.

187

group basis always in consideration of resources
and personnel available in the school and the
community.

Integration of art, music, physical education
and drama with language arts, math, social
studies, and science will be expected in pur-
suing areas of interest.

It is understood that the methods for implemen-
tation of instruction goals will vary according
to the needs of the learner and the individual
personality of each classroom group. Progress
toward the ideal of open education--students
engaged in self-directed learning--will be
expected as staff and students are ready and
able.

Organization for Learning

 

1.

Children will work with others in multi-age
groups. Such groups will be of at least two
years age span with as equal distribution of
age groups as possible.

A rich variety of learning materials, both
concrete and abstract will be available to
provide real and vicarious learning experiences
for children.

Each classroom will set its own ground rules as
appropriate and in keeping with the rights of
and responsibilities to others. It is under-
stood that these rules will include provision
for privacy, care of one's works, conservation
of school materials and equipment, occasional
quiet times and places, safeguarding personal
property and prevention of physical and mental
stress.

In keeping with the developmental level of the
group, frequent and regular group meetings will
be held in order that democracy and decision-
making can be learned through practice.

In working toward the ideal of students who are
engaged in self-directed learning activities,
plans that are individual or group based, or
both, will be agreed upon daily and/or weekly
to assist students and teachers in working
together in a manner mutually satisfying.

188

Reporting Progress

 

1.

2.

Parent

Student progress will be evaluated on an indi-
vidual basis rather than by norm.

Anecdotal records and parent-student-teacher
conferences will be the preferred forms of
reporting student progress.

Student progress in acquiring language arts,
math, and other skills will be recorded by
teachers and reported to parents in terms
easily understood. Such progress reports will
include information of demonstrated behavior.

Progress reports will include all aspects of
learning-~interest areas, social interaction,
behavior patterns, attitudes, and physical
activities, as well as academic progress.

Involvement

 

l.

The Board of OPEN, including parents, staff and
student representatives, and appropriate working
committees will serve in an advisory capacity

in the Open School Project. The Board
will be represented on the Community Council in
keeping with the "Guidelines for Developing
Community Councils" as they apply to this pro-
ject.

 

Matters of common interest that do not violate
the personal, ethical and professional obli-
gations of staff, parents, and students, will
be considered topics of discussion for the
appropriate working committees composed of
parents, students, and staff members. Under
the direction of the principal and with the
advice of the parent committee chairman,
channels of communication will be established
to find mutually agreeable solutions to parent
concerns, appropriate for committee consider-
ation. It is understood that the teacher as a
professional, is ultimately the one to make
decisions involving the teaching in the class-
room.

Parents and staff of Open School pro-
ject will maintain continuous dialogue with the

Board of Education and appropriate mem-
bers of the administrative staff.

 

10.

11.

5-22-73
LBS/lmp

189

All parents will be strongly requested to
observe and/or participate in classrooms and
activities in order to understand children and
the organization for learning.

Staff members will discuss with parent represen—
tatives the implementation of the instructional
program.

Development of a consulting program and selection
of project consultants will be the joint responsi-
bility of the Inservice Department, principal,
staff, and parent representatives.

Selection of students for the project will be
done in accordance with available space, guide-
lines from the * Board of Education,
factors recommended by the appropriate parent
working committee, and the recommendations of the
principal and staff.

Evaluation of the project will be the joint
responsibility of parents, staff, and adminis-
trative staff of * Community Schools.

 

Selection of staff is the responsibility of the
Staff Personnel Department and the principal.
Parent representatives may meet with groups of
prospective staff members to further explain
their goals and expectations for open education.

It is understood that such a group and activity
does not comprise an interviewing or selection
committee.

Parents will have an opportunity to contribute
towards developing the criteria used for teacher
and principal selection.

All parents will be encouraged to take an active
part in classroom activities and related school
functions as volunteers and advisors. Only
through the regular organized assistance of
parents can the quality of learning experiences
desired be maintained.

 

*
This information is available from the writer.

APPENDIX B

CURRICULUM OF THE CHILD-CENTERED SCHOOL:

A POSITION PAPER

APPENDIX B

CURRICULUM OF THE CHILD-CENTERED SCHOOL:

A POSITION PAPER

190

Design Committee

 

Linda Dapper, Chairman
Barbara McGhan

Joan Meyer

Sue Savick

Gretchen Tambellini

191

INTRODUCTION: What is a child-centered school like?

The curriculum of the child-centered school
arises from the needs, interests and concerns of the
children who currently make up the student body. The
specific content of their learning experiences cannot
be itemized in advance, since it emerges out of the
life-experiences of each learner.

The teacher starts with each child where he is,
and provides an environment in which he can grow, in a
direction and by means that are socially desirable and
personally satisfying. The children set their own goals
within that framework and progress toward them at their
own pace, imposing their own psychological structure
upon the material at hand. In this pursuit, artificial
limits set by subject-lines, timetables and classroom
walls are ignored. The entire school and the community
at large become learning laboratories, where children
engage individually and in small groups in many dif-
fering activities on various levels.

The methods of assessing the pupil's progress
and reporting it to the parents are in keeping with the
goals of encouraging the child's feeling of self-worth

and nurturing his desire to learn.

192

We emphasize at the outset that the child-centered
approach does not sanction a "free school" in which
children are allowed to do whatever they please, whenever
and however they care to do it, regardless of the needs
and rights of the others in the learning group. As one
does for traditional schools, we expect that in our
school knowledgeable and responsible adults will provide
purpose and structure to the learning process.

(1) Selecting the learning opportunities the
children have and (2) transmitting our society's expec-
tations and values in regard to their activities. We
differ from traditional schools in that we offer a much
wider range of materials and methods on more levels
for a given group of individuals at any one time, and
allow each child to choose from this large array of
possibilities. The teacher does not impose specific
tasks on the learners, but does guide each child's
choices within the environmental framework so that he
does not bog down in random behaviors. Therein lies
the structure of the child-centered approach to edu-
cation.

We turn now to a more detailed examination of

this approach.

I. What should our children's education accomplish?

193

The goals we have set for our children's edu-
cation arise from at least three general desires or
attitudes. First, we want our children to develop
their capacities to their farthest limits, and to be
able to live with the ever-more-rapid change that is
part of modern life. Secondly, we want our children's
education to take into account what we know about how
children learn, both from our own observations and from
studies by experts. Finally, we believe that childhood
is a time of life to be cherished as much as any other.
Therefore, the school experience which is such a large
part of childhood should be enjoyed in its own right,
and not viewed just as preparation for later school
experiences or for adult life.

The desire for a child-centered school is based
in our belief in the rights of the individual. Children
as well as adults have the right, in our view, to make
choices in regard to their own destinies. We want our
children to be treated as individuals with the freedom
to be themselves. This value leads us to expect the
school to adapt to the lives of the students rather than
coerce the children to adapt to it; it must revolve
around their interests and aim toward their goals.

Not only does the child-centered school honor
the individual's right to determine his own course of

action; it also takes into account what is known about

194

the way children learn most effectively. For example,

an increasing body of research indicates that, while

the sequence of development is unalterable, the rate of
growth varies among individuals, so that no two children
reach the same stage simultaneously or by the same route.
There is no evidence suggesting chronological ages at
which all children can or should reach a designated
growth-level.

Current research indicates that-~as the progres-
sive educators put it--we "learn by doing," through
active participation in experiences. Research also tells
us that learning is more likely to be retained when it
is identified with the goals that the learner has set
for himself rather than those arbitrarily set by others.

Furthermore, if learning experiences are followed
by a satisfying state of affairs, a feeling of success,
the learner is encouraged to seek additional experiences.
In order for such outcomes to be possible, the tasks at
hand must not be too far beyond the learner's capacities
at his present stage of development. The tasks should
challenge the child enough to enable him to grow, but
should not be so far beyond his level as to ensure
failure and its consequences.

Lastly, studies show that when left to himself,
the child's curiosity and attendant need to explore his

environment will lead to learning, completely apart from

195

the use of extrinsic motivations. He will select
experiences appropriate to his needs and his stage of
maturity, moving on to new experiences at a pace con-
sonant with his own rate of growth.

The child-centered approach to education, as
described in numerous publications (see bibliography
for some of them), emphasizes individualized learning
experiences, selected from the school environment by
the child and pursued at his own pace, while the teacher
and others* act as resource persons. It eliminates
selective and competitive aspects of traditional schools
which contribute to "failure experiences" that cause
children to develop negative attitudes toward themselves
as well as school. This approach stresses the ability
of all to progress toward worthwhile personal and social
goals, although all may not reach the same ultimate
level. Those who are involved are thus encouraged to
develop a sort of community spirit, a common sense of
well-being and of devotion to purpose.

In all the foregoing ways the child-centered
school seems to fulfill the desires with which we began:
it nurtures the growth of our children to the fullest
extent possible, embodies current knowledge about the

learning process, and constitutes an activity of childhood

 

*
i.e., parents, other students, peOple in the

community.

196

which is enjoyable in itself. Moreover, it offers the
possibility of continuous, optimum development for all
through appropriate experiences that will ensure achieve-
ment and further learning.

In calling our educational program "child-
centered" and "individualized," we do not mean to imply
that we are abandoning the school's traditional responsi-
bility to the large society of which the learners are
a part. We aim to help each child grow according to
his natural tendencies, "without deprivation or forcing,
in an environment and by a process which also supply a
social direction to his achievement (8, 449)."

To honor the needs of the individual and the
society, we recommend the following goals of the Com-
mittee on Quality Education appointed by the Pennsylvania
State Board of Education (as found in 9, ll-lZ):

Every child should be enabled to acquire:

l. Self-understanding and a sense of worth as a

member of society.

2. Understanding and appreciation of others of

different backgrounds and origins.
3. Mastery of basic verbal and computational skills.
4. Positive attitudes toward school and learning.

5. Habits and attitudes associated with reSponsible

citizenship.

197

6. Good mental and physical health habits and under-

standing of health maintenance.
7. Opportunities and encouragement to be creative.

8. Tools for and understanding of opportunities for

productive life.

9. Appreciation and understanding of human achieve-

ment in all areas.

10. Preparation for a world of rapid change and
unforeseen demands for continuing education

throughout life.

Consistent with these goals is the desire that our chil-
dren develop the ability to think critically in solving
problems; to act independently from external authority
in setting goals and making decisions; to achieve self-
confidence and self—discipline in pursuing goals.

It is important to note that the aims listed
above cover a broad spectrum of physical, social,
emotional and intellectual attainments, each of which
we hold equally important with the others. No aspect
of development is to be consistently stressed at the
expense of others, although for certain individuals or
at particular times it may be appropriate to emphasize

certain behaviors or skills.

198
II. How shall we go about planning the curriculum?

Curriculum planning on a large scale or of a
general nature should be a joint effort, involving as
many of the users of the curriculum as possible. Full
participation should be granted to those most concerned
with its effects, that is, the learners. As parents of
these children, we also seek a continuing involvement
in the process along with school personnel.

In fact, we believe that each person involved in
the educational process (child, teacher, parent, adminis-
trator, citizen) has an equal right to be heard, and
that the opinions of each deserve consideration on
their merits, without regard to the speaker's chrono-
logical age or his position in the school/community
hierarchy. Furthermore, we believe each person,
regardless of status, must have an equal voice when
final decisions are made.

The variability of individual combinations of
endowments, needs and interests among the student body
requires an extremely flexible curriculum, from which
each child may choose the items necessary for creating
learning situations that serve the purposes he has
identified. In this way, the curriculum will conform
to the special characteristics of each learner.

We define "curriculum" as the sum of the exper—

iences which the school offers to learners and the

199

unforeseen learning opportunities provided spontaneously

by the children. Planning must also take into account

experiences that can be had beyond the classroom and

the school.

III. How can our educational goals be reached through
subject matter?

We believe that subject matter is more important
as a vehicle for teaching desired skills, intellectual
processes, attitudes and appreciations than it is in
and of itself. We do not weigh the value of the various
liberal arts, the sciences, and the practical arts;
each is of equal potential importance with the others
as a source for learning situations.

Because the child's own needs and objectives are
the starting point for the learning experiences he will
be engaging in at any given moment, specific items of
subject-matter content needed for immediate use will
vary according to the individual. His concerns and
interests will arise from his life-activities both
inside and outside of school; as we have said, the
school activities he engages in and materials he selects
will be those which satisfy his needs, accommodate his
interests, and/or enable progress toward his goals.

The highly individualized nature of the cur-

riculum requires that the child be provided with a

200

wide variety of opportunities to learn. He will choose
his own arrangement of them; that is, the sequence of
learning experiences within a subject-matter area will
be determined by the psychology of the learner, rather
than by any arbitrary logical arrangement which the
adult mind imposes. The scope of his selections over
time will naturally be broad and varied enough to com-
prehend his present life needs and-~to a degree, at least--
to pave the way for his future ones. He will learn at
his own pace, determining in large measure how long an
experience should last on any one day, and deciding

how many other experiences he needs to have on the same
level until he is ready to move on to tasks requiring
more maturity.

By allowing the individual freedom to set his
own goals, select the appropriate learning activities,
and determine his own pace for entering on new exper-
iences, the child-centered school provides for a
balanced curriculum for that particular child; that
is, it includes the optimum amount of each kind of
subject-matter required to satisfy his present needs
and advance his development.

This kind of curriculum cannot be compartmental-
ized, as the student will ignore artificial barriers
between disciplines and cut across subject-matter lines

in his search for items suited to him. The kind of

201

approach we advocate facilitates the child's integration
of separate experiences; he creates wholeness out of
the parts by perceiving relationships between them.

As we have already said, flexibility is a neces-
sary characteristic of the child-centered curriculum.
Rigid time schedules need not (and indeed, cannot) be
set when the traditional lockstep in a teacher-directed
classroom is abandoned. Moreover, the sphere in which
the child's learning takes place cannot be restricted
to a single classroom within the school building. There
almost certainly will be activities, materials and
resource people in other classrooms which the child
can and must use to reach his goals. We therefore
recommend that the school building be made more con-
ducive to increased mobility. We further urge that
the community's physical resources be used as a "learning
laboratory" and that its human resources be considered
as a sort of supplemental instructional staff. We look
forward to a time when the whole community is viewed
as a school, where learners can participate fully in
first-hand experiences that cannot be brought into the
school building.

IV. How can our educational goals be reached through
the environment and the teacher?

Inside the school the environment must be as rich

as possible in the number and variety of interesting

202

materials to be used on several levels, in order to pro-
vide learning Opportunities for everyone. Each teacher
in the child-centered school needs a plentiful supply
of books, other instructional materials, and several
types of important equipment which we have listed
elsewhere (see "Recommendations for Facilities").

Although we favor subject-matter interest centers
similar to those that are found in British infant centers,*
there are other ways of grouping materials to what the

children's appetite for learning. These focal points

for organization should be given further consideration.

1. Ideas about large topics like time, space, man

and his identity, problems of living.

2. Displays, collections or exhibits such as museum

 

items, coin or stamp collections.

3. Places nearby (like the playground) or far away

(like foreign countries) and anywhere in between.

4. People whose lives have been influential, such
as Columbus, Galileo, Handel, Shakespeare (1,
151-52).

Obviously, the child-centered school depends
heavily on the characteristics of the young learner to

guide him in every phase of a learning experience.

 

*
See descriptions by Silberman (10) and the
Murrows (7) .

203

However, we do not intend to "phase out" the role of the
teacher. He is still expected to pass on the skills,
attitudes, knowledge and values that produce mature,
creative, happy adults. Furthermore, the child's growth
is optimized when he can incorporate knowledge garnered
from others as well as that achieved through his own
explorations. The teacher's authority is not abdicated;
however, there must be a radical change in the way it
has traditionally been exercised.

The teacher functions in a number of different
capacities. First of all, a large share of his task
is to manage the classroom environment from which the
learners select their experiences. He must be aware
of the children's evolving interests, activities and
needs so that he can change the environment in response

to them. The environment he constructs will also be

 

planned to stimulate the children's interest in_and
evoke their curiosity about things that they are
expected to learn from the culture or a segment of it.
The children and the parents help to create the environ-
ment by adding found objects: by displaying the products
of their work; and by making items which may be used
in further learning experiences.

The teacher's second task is to act as the
facilitator of learning. Children need feedback if

their random explorations are to lead to more structured

204

and purposeful activity that achieves a worthwhile end.
In order to provide proper feedback, the teacher must
always be aware of what each child is doing and of what
he is able to do; he must be ready to initiate new
directions or suggest an alternative technique if the
child reaches a point from which he is unable to carry

on fruitfully by himself. The teacher will be constantly
engaged in direct encounters with the children, eliciting
responses that indicate how much they understand and
what he should provide to benefit them at that point.

A third valuable contribution by the teacher
to the child's learning is to provide him with the con-
sciousness of his own achievements and a general feeling
of self-worth. The environment should provide Oppor-
tunities corresponding to the capacities of all learners
so that each may get a feeling of success by mastering
the task he selects, without undue difficulty. Every
child will be successful at his level of growth when
the materials cover a range of difficulty as great as
the range of abilities in the classroom and when the
learners are allowed to progress at their own pace.

The teacher also contributes to the child's
feeling of self-worth by responding positively to his
needs; holding an encouraging attitude toward his
ability to grow; communicating a sense of devotion to

a common purpose; trusting his ability to proceed

205

on his own in learning; and by genuinely caring for him

as a unique person.

V. How can we determine our children's progress toward
our goals?

We oppose public comparisons of one child to
another, whether they are direct or indirect, formal or
informal, printed or oral. We therefore oppose letter
or number grades* on tests and report cards, which rank
each learner on an arbitrary scale from "excellent" to
"poor.” We are against tests, be they standardized or
teacher-made, which are given to determine marks or
other types of relative standings for students. We do
not even want lists of children who have mastered a
particular item such as "number facts" displayed on a
bulletin board, since children whose names do not appear
are automatically excluded from the fraternity of those
who are "in the know." We consider all such character-
istics of a selective, competitive school system as
detrimental to the positive self-concept that we want
the child-centered school to provide for the students.
We are less interested in short-term academic attainment
than we are in children's feelings about themselves,
about school, and about learning in general. We care

more about the quality of the learning process than

 

*
See Olson (8), pp. 363-68 for a discussion of
the disadvantages.

206

of the immediate product, in the belief that a child
with positive attitudes toward himself and learning

will achieve to the best of his ability in academic

and other areas, over the long run.

Each child's progress should be measured in
relation to the level at which he started. The results
of any appraisal should be kept strictly in confidence
by school personnel who will report them only to the
child himself and to the parents.** In this way, the
child can discover his own worth and continue to develop
without fear of being a failure. He "competes" pri-
vately only with his own past reCOrd.

One way in which the learner can participate
in evaluation with the teacher is by keeping a cumulative
folder with samples of work that he can compare with
each other to assess his progress. We urge that the
teacher develop the report that will be sent to his
parents by discussing it with the child first and
agreeing with him on the content to be included.

The teacher in the child-centered school needs
some way other than tests to determine what the child
has accomplished. One of the most promising methods
we have discussed is a notebook or diary in which the

teacher may jot down her observations of the children

 

** '
We stress that results of appraisals must be

reported to the child as well as to his parents.

207

as they go about their work. Willard C. Olson has
developed such a journal, which we recommend for further
consideration (8, 467-73), in conjunction perhaps with
his form for summarizing observations from all the
records kept on a pupil (8, 344-46). Without tests

and similar instruments on which to base appraisals,

the keeping of careful anecdotal records becomes
absolutely vital.

More formal measures that can be employed to
assess nonacademic attainments are interviews; thought
questions to which a pupil gives oral answers; socio-
metric devices such as sociograms; and inventories of
attitudes, personality traits, vocational interests and
the like. Ways must be found to appraise the skills,
attitudes, appreciations and knowledge that the child
has, in harmony with our emphasis on the development
of a good self-concept. Evaluation should take place
naturally when a learner feels he is leaving one stage
for another.

For reporting the results of appraisals to
parents, we believe that the only viable method is
face-to-face meetings including the teacher, the
parent, and-—generally--the child, i.e., the "con-
ference method." This method, we feel, has at least
three advantages. First, only the growth of the

parent's own child need be considered. Second, this

208

kind of contact, systematically carried out, is an edu-
cational process for the parent, rather than an inci-
dental attempt to solve a problem which has arisen.
Finally, the method affords a maximum of flexibility,
individuality, and dynamic interaction between the adults

most concerned with the child's welfare in school.

10.

*
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*
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for Special Project Status for * School."
Paper on file, 1005 W. McClelland Street, 1973.
(Mimeographed.)

 

Open School Evaluation Task Force. "Evaluation of
* Open Program." * Community
Schools, * , Michigan, April 1974.
(Mimeographed.)

Peterson, Ed, and Peterson, Sherrie. "Parents and Open
Education." Manuscript, 1974, * Com-
munity School, * , Michigan.

 

 

"Preliminary Proposal to Establish Pilot Learning Center."
Duplicated paper, November 22, 1972, on file
1005 W. McClelland Street, * , Michigan.

 

"Steering Committee Board Minutes, November 14, 1972."
Paper on file 3404 Sherwood, * , Michigan.

 

*
This information is available from the writer.

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