The "More" Child

“…also from Montgomery County.  What’s Going on There? “

That’s the cheeky comment posted on the blog “DangerouslyIrrelevant” last week.  Edublogger Scott McLeod had put up a Help Wanted post, looking for more examples of parents who are regularly blogging about their local schools.  Among the examples he gave was Montgomery County’s Parents’ Coalition.  Russ Goerand (who I’ve connected with through Twitter) added The “More” Child to the list (thanks Russ!).

So what IS going on here?   Parents are finding their voices.

The weekend brings news, care of the Parents Coalition blog, that the activist beast of Takoma Park is stirring.  For several months school listservs have been reporting on the progress of MCPS proposals to redraw the school boundaries in Takoma Park and the southernmost part of Silver Spring, potentially directly affecting current school assignments for children at four down county elementary schools and two middle schools.  MCPS has put forward several options that it presented to the Boundary Study Advisory Committee.  The community in turn hasn’t really liked any of them and has come up with some ideas of its own, such as creating a choice option for students who want to attend the MYIB program at under-enrolled Silver Spring International Middle School.

Now Yahoo Group listservs are fine, but a) you need to create a yahoo account, b) they are usually for members only and b) they’re moderated.  (Folks in the Parents Coalition have told war stories about PTA controlled list servs that would make your toes curl.)  It’s the old “if a tree falls in a forest…” issue.  If there’s important information posted to a listserv or an interesting discussion but no one knows, what’s the point? As for how effective or representative MCPS advisory committees are…sigh.

Well the point now is that parents are taking it all public, on blogs, YouTube, ScribD and other Web 2.0 tools.  It’s what some parents in Takoma Park are doing.  They’ve started a blog.  And there’s a YouTube video of one of the boundary study meetings (ending with one very uncomfortable MCPS official). Their aim is to make the process more inclusive and more transparent by putting everything in full public view.  Is that a bad thing?