

'I don't even know if the teachers are aware'

Daily Press

When Denelle Wallace was a new student at Lafayette High School in the early 1980s, some teachers were surprised when she showed up for advanced-placement courses. They would ask her if she was in the right class. The 1984 graduate now teaches English at Toano Middle School in James City County. And as the school's minority achievement leader, she works to help black, Latino and female students boost test scores and close the achievement gap. She often visits parents at their jobs or talks with them by phone. It's all part of an effort to bridge a widening gap between the school and parents. Many of them tell her that teachers don't seem to understand where they're coming from.

"Parents feel very put off. They come up to me and say how they feel when they go talk to the teachers at their school or the things teachers say to them. 'The teacher assumes that I don't care because I can't be up here at 1 p.m. Well, I am working two jobs.'

"Parents complain about how their child got an "F," but nobody told them that their child wasn't doing well.

"As minority achievement leader, I get some parent phone calls about what they're sick of. I had one practically in tears because the teacher said something was on Edline [a Web site]. Well, they don't have a computer, so they can't check Edline to see their child's grades. Making the assumption that everybody has Internet access and a computer really isn't fair. The parent was very upset and crying. I don't even know if the teachers are aware that they're being insensitive.

"I had one parent tell me, 'If I have one more of those teachers tell me how I'm supposed to raise my child, I'm just really not going to be able to hold it in.'

"I understand their frustration because they're meeting teachers and they're told, 'Well, what you need to do is....' That's the last thing you want to address a parent with.

"Teachers may not mean to alienate people, but so many people feel alienated. A lot of these minority parents have been here generation after generation after generation. They bring a lot of baggage. This parent may not only be bringing baggage of their poor experiences with the school, but they may be bringing their parents' baggage about the schools."

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