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Official clears up NCLB issue at District 95 in Carbondale

By Dan Hoyt, For The Southern

Thursday, May 15, 2008 10:07 PM CDT

CARBONDALE - A visiting education official stressed balance of responsibility and respect during a public forum for parents of students in Carbondale Elementary School District 95 Wednesday night.

Ron Lawless, state coordinator for parental involvement for No Child Left Behind, met with administrators and parents attempting to resolve ongoing confusion about Title I and NCLB. Parents need to help their children and take an active role in their education and district policy decisions, he said.

"We got to keep their feet to the fire," Lawless said.

While noting it's important to stay on top of district business and administration, Lawless added the two parties have separate roles and parents need to accept that.

"Parents should not be telling the school and the district how to do their job. Parents have a job, teachers have a job. We all have a role and we need to respect those roles," he said. "We want you to be a constructive person in the school. We don't want to see you as a destructive or a divisive problem in the school. We don't want people to say, 'Oh, here she comes again.'"

In the past, questions had arisen about whether the district had consulted parents enough on how money was being spent for Title I and other school business. Lawless told parents the district must give "meaningful consultation" but not get a consensus from the public.

When it came to directly talking about the events that led to the district's confusion in NCLB, Lawless was clear that the district was following the letter of the law and in some instances, showing perseverance in overcoming mistakes in the system. The state made a mistake in telling the district it did not need to set money aside for NCLB, he added.

Superintendent Linda Meredith and Amy Erickson, president of Connecting All Parents with Schools, helped put the program back on track and go "above and beyond what they were required to do," Lawless said.

In the future, parents should follow proper channels of communication and contact the state with issues that couldn't be resolved in the district, Lawless said. Parents should, however, first attempt to deal with the principal, superintendent and school board, he added.

Erickson, who attended the forum, said she believed the meeting was successful at educating parents about NCLB and that many parents left the forum intending to resolve some of their concerns within the district.

"It was a first step toward taking care of the tension and the problems going on right now between the parents and the administration - and there are a lot of problems," she said.

At least one school board member thinks otherwise about the existence of a problem. While board member John Major was pleased to have Lawless promote parent participation and explain NCLB, he doesn't believe there's anything unusual about the district's situation.

"I don't think that there is that much tension," he said. "I've dealt with thousands of people and I don't think that there is a real tension in the district."