Rio Grande High School parents, still justifiably upset.

The Journal covered a meeting of the Rio Grande High School
Parent Teacher Organization. link. For reasons known only to
Journal editors, the story was reported only in the west side
edition.

The parents are justifiably upset over Winston Brooks'
decision to leave them out of the decision making process.

The method he used is tried and true. Involve parents early
and meaninglessly in the process, and then later in the process
subject their input to unilateral review and approval by the
people who the district wants to make the decision in the first
place. According to the Journal report;

"APS formed three working groups, a committee and a redesign team to come up with the plan. The working groups were one of parents, one of students and another of staff. The committee had a mixture of staff, APS administrators and parents and was responsible for compiling and organizing all the information submitted by the work groups. The redesign — or core team — was responsible for coming up with the draft plan."

There were no parents involved in the final step; the only step
that really "made decisions".

Brooks' justification;

"... the core redesign team needed to consist of education
professionals"

I have not seen the redesign plan. I suspect that you will find
that the output of the "core team" is not rocket science, and
did not require "education professionals" to create it.

"..., teachers would undergo 30 hours of training this
summer. Students would have more choices in the
classes they take and assignments they complete,
teachers would work in teams, and more emphasis
would be placed on school projects."

Further, you will find that there really is no reason that parents
could not have joined the core team, along with the education
professionals.

No mention was made of the issue of (chronically) disruptive
students, nor of the administration's specific responsibilities in
addressing the issue.

Final note; the final plan is apparently a good one, at least
according to APS spokeswoman Johanna King.

"King said several parents at the meeting indicated
they are happy with the plan but frustrated with the process."

APS officials apparently tried to white wash their decision to
exclude parents from the process, by claiming that parents were
in fact, involved. That claim was soundly rejected by the parents.
Again, from the Journal report;

Rio Grande parents are angry because they say APS'
claims about parental involvement in the redesign process
are false.

"I challenge you to show me one parent," (PTO VP)
Rivera said. "One parent who participated at all in this
process."

At least three parents whose names were listed on the
plan as contributors, including Rivera, asked that their
names be removed from the document. David Rogers,
one of those parents, said he attended one of the two
parent meetings that APS said they used to gather input
for the document.
"Nothing that was discussed is in this document," he said.
"There were a lot of concerns voiced about the process.
I did not give APS permission to use my name.
I do not agree with this document.
I want my name taken off this document."

All in all, another black eye for APS leadership. A black eye
suffered for no reason except their indulgence of their own
arrogance.