Parent-School Conflict Is Lesson on Efficacy

Anne-Marie Kim, left, Maryvale PTA president, daughter Chlo?, 9, son Caius, 6, and husband, Caius, at their Germantown home. (By Kevin Clark -- The Washington Post)

It was "The Case of the Missing French Teacher." Last month, one week before school started, parents learned that because only 77 fourth-graders had enrolled in Maryvale Elementary School, one of the two French immersion teachers at that grade level would have to be dropped and some students shunted into a combined fourth- and fifth-grade class.

Outraged parents flooded the Rockville school with complaints. "Our children and staff are expendable," one wrote in an e-mail. "This is completely unacceptable," wrote another. The school system's response seemed to them limp and unconcerned. "I am confident that all Maryvale students will have a successful school year," wrote Stephen L. Bedford, a Montgomery County school official. "Thank you for your interest in Maryvale Elementary School."

It had all the makings of a typical parent-school battle, full of frustration and resentment. Yet these particular parents and educators began to look for a way to work it out, exchanging information rather than epithets, trying to stay positive and employing several methods that experts in the growing field of school-family partnerships say are essential to reaching solutions rather than creating long-term feuds.

Washington area school leaders have shown increasing interest in advising parents on how to complain. Montgomery, for instance, is starting a Parent Academy. But school systems often limit guidance to where parents should send objections and how long they should wait for an answer. Experts on school-family relations say it is also important for parents to know how to mobilize and how to word complaints. Likewise, it is critical for school officials to know how to respond.

At the heart of the Maryvale dispute were a PTA president, Anne-Marie Kim, and her husband, Caius Kim, a nonprofit-company executive with a business and science background and a fondness for breaking down conflicts into comprehensible parts. They began a dialogue with two Montgomery school officials: Sherry Liebes, a community superintendent; and Bedford, the chief school performance officer.

School administrators are often uncomfortable, experts say, when parents such as the Kims seek to insert themselves into management decisions. But "being defensive and saying, for example, that parents have 'no business inquiring about personnel decisions' and 'no right to interfere with administrators' professional judgment' is not just insensitive but poor public relations," said Anne T. Henderson, a senior consultant with the Community Involvement Program at Brown University's Annenberg Institute for School Reform.

In a letter to Caius Kim three days before school started, Bedford explained that class-size guidelines called for adding a teacher when the student-teacher ratio exceeded 28 to 1. He said officials were doing their best to ease any difficulties caused by the loss of a teacher. Liebes attended a parent meeting at the school that day, Aug. 24, to answer questions.

At that stage, the administration's response was not making parents feel much better. "Creating a combination class is not only detrimental to the learning environment of students but defies the strong educational objectives of Montgomery County," Maryvale parent Bahram Meyssami wrote in an Aug. 26 e-mail to Liebes.

The Maryvale parents adopted what experts say is the best approach to such disputes: getting as many people as possible on their side with a strong argument. "One parent complaining is a fruitcake," Henderson said. "Two parents are a fruitcake and a friend; five parents will get some attention; 20 parents can be seen as a powerful organization."

To organize parents, Caius Kim sent a long message the week before school started with precise data on Maryvale's staffing situation and exact quotes from relevant county policy guidelines. He argued that although the 77 students were not enough for four teachers under the usual staffing ratio, 43 of those students were in the French immersion program and should be considered a separate part of the fourth grade. Combining fourth- and fifth-grade French students in one class would overburden the teacher and betray previous promises to parents, he said, as well as contradict Superintendent Jerry D. Weast's plans to reduce class size and the number of combined classes.

The two sides went back and forth, keeping the conversation going. Family-school experts Henderson and Karen L. Mapp, a former Boston school administrator and a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education -- asked by The Post to review a sample of the Maryvale messages -- said they were "on the whole, respectful, courteous and trying to understand the other's position."

Henderson and Mapp noted, however, some missteps, including an administrator's failure to thank parents for their diligent research and a parent's dismissal of any hope that an official would respond to her message.

On the morning of Aug. 29, two days into the school year, good news arrived in a telephone call from Liebes to Anne-Marie Kim. Kim was out walking the family whippets, Devo and Ella, so Caius Kim chatted with Liebes until his wife returned. She was the first parent to hear that two new students had enrolled, and one previously registered student had shown up late. The new students brought the class sizes to a level where she could justify a fourth classroom teacher, Liebes said. In the end, the school wound up with a 20-to-1 student-teacher ratio in fourth grade.

Several Maryvale parents said they thought the slight enrollment bump provided the school system a convenient excuse.

"I truly believe that [Montgomery County Public Schools] only changed its position and reinstated the teaching slot because of the enormous pressure from parents and the overwhelming facts that they presented," Martha Desnoyers said. Mary Ann Holovac said, "Obviously, the squeaky axle gets the grease, and we made a lot of squeaks."

Some experts advise school systems to involve parents in decision-making before complaints arise

But schools often don't know what their class sizes will be until the last minute, as happened at Maryvale. "Just because we may not end up agreeing on a particular issue doesn't mean that we haven't listened," Liebes said, "and that is important for parents to always keep in mind."

The Kims said they were happy to send their daughter Chlo? and son Caius off to a school where the French program was back in shape. Anne-Marie wrote in a bulletin to parents: "Congratulations on your professionalism, letters and phone calls. Our children will benefit from your dedication."