UB Coalition On Urban Education To Survey Parents

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The Coalition on Urban Education in the Graduate School of Education at UB has teamed up with several community groups in an effort to reach out to parents of children attending Buffalo Public Schools.

The Buffalo City-Wide Parent Community Walk for Education -- themed "Bringing the Neighbor Back to the Hood" -- is the collective effort of the Coalition on Urban Education, Partnership for Parent Involvement in Schools, the Education Fund for Greater Buffalo, Parents for Public Schools and VOICE Buffalo, a faith-based coalition of congregations seeking social justice.

Participants in the walk, set for Oct. 23 and 30, will canvass Buffalo's neighborhoods in pairs, going door to door to an anticipated 1,000 homes to interview parents about their educational needs and concerns.

Suzanne Miller, associate dean of the UB Graduate School of Education, says the effort is aimed at assessing the needs of parents with children in the Buffalo Public Schools. "We need parents' voices in this…we can't decide for them," she says.

The walk, the first of its kind for education in the area, is a result of the Coalition on Urban Education's work since its first meeting in March.

"We needed to get an urban-community dialogue going," Miller says.

The coalition invited urban stakeholders -- parents, school administrators, teachers, community members and UB faculty and students -- to meet and "decide what needs they had and how to get those needs met by the other groups," Miller explains.

Facilitators from each stakeholder group then reported back to the group as whole, which determined common themes and conflicts that needed to be addressed in the community, says Miller.

The Education Fund, which was part of that dialogue, asked UB to take the lead in organizing and assessing the efforts of the stakeholders, Miller adds.

"Parent involvement (was) a strong theme for the UB coalition to take up as its mission," according to Miller. "One of the things we talked about was how to get these groups working together, collaborating on an effort." The "grassroots approach" of a community walk is what transpired, Miller says.

"Part of what we're asking parents is, 'What do you really need from us?'" she says. "There is money, but where to spend it (is the issue)."

Miller estimates that several hundred people will participate in the walk over the course of the two Saturdays. They will include members of each group involved, including UB faculty members and students. UB's Teacher Education Institute already has nearly 60 students signed up, Miller says.

Participants will be assigned to one of four home bases, covering the north, south, east and west sections of the city.

Team members, who will receive a half-hour of training prior to the walk, will be given a script of questions to ask parents, some of which may include: "What are your major concerns about your children's school?" "How have these issues affected you or your child?" and "What is the school doing that is most helpful to you as a parent?"

One member of the team will ask the questions, while the other records the answers. Interviews are expected to last about 15 minutes, and parents in the areas to be surveyed will be notified ahead of time of the community walk effort, Miller explains.

Collected data will be analyzed at UB, then distributed to the Buffalo schools, Mayor Anthony Masiello and area funding and community agencies in the hope that they will be able to better assess the needs of both parents and children in the community, according to Miller.

"We're working hard to make sure it's a trustworthy and credible process," she says.

VOICE Buffalo has conducted several walks of this nature before, Miller says, and has provided the expertise on organizing this event.

As for parent response, Miller hopes the walk will speak for itself.

"We didn't want to survey (in the conventional sense)," Miller says. "We didn't want to send (a survey) out and wait for it to come back." Rather, the aim was to get community members of all walks of life to engage parents face to face.

"It's evident in this effort that there are people who are willing to contribute a half day to walk, that people are willing to listen," she says. "This is a special effort."

Buffalo, Miller says, needs more integrated community efforts, and the walk for education is important to this end.

"We're very excited by the nature of the enterprise and its collaborative spirit," she says.