Since the Cedar Rapids Community School District’s (CRCSD) announcement of pathway offerings by the Cedar Rapids Gazette on Oct. 24, parents, students and community members have expressed concern. District communication issues have triggered outrage—and for the first time in recent history, education is taking center stage.
When community members raised concerns, issue after issue came to light. Several of the district’s projects lacked proper planning and logistical oversights coupled with poor communication and questionable decisions left community members with little faith in our district.
“You’re talking about your kids and education,” Erin Hill, mother of a Harrison Elementary School student, said. “Of course they’re going to be emotional and it’s going to be something they take very personally. I think it can be hard to be given something that you feel like you didn’t have input in before it got launched.”
This lack of trust was not helped by CRCSD’s response to concerned parents when holding informational meetings that were closed to comments and seemed almost patronizing. The answers from district administrators in the Padlet, an online forum that allowed parents to ask questions, became increasingly unhelpful. At one point, instead of responding to a parent’s concern, an administrator instead said, “You’re welcome to leave at any time.”
“What I’m seeing now is that [the parents’] reaction comes from experience,” Hill said. “It’s easy to read through some of the facts or some of the discussions online and say, ‘Oh, people are being too emotional or taking this too far,’ and I think that they don’t understand that it’s coming from a place of deep experience that you probably don’t have yourself.”
The immediate explosive response from some parents created a divide among families in the CRCSD as public opinion became polarized.
“I think there’s a lot of people that are very passionate on one side or the other,” mother of four Jen Adams said. “I see both sides. I do think that the district needs to just explain a little bit more of how they’re going to implement things.”
Despite failings on CRCSD’s end, aspects of these large projects have the potential to be beneficial to the students within the district. There are clear problems that the district is making an effort to address.
“I think the whole Freshman Academy is a good idea,” Adams said. “I know my children coming into high school will benefit from it. I wish it would have been available that freshman year for my other two children.”
Not all change is bad change just because of poor communication. Despite obvious gaps in CRCSD’s plans, our education system does need to change. Children are learning in a similar style to that of the 1870s when CRCSD’s first high school opened—is that really the best way to educate the leaders of tomorrow?
“I think there are some very good program ideas spread out there,” mother of three Brooke Oja said. “I think that exposing the kids to different things is great. I am curious and kind of concerned as to why this isn’t already happening. We do have the contracts with Kirkwood, we have many college campuses in town, why can’t we connect our students with those?”
A common sentiment from CRCSD leaders is that community members should focus on the “now.” When questions about the logistics of the implementation of the College and Career Pathways came up at the Parent Advisory Board meeting on Jan. 8, parents were redirected or outright ignored.
“I think that it’s a good thing moving forward for that ninth-grade year and beyond,” Adams said. “I’m more questioning what’s going to happen at that point with the pathways.”
Attendees were expected to form opinions and recommendations on the Freshman Academy structure without proper context regarding what the Freshman Academy was preparing its students for.
“They’re not answering our specific questions,” Oja said. “Even tonight, we have all these questions; is it a full year? Is it half a year? What are the criteria for opting out of those kinds of things? And they just say, ‘We’ll talk about it next time.’ This is supposed to roll out in the fall. It’s frustrating that they’re not even considering pushing things back when we don’t have a solid plan.”
On top of that, the first meeting progressed slowly, and toward the end, parents from each of the three high schools were not able to come to a consensus. Whether that means administrators will make decisions based on what they heard or will continue to discuss the topic in another meeting is unclear.
“We’re not going to have time to address all of the concerns before [the programs] roll out,” Oja said. “But it seems like big picture, it’s a done deal. There’s nothing we can do. We already have construction people starting to do their work. We already have the 15 million [dollars] and we can’t give it back, so we have to move forward. I feel like the district has set itself up and has set us up to not be able to turn back.”