What Does it Take to Get Parents Activated?

It’s a conversation I’ve had many times this year. While I am talking to someone about our group of approximately 150 people who meets every month to learn about what is going on in the education system in our county and what needs to happen, this question will come up. “Why don’t we have more parents involved in the meetings? Why aren’t they energized?”

At that point we usually go through the normal excuses, they are too busy, it’s a bad time for the meeting (7 p.m. on a Tuesday night), they are intimidated and don’t want their children targeted by the school system, and on and on. Someone will bring up the fact that many parents have pulled their children out of the government schools into private schools and homeschooling. Someone else will say that the parents can’t sit and listen to information for long OR that we are not entertaining enough for them. We get “too much in the weeds” for them.

I’ve heard them all. Sometimes I feel guilty. If only I would work harder, do more, be better, they would engage. It reminds me of a gymnastics coach I knew once who was bemoaning the fact that his kids weren’t elite level gymnasts even though they practiced hard. He told me, “They just don’t seem to care enough.” I pointed out to him that the athletes he was discussing practiced five nights a week for at least two hours. Obviously, the kids were committed. Then I would say to him, “But you can’t want it more than they do.” My point was that those athletes had to be the ones who had the motivation, the drive, to do what they needed to be at an elite level. The athletes needed to feel the urgency. Coaches can’t do that for them.

And I feel the same about the young parents in our area. For some reason, the dire conditions of our public schools aren’t dire enough. The scores aren’t low enough, the academic progress isn’t lagging enough, the violence isn’t bad enough. For some reason, we haven’t hit that point where parents feel compelled to do something. Some may not know the reality of the situation.

The ones who have fled from the system feel safe in their private schools and homeschooling, because as of right now the government hasn’t taken control of those two avenues of escape or forbidden them altogether. But it’s just a matter of time.

Frankly, if you look at the private schools, many of them are buying into the government schools’ model and the “woke” nonsense just as much as the public schools.

But the time will come when the early sexualization of young children, the indoctrination into Marxist ideals, the rampant racist division, and the total lack of academic instruction will finally hit a crisis point and these parents will stand up, look around, and decide to take action.

By then it might be too late. Like the picture at the beginning of this blog, they will find that the government now owns and controls their children. And they won’t be able to do a thing.

Those excuses won’t mean much then, will they.

If you want to get involved, make a difference, come to the Candidate’s Forum on Tuesday, April 26th, 7-9 at the Easton Fire Hall. It will be a chance to get to know people who are running for county and state office.

Or, you could make an excuse not to come. It’s up to you.