Chatham Parents Call For Revival Of The Parent Curriculum Council

CHATHAM, NJ — Two Chatham parents attended the regular meeting of the Chatham Board of Education on Monday night to express their desire to reinstate Policy #2230, which allows for the formation of a Parent Curriculum Advisory Council.

The policy, which dates back to 2007, has been discussed at the last two board meetings, but according to Nicole Lois, a Chatham parent, the board has not provided parents with a direct answer to the inquiry.

"On May 16, we asked if this Advisory Council existed and if not, how is one created. The BOE's written response indicates that because Policy #2230 dates to 2007, which pre-dates both Common Core 2010 and NJ Learning Standards, this would be the reason to abolish this policy. This is a non-answer," Lois said.

According to Lois, parents who support the reinstatement of "Parental Curriculum Advisory Councils" believe that the policy should be reinstated regardless of how the Board enforced or ignored it in the past.

"Parental feedback gathered through the Parent Curriculum Advisory Council' is good policy that we should keep. It integrates the community. It might not be comfortable, or clean, but it is essential. Just because we haven’t done it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done," Lois said.

Deirdre Rajoppi, another Chatham parent, spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting, advocating for the same cause.

"We know parents are important to this community and to this Board of Education and Policy #2230 reinforces this and codifies it. Our leadership knew back in 2007 when the policy was written and I support it and it is important to continue to maintain parental curriculum advisory council," Rajoppi said.

Following the public comments, Chatham BOE President Jill Critchley Weber reiterated a previous response to the inquiry, stating that she and other board members believe curriculum presentations at BOE meetings are the preferred format.

"I did not say that it wasn't good policy; what I said is that we think it's better policy to have the open curriculum format, where people have asked questions, people have engaged… We think this is a much, much better format," Weber said.

Members of the Chatham Board of Education agreed with Weber but agreed that making the curriculum presentations available to the public ahead of time so that parents could come prepared with questions was something they should think about.

Susan Ross, a board member, agreed with Weber, saying it was the more "efficient and transparent" way to communicate curriculum changes.

LaSusa also spoke out, claiming that the Parent Curriculum Advisory Committee was never a "working group" or a group in which parents were involved in curriculum development. The policy's original intent was for PTO heads from various schools to meet with the assistant superintendent and report on curriculum changes before it came to the official board meeting.

"It was simply like a mini presentation, either prior to a board presentation or prior to a presentation at the PTO meetings, where typically we would have somewhere between 10 and 20 parents," LaSusa said.

The Chatham Board of Education is holding a special meeting on Friday, July 15, in the Chatham High School auditorium located at 255 Lafayette Avenue. The meeting will begin at 9:30 a.m. with one personnel agenda item.