Date: March 3, 2017
Type: Expert Interview
Location: Phone Interview
Expert: Dr. Maria McKenna
Expert/User Characteristics:
- Senior Associate Director of Education, Schooling, and Society.
- Assistant Professor of the Practice for Education, Schooling, and Society and the Department of Africana Studies. She is also a Faculty Fellow with the Institute for Educational Initiatives at the University of Notre Dame.
- Married, mother of four, two children in High School at Adams
- PhD
- Mother
http://iei.nd.edu/people/iei-fellows/maria-mckenna/
Faisal Shariff interviewed Dr. Maria McKenna on the phone.
Faisal: What factors do you think most parents consider when making a high school choice? Is a choice made or is it assumed?
Professor Maria McKenna: “First of all, I don’t think you can think about this situation from a deficit-minded perspective. Parents are working with whatever knowledge they have..the history of South Bend and their own children. You have to assume that every parent is trying to make the best decision for their child with the information that they have available.
The decision-making process has to do a great deal with the information they have available. Parents will tell you that they want a school that’s safe, that is going to push their child-this will be said in a lot of different ways: “rigorous, a place with high expectations, make him do his work, pushing child to be best C
of themselves”
- Safety
- High Expectations/Rigor
- Programs to keep students busy/out of trouble
Literature on school choice says that parents choose schools based on word of mouth and what friends say.
“Choosing a school in South Bend is like a game of telephone”
F: What do you know about Clay High school?
MM:
- “Its a vibrant viable school not just for the arts but for students also interested in AP courses and the AP track to allow them to earn dual credit”
- “School in what many people would say is a pretty stable neighborhood”
- “School with enormous potential to own its identity”
- “As someone who does a lot of research on schools, and school choice, I was equally impressed with Clay as with Adams when talking with guidance counsellors and school leaders. What’s striking is how much I might not have known if I had not reached out and called the guidance office.”
“Parents who are pleased with the program are the best mechanism for bringing people into the door that you have”
F: What do you personally consider as a parent?
MM: “Three things. Strong leadership- a visionary leader at the front, you walk into the building and feel like they are gonna care about my kid and know who they are. When you walk around the school, you see teachers laughing and joking around with each other versus disciplining them. Third, whatever academic institution it is, I want it to be academically rigorous. When we were choosing, we let the kids pick with a little bit of coaching. But if I had a choice, I would have put them in clay. It was the most impressive in terms of the full package – arts, athletics, caring community, and dual credits. My kids chose something different because their friends chose something different, which we respected and were fine with.
- “Clay is underselling itself”
- “Clay is one of the best kept secrets in south bend, and we need to crack open the nut and not have it be a secret”
What do we need?
- The thing that I have that other parents might not is the access and wherewithal to get information. Others don’t have the same social capital or networking potential.
Thoughts on South Ben School Corporation
- South Bend has to sell diversity as a strength
- Clay needs to stop being afraid, and need to stop trying to be like adams
- Play up the fact that its an arts institution
- “Parents need to know where there are safe places for there kids to be that are diverse”
- Demographics of South Bend: 70% on free/reduced unch
- More than 60% are students of color
- “Clay is a unique and proud place for children to grow”
- “Need to play up the fact that they have dual credit program to the parents who do have the option to pay for private schools”
Thoughts on how to reach out to parents, students, recruitment
- Need to realize that some of the parents are not high school graduates or are English language learners
- Tailor the print materials to that
- Readability of actual text
- Key talking points that parents can walk away and remember
- Ex: That’s how Trump won. He had a clear, concise, defined message
Key takeways
- Assume that every parent is making their best effort to equip their children to succeed.
- Clay is not second fiddle to Adams. It is a good school with a lot to offer academically, extracurricularly, diversity-wise, and with the arts. It has a good community and would be a great place for a student to learn and grow.
- Understand your target. Target all of the middle schools in the SBSC. Clay needs to build the reputation of the school where all those students want to go.
Key quotes:
“You have to assume that every parent is trying to make the best decision for their child with the information that they have available.”
“Parents pick schools based on word of mouth, based on what their friends say”
“Choosing a school in South Bend is like a game of telephone”
“Have to figure out a way to get information out into all pockets of the community to show them what Clay is about”
“Parents who are pleased with the program are the best mechanism for bringing people into the door that you’ve got”
“Clay is underselling itself. Clay is one of the best kept secrets in South Bend”
“Learn a lesson in precision and concise thinking from Trump and this most recent election”