Seven women passed a Thursday morning in the windowless basement of M.C. Terrell Elementary School, eating vending machine pastries and trying to think of words that describe their anger.
“Frustrated.”
“Furious.”
“Irritated.”
They talked about getting heated, and how they start to sweat. One woman shouted across the large rectangle of eight pushed-together tables that she starts to shake when she gets mad at her teenagers.
At Terrell, in Congress Heights, 89 percent of students live in poverty and 100 percent of students are black. Five of the women were parents from the area, or grandparents raising their grandchildren. They had come to the Parent Resource Center for a seminar with Debrah Johnson, a parent educator from the National Center for Children and Families, and her colleague, program coordinator Michelle Wilson.
DC Public Schools reopened two Parent Resource Centers this spring after closing the city’s centers last summer; at the time, Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson said they were underused and parents preferred other means to engage with schools.
Critics of the closings said the centers weren’t publicized, and they emphasized that school reform can’t happen unless the city targets outside-of-school factors like poverty, nutrition and parenting.
The D.C. Council recently passed legislation to create five “community schools” by giving $200,000 to each school to hold classes aimed at adult literacy, mental health and other services.
Jeff Smith, executive director of nonprofit DC Voice, said he surveyed virtually every DCPS principal in 2007, asking them what issues should be on his radar.
“Principals could have talked about libraries, field trips, scholastics, gymnastics,” Smith said. “But without any prompting, people overwhelmingly said they needed help with what was going on in their students’ lives before school started and after they left school in the afternoon.”
The Terrell basement offers programs on domestic violence, furthering one’s education, gardening and crocheting. At the event Turning Down the Heat At Home: Anger Management, parents shared anecdotes about their kids losing their shoes or making them late, and shared their reactions when their kids mouthed off. At the second part of the two-part session, on June 19, Williams plans to bring along a social worker.
Johnson, who is raising her grandchild, said more parents typically attend the sessions — Terrell had a field trip that morning — and acknowledged that some parents need the program more than others. When she hears the variety of responses to some of her questions, she knows the program is needed.
Brenda, a large woman with close-cropped hair and a white T-shirt, said that sometimes she needs to slam the door to make a point to her teenage daughter, and doesn’t understand why Johnson believes parents should praise their children for handling anger in positive ways.
“But I know how to get ’em — she loves that green,” Brenda said, laughing. “You don’t give her that green, she comes over, says, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ Well, it’s too late for ‘sorry.’ ”
Johnson shook her head. “We’re going to address that in part two,” she said. “I’m sitting over here getting irritated.”
