By SHELDON BARNES
Guest Columnist
One of the guiding principles of the Carmel Clay School Board is that parent involvement enhances the learning experience. They act otherwise.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the school board put an end to parent-teacher conferences, prevented parents and grandparents from having lunch at school, and suspended parents from commenting at school board meetings.
What kind of collective punishment and exclusion should parents expect next? Will they put an end to meet the teacher night? Will they prevent parents from attending school games?
Thanks to voters, a safety referendum was approved that placed a school resource officer in every school. I have not seen many reports of parents harming others in the school setting, even in cities with high crime rates.
I believe that parents do more than enhance the learning experience. Parents are our children’s first teachers.
According to the U.S. Census, 72 percent of Carmel citizens who are 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree or higher. Recently, Carmel was ranked the third-safest city in the United States by safewise.com. According to safewise.com, the cities on their list have lower violent crime rates, property crime, and sex offenders.
If Carmel Clay Schools values parents, they have a strange way of showing it.
Full disclosure: I am running for Carmel Clay School Board. Candidates across the country have “parental involvement” in their platform because of what our school board is doing. It is also why Indiana’s Attorney General Todd Rokita felt compelled to develop and publish a Parents’ Bill of Rights.
If I am elected to serve on the school board, I will do my best to ensure that parents are valued beyond just enhancing the learning experience.
Sheldon Barnes is a candidate for Carmel Clay Schools Board of Trustees, District 1.