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- Our motivation every day is the people around us in this community and making it better.

- [Woman] Workforce development, healthcare, education.

- [Man] Getting out there and making a difference in the lives that need it the most.

(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Ernest Hooper.

On this episode of That's All I'm Saying, we're going to examine the trust issues that have permeated a wide variety of disputes between parents and schools.

We'll bring together a panel to explore why trust has become an underlying cause of clashes about mask mandates, book bans and parental rights.

But first, we wanted to gather the perspective of those in the classroom.

We recently attended the Alliance for Public Schools' Grad Nation event to talk to high school students about the latest conflicts.

This spring, we saw a big debate about the Parental Rights Bill.

Do you think those conflicts impacted your learning experience at Leto?

- We were against the Parental Rights Bill because we felt like each student should be able to confide in their teachers.

They should be able to have their own things and have their own beliefs and have their own sexual orientation without feeling ridiculed.

- But when it comes to the Parental Rights Bill, I am against it.

I feel that kids should be able to express themself in any way and they should be who they are.

- Students should be allowed to talk to their teachers.

School might be a safe space for them.

But if that bill was passed, that might hurt a lot of students.

- Back in the day, as we like to say, there was a lot of trust between parents and teachers, and they were working together.

Why is that changed?

- The more demands you put on educators, the less time we have to build relationships.

They don't have the time to plan and grade and do everything just to make their classroom run, and so our relationships are sacrificed.

- Do you still feel like you can trust your teachers?

- Yes.

Any question I have.

It can be the weirdest questions.

I know my teachers are gonna answer them with their full capability, and I know they're gonna give me the right information.

- So your trust in teachers is high, would that be correct?

- They love me and I love my teachers as well.

I've never had a bad teacher, and that goes along with being able to talk to them about things and express my feelings or how I'm feeling to them.

- [Ernest] So your mom engages with teachers.

- Yes.

- How important is that for parents to be involved?

- Very important, 'cause what I see, some kids whose parents are not as involved, doesn't do as good as the parents that are involved and are talking to your teachers and are seeing how your grades are going and telling you to do your work and telling you to be active and getting you the requirements to graduate.

- What were your thoughts about the book ban?

- I don't agree with the book bans at all.

I believe that, like I told you earlier, that history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.

So if you don't educate the generation now and you decide to hide things from them, then in return, you will get what has happened in the past.

- Books are ways that we teach empathy and they are doors and windows into other lives, and representation is really important, so students need to be able to see themselves.

My goal was to make sure that there was at least one book in our library where no matter who you are as a student, the narrator looks like you, sounds like you, thinks like you.

(soft music) - So how did we get to this level of mistrust between parents, teachers and administrators?

How do we balance parental rights while ensuring students have the education they deserve and teachers have a positive and supportive classroom?

Joining me now to discuss the issue are Hillsborough County School Board member Melissa Snively, Jeffrey Solochek, who covers education for the Tampa Bay Times.

Melissa Erickson, Executive Director of the Alliance for Public Schools, and Aly Legge of Moms for Liberty, a parental rights organization.

Thanks for being here on That's All I'm Saying, folks.

Jeff, I want to start with you and let you set the table.

What has happened over the last two years to create this mistrust, and where are we right now?

- It all seems to stem, Ernest, from parents being able to see a lot about what's going on in their kids' classrooms, because kids were at home taking classes online.

People started to see things and question things, get involved a little bit more than they were when they were just sending their kids off to school on a bus and not seeing them again for another eight hours, and things have bubbled up from there.

People have been fighting about different issues as they find that they don't always necessarily agree.

Masks, curriculum issues and a variety of other concerns have come up.

The legislature has sort of stirred the pot and we are where we are right now where we have people who maybe otherwise always just nodded and waved at each other and passed by each other in the hallway or at the stores, and now they look at each other and they say I don't agree with you and let's fight about it.

- Wow, that is such a really good point about virtual creating more transparency for what's happening at school.

Aly, let me turn to you.

You represent a group that wants to empower parents and empower parental rights.

What do you think has emboldened groups like yours to demand greater accountability?

- I think it's the understanding of our constitutional principles, and being as parents, we have an inherent right to be involved in our children's education and their everyday lives.

So when we did have that access into what our children were learning at home, when they were forced to be at home, it did give us a little bit more eyesight on what was going on and it made us more aware and we are just activated and ready to be more involved in our children's education, as is our right to do so.

- Melissa Snively, you know that parents play an important role.

It's sort of a three-legged stool, parents, teachers and students.

You've been on the school board since 2014.

What changes have you seen in the last two years based on your experience?

- I've seen a lot of changes over the last several years, but specifically in the last two years, I will agree that with the pandemic and virtual education, parents sat up and began to listen and see what was happening in the classrooms, where I think you mentioned it early on that there's been a level of trust that parents send their children to school and they trust that their children are one, going to be safe, and two, going to get educated.

It's about teaching and learning.

I think that when we as parents, and I speak as a parent of four children, two who have graduated from the public school and two who are still in public school, and this is not everyone, but when parents were home with their students and listening and watching what was happening, there are some parents who became concerned about what was being taught and how it was being taught in the classroom.

Now obviously these were, I'm going to use a word that's already been overused, but unprecedented times, and there was a lot of learning about how to teach virtually.

I think the superintendent made the analogy of building an airplane while it was in the air.

There was no playbook for educating virtually, but I think that a lot of parents started to sit up and pay closer attention and they started to be a bit concerned and wanting to get more engaged with how their children were being educated and what and how things were being taught in their virtual classrooms.

It was a wake up call I think for some.

- Interesting, interesting.

Melissa Erickson, I know your child was educated in the Hillsborough school system, as where my three children.

I believe we operated with a degree of trust in our teachers and the school district.

From your perspective both as a parent and as the Executive Director of the Alliance for Public Schools, what do you think has transpired in the last two years to change the dynamic?

- I have a little bit of a different opinion based on what we're hearing from parents, and I hear from parents every day.

In some ways, this is outside agitation for political purposes, I think.

A lot of what has been specifically discussed in the legislature over the last year wasn't ever happening in our schools.

People were fearful that it could or thought that it had somewhere, but you couldn't point to an actual instance where some of the things that were legislated this term had actually ever been part of the curriculum in our schools.

- Yeah, that's an interesting point, and it kind of dovetails into my next question.

Aly, I'll let you start on this question.

How much of this is about disagreements between parents and school districts/school boards, and how much of this is about disagreements between parents and teachers who are in the classroom?

- I think it's a disagreement between all groups, actually.

There's been some concerns about what the district's policies are when they are put in place.

They do affect teachers and the administration, and it also affects students and teachers, students and parents as well.

So it's an all-encompassing area of what goes on in our schools.

Like we've been discussing, there's been a lot of mistrust and a lot of miscommunication that has been going around, and when we find books that are accessible, while they may not be instructional, they are accessible to our children that are very explicit in nature.

That is when a lot of us parents tend to be concerned with what is actually being taught in our classrooms, and we've been able to see that through what our children are bringing home, what they're telling us and what we are actually witnessing through virtual learning.

So it's not just a disagreement between parents and our school district or parents and specific teachers.

It's a distrust between the entire system.

- Melissa Snively, what do you think?

Does this debate involve more about policy or more about the actions of specific teachers?

- I think it's more about actions than policy, because the policy is in place.

I mean, if you take a good hard look at the policy that the school district has in place, you'll see that the policy language is strong.

It's a matter of enforcing the policy and educating parents and retraining staff members about policy.

That should be the responsibility of the superintendent, the operations of the school district.

I mean, a policy is only as good as the ability to enforce it in the school district.

And so I think that the policy language that we have in place for many different scenarios is a strong policy.

I think it does fall on the superintendent's shoulders and ultimately the school board's shoulders to make sure that the superintendent is enforcing that policy consistently and with fidelity.

- Melissa Erickson, do you think the policies are being enforced from the people you've talked to?

And do you think teachers feel like they're being treated fairly or not?

- Those are two very different questions.

I think by and large, the policies are enforced.

I think on any given day something can happen.

And now of course with social media, it can be up there instantaneously before the school leader or a school board member or the superintendent might have any opportunity to respond to it.

Do educators feel good about what's happening in schools?

I don't want to speak for educators as a whole, but teachers are starting to feel the real pressure of overregulation, autonomy in the classroom.

Even if you're a teacher who has always taught by the policy, autonomy in the classroom is a rare thing these days.

Hearing from students, I think that's something that they very much missed.

They would like to have their teachers be able to teach the class that's in front of them and not some theoretical class that was set forth when a curriculum module or something was adopted.

- Yeah.

Jeffrey, I'll let you have to final word on this question.

Is this about conflict between parents and school districts/school boards, or is it more about what specific teachers are teaching in the classroom?

- I think it's a little bit of everything that you just said, and you have lots of parents who don't even agree amongst themselves.

So you have lots of subgroups out there and some are angry, some are happy.

Some trust the schools and everything that they're doing.

Some mistrust everything.

Some people are coming in who are stirring mistrust, and they're not parents.

They don't even live in the communities that they're coming to the school boards that they're yelling at.

And so what you have right now is just a situation.

I don't want to go anywhere too in politic there.

A situation where you have people who are all on the edge.

Their nerves have been rubbed raw.

This pandemic stuff has bothered them one way or the other, and it's coming out in the schools because their kids are there and people care about their kids.

- Yeah, so the stress and anxiety of the pandemic certainly is a factor.

We want parents to engage, to share with school boards how they feel and when they disagree, but sometimes it seems like these conflicts have gone too far.

We have seen a school board member in Brevard County who is alleged all kinds of harassment.

A school board member in Lake County resigned because she said meetings had become too divisive.

So Aly, I'll start this question with you.

While we want parents to engage, are we at risk of this going too far and adversely impacting the jobs of school districts?

- I think as long as parents don't feel, and it's not just restricted to parents.

It's also educators.

As long as we feel like we are being heard when we come to speak at public comment and not feeling like we are being removed from the conversation, then I feel like these meetings will go a lot smoother, and it's not just during public comment.

There's been several hundreds of parents that have reached out to all of their school board members via phone calls, via text message or emails, and when we don't receive anything back, we a lot of times tend to go up to our school board meetings and give public comment, which is our right constitutionally, and a lot of times they may not like what we have to say, and we are very strongly opinionated because nobody wants what's best for our kids more than their parents, right?

Parents always want what is best for their children.

So when we come to our school board meetings and give public comment, we are very impassioned about that because our children are at risk either from falling behind or from being exposed to things that we normally wouldn't want them to be exposed to.

So yes, discussions can be pretty heated, but nobody here I believe in Hillsborough County has ever harassed a school board member or has been arrested at one of our board meetings.

But there is a sense where a lot of parents and educators alike don't feel like we are being completely heard and acknowledged.

- Melissa, how do you respond to that?

You've been on the other end at school board meetings.

Do you feel like you're giving parents enough opportunity to share how they feel?

- I do believe that there are a multitude of different ways that parents can share their opinions with school board members.

I think that if you as a school board member, if you're not responsive or you are not acknowledging at least the feelings, you may not always agree with a parent as a school board member, but you have to at least acknowledge that that person has an opinion.

Sometimes they may need additional information.

Maybe their opinion is formed based on incomplete data.

But I think that as long as people feel like they're being heard, then they will continue to be civil.

But I agree with Aly that if they don't feel like they're being heard, that's when they start to become angry and want to come and express that publicly at a school board meeting.

I think it was mentioned earlier that parents want the best for their child.

There's not gonna be anyone more passionate about their child's education than their parent is.

And so when you mix that emotion in when you're trying to help someone with information or getting them information, that can be very challenging, can be very challenging.

'Cause you know, parents, they start up here and you have to start up here with them emotionally until they feel acknowledged and they feel like their voice is important.

And then you can have that civil conversation and you can share that information that they need, but they do need to feel that they're heard.

- All right.

So we got about a minute left, and I want to skip to our last question because I really wanted to hear this group offer some solutions.

How do we help recreate trust between parents in the school district?

Melissa Erickson, I'll start with you.

How do we rebuild this trust?

- I think we have to lower the temperature and change the tone.

I saw something recently said that I respect your opinion, but I don't respect your tone.

We've forgotten to some extent how to interact with each other as humans when we were isolated.

I think being heard comes with putting things out there in a way that someone can receive it.

So I think focus on the relationship, whether it's with the educator or the school board member and have a conversation from a place of caring about the student and building a relationship to support that student.

- Jeffrey Solocheck, we got about 20 seconds.

What do you think?

- I'll keep it to a word then, collaboration.

There needs to be more of it.

- [Ernest] Aly, what do you think?

How do we regain trust?

- Making sure we foster good relationships.

I agree with Melissa Erickson on that.

Fostering good relationships.

- And Melissa Snively, I'll give you the last word.

Can we rebuild trust?

- We can rebuild trust.

We need to be on the same team and we need to be civil and care about each other.

It's about the children.

- All right, thanks so much for joining us on That's All I'm Saying and sharing your insights on this very important topic.

Coming up, I'll have my final thoughts.

(soft music) I still remember the first time I got called into the principal's office.

My mother walked in with a stern look that made my first grade face freeze with fear.

I pleaded innocent and insisted the teacher singled me out for no good reason, but my mom made clear her trust lied with the school.

What else would you expect from a fellow teacher?

Don't make me come down here again because cause you're in trouble, she said in a measured tone.

I got the message.

Parents and teachers were a tandem, and I had no chance against such a dynamic duo.

Nearly everyone in my generation shares a similar story.

Today, the ties that once bonded teachers and parents have started to fray.

In some instances they have completely unraveled.

It's an upheaval that threatens the collaborative nature of education if it's not reversed.

Don't get me wrong.

I'm not asking that parents blindly place their kids in the hands of a school district.

It's incumbent for them to engage and express worthy concerns.

However, those conversations have to start from a place of trust, and that trust has to be established at the beginning of every school year.

An 18 year education veteran shared with me that building trust between teachers and parents can prove difficult if a behavioral or academic issue initiates the first contact.

Get to know the teacher before there's trouble.

In the end, I'm always going to advocate for those who choose the challenge of teaching in the 21st century.

I'm bothered by any policy that broadly assumes the worst of a group that still sees its profession as a calling and still works to build up young minds.

We've witnessed a rise in pay for teachers, but that alone can't cure the growing exodus of educators.

This is a solution that cries out for respect, support and care.

Teachers won't continue to love their jobs if we don't show some love for them.

I'm Ernest Hooper, and That's All I'm Saying.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Premier Eyecare is a leader in national managed eyecare with four million insured members nationwide through its network of optometrists, ophthalmologists and specialists.

Recognized for best practices and delivery of care, associate engagement and commitment to the community.

Premier Eyecare is proud to support That's All I'm Saying with Ernest Hooper.

For more information, go to PremierEyeCare.net.

(soft music) - Our motivation every day is the people around us in this community and making it better.

- [Woman] Workforce development, healthcare, education.

- [Man] Getting out there and making a difference in the lives that need it the most.

(soft music)