By Ruth Ronen and Meghan Bouchard

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

Many Somerville parents were surprised when a proposal to create a second charter school in the city became public late last year.  A group of concerned parents and community members organized to quickly raise awareness, drive attendance at the public meeting and lead a letter-writing campaign to oppose the charter.  The State will decide on the proposal later this month.

We called ourselves Progress Together for Somerville (PT4S), and members quickly understood that we should go beyond opposing a single charter proposal. Many of us were already engaged in the school system through our children, the PTA and School Improvement Councils.  And though there was unanimous opposition to the proposed charter, there was also a strong desire to address many of the longstanding challenges facing our schools.

Most didn’t want to merely oppose the charter school. That opposition had mobilized hundreds of people from diverse backgrounds and schools who were now talking to each other. It created common ground, momentum and the need to transition from opposition, to the harder work of engaging all of the city’s schools.
Over the past 3 months, PT4S members have continued to meet in an effort to refocus their energy on school improvement.  With this shift in mission has come a new set of organizational challenges, not the least of which is the definition of the mission itself.

A group has been meeting regularly, sometimes as often as 3 nights a week, to find a shared and compelling set of goals and actions that can move the organization forward.  At the same time, others are working to reach more parents across the community, opening lines of communication with those already in the schools and developing tools, such as an updated website and mail list to connect with the broader community.

There is strong agreement on the overall objective, namely to work towards excellent schools for all kids in the city.  What isn’t yet clear is how to best to pursue this, especially given the proliferation of great ideas, versus the finite resources available to implement them.  However, the group has agreed on these initial steps:

• Focus on community outreach: a team is making connections with each of the schools and communities across the city so that future initiatives can include a broader range of voices.  To achieve this, the group must continue its grass roots organizing through face-to-face interactions and working with existing parent groups and service organizations.
• Leverage past success: a second team is developing a “promising practices” survey to help identify and share good ideas and practices among schools.  We hope to work with the PTA, school councils, teachers and school administrators to achieve this.
•Improve membership coordination: many have expressed interest in PT4S and offered to help, but more needs to be done to capture this enthusiasm.  Volunteers are working on a new website, contact lists and other tools to engage more people.
Establishing a common mission and goals has generated intense discussion.  Though there is agreement on many broad issues, we have struggled to balance the desire for urgency with the need to include more voices in the discussion. So we are focusing on organization building and on collecting more input before defining a clear set of goals.

We are creating a community forum where school issues can be discussed.  PT4S is working with the School Committee and District to hold the first of these open discussions in March. We hope that this will become a recurring opportunity to learn about schools, make connections and build towards better schools for all.
Ultimately, PT4S’s success will only be as great as its ability to involve the entire community. Improving Somerville schools will take years of effort, as there are no quick or simple fixes. No individual or particular group has all the answers.

With this in mind, PT4S invites any and all members of the community to join in. The organization is still in its early days. We see tremendous potential in Somerville’s schools. And we believe that realizing that potential will require the participation of all who care about giving our kids an excellent education.

Please check out the PT4S website, www.pt4s.org, send us an e-mail, look for us at your school or give us a call. There’s plenty of work to be done. Somerville is a unique community with incredible diversity and an amazing bunch of kids. Together, we can work to make our schools even better.