Priority 1 of 5
Supporting parents and strengthening families
Parents want to be involved in their children’s education. What stops them is usually a work schedule, a bus route, or a missing laptop — not a lack of caring.
Bobby will build stronger partnerships between DPSCD and trusted Detroit community organisations, and bring parent engagement into neighbourhoods and community spaces rather than expecting every family to come to a school building.
Detroit has one of the highest shares of working parents on non-standard hours in the state — second shifts, weekend shifts, two jobs. A parent-teacher evening at 6pm on a Tuesday is not neutral; it selects for the families who can already get there.
The district already has engagement programmes. The problem is rarely the programme — it is that the invitation assumes a car, a free evening, childcare for the younger ones, and a laptop that works. Remove those four barriers and attendance at these things changes without changing the programme at all.
Bobby has spent years running sign-ups, phone trees and Saturday programmes for exactly these families. He knows what gets a parent through a door, because it is the same thing that gets a child to practice.
The goal: When parents have the support they need, students have a stronger foundation for success.
What that means in practice
- Stronger partnerships between DPSCD and trusted Detroit community organisations
- Connect families with resources that remove the barriers to being involved
- Academic, technology, financial, workforce and family-support resources for parents
- Parent engagement in neighbourhoods and community spaces, not only school buildings
- Clearer communication between parents, teachers, school leaders and the district
He already does this
Eastside Colts runs on parent volunteers — the same parents who are told elsewhere that they are hard to reach. They are not hard to reach. They are reached on a Saturday, in a neighbourhood, by somebody who knows their name.
See the workThis is bigger than one seat
Parents who show up are the whole strategy.