Les Kelloucq en voyage

 

A Glorietta, tous les parents ou presque étaient impliqués à l’école : par du bénévolat en classe, à la cantine, à la bibliothèque, pour accompagner des sorties, par l’organisation de la soirée qui génère des fonds pour l’école, il y a mille façons. Mais il y a aussi un groupe de parents élus qui traitent des affaires courantes avec la directrice et les institutions de l’éducation. Au cours de réunions mensuelles auxquelles tous les parents peuvent assister, un agenda minuté est discuté.

 

A Paris, je crois bien que, soit EJ, soit moi, avons toujours été impliqués dans les représentants de parents d’élèves. A la maternelle, c’était une liste de parents indépendants. A  l’école primaire, où les garçons sont ensemble pour la première fois, EJ vient d’être élu ce week-end comme suppléant sur la liste FCPE. Parmi les questions auxquelles s’attaquent les parents élus d’après les emails que je lis d’un œil: la taille des classes (27 ou 28 élèves en moyenne), une meilleure aération des classes, les jeux dangereux (jeu du foulard et dérivés), une œuvre d’art devant la porte de l’école qui incite les enfants à grimper et semble présenter un danger à certains parents,…Si mes souvenirs de maternelle s’appliquent, les réunions entre les parents élus et l’école sont trimestrielles et pas ouverte à tous les parents.

 

En gros, je dirais que les parents américains me semblent non seulement plus impliqués à l’école, mais aussi plus exigeants des enseignants qui se doivent d’être plus à l’écoute des enfants et des parents. Parce que les parents donnent autant d’argent à l’école, on sent que leur rôle est important.

 

 

The French readers of my blog last year heard a lot about the many ways Glorietta parents were encouraged and expected to get involved in the school, i.e. the volunteering in the classroom, the lunch room or the library, the outings, the fundraising efforts, etc…As far as the Glorietta Parents Club, it was amazing to me last year that there were monthly meetings with the principal and the teachers and that these were open to all the parents because in France, the meetings are only once a term and only the elected representatives of the parents attend.

 

This year, EJ ran for election on one of the two lists of parents. Here is the amazing thing: there are two main parents’ associations in France, one is reputed to the left-wing and the other to the right-wing. Typically parents who run are members of one or the other association though they can be independent. From our experience last year in Orinda, political leanings did not come into play in choosing the GPC board. Only in France! EJ was elected as a “suppléant”, he is kind of an alternate who is involved in the daily work of the association, but he will not attend the meetings each term unless he must stand in for somebody else.

 

Among the issues already on the agenda for the parents at our school this year: class size (there are 27-28 students per class and the hope for a new class opening did not materialize), airing out the classrooms, educating everybody at school about “dangerous games” (apparently there is a rash of kids hurting or even killing themselves in France in the process of playing some games with scarves and other devices as they seek strong sensations…), a piece of art which stands in front of the school and which children can’t resist climbing (some parents find this too dangerous). After seeing American parents be so involved in the daily running of the school (they raise money, have expectations, are demanding and the school has to be attentive to them), French parents seem to me to have odd and somewhat peripheral concerns. It is just an impression, but it feels like French parents usually channel their demand through their representatives instead of taking things up directly with the principal. The representatives' relationship with the school, though usually cordial, seems more adversarial by nature.