METCO Parents Council
METCO Parents Council
Another component of METCO is the Parents Council which was limited to dealing with flash-point issues on a small scale. The Parents Council helped parents obtain power on the METCO board and worked to get parents elected to school committees. It was involved in scholarship and other fund-raising efforts and coordinated activities for students and families, including host families.
METCO provides support to parents through group meetings and the Parents Council, and provides support documentation such as the Parent Handbook, and district manuals.
Almost from its inception, METCO wanted to track parent's satisfaction with the program. This is an early example of the questionnaire that parents filled out for METCO's administration at the end of the school year. It asks for demographic information of the parents, levels of parent education and if they are happy with the their child's progress in METCO.
Constructed by the METCO Parents Council, this is a guide for discussion groups for parents. Each section is broken by by grade and led by a teacher in the host schools. Items proposed by parents are bringing Black history into the school cirriculums, creating newsletters for better communication, enrolling students into summer programs, and parental knowlege of the Boston Schools' cirriculum.
The Parents Council in 1967 is happy to report that "Negro History Clubs" has been established in Brookline HS, a suburban host school.
Also, a checklist is proposed that will help parents know who needs car pools, parent volunteers, and problems in host families.
In 1967 METCO received support letters from parents, students, school administrators and others. This is an example of a tuturing center offering their support to the nascent program. The author offers to organize interested parents for a tour of suburban schools.