S9E3 – PTA So White with Dr. Brittany Murray

S9E3 - PTA So White

Andrew: Welcome to the Integrated Schools Podcast. I'm Andrew, a White dad from Denver,

Val: And I'm Val, a Black mom from North Carolina.

Andrew: And this is PTA So White with Dr. Brittany Murray.

Val: Ooh, shout out to April Rain for the inspiration from #OscarsSoWhite.

Andrew: Yes, and we are talking about PTAs, like it's something that comes up all the time. People want to talk about the PTA, the PTA, the PTA, and we're finally digging in.

Val: And, you know, we have been excited about sharing this episode with folks forever.

Andrew: Yeah.

Val: Um, Brittany was an incredible guest. I know I'm really lucky in this instance because once we knew that we were able to book Brittany for the podcast, I did the first thing I could because she is in my home state and we met up for lunch and it was fantastic and we connected. And so you'll hear in this conversation that we already are vibing on BFF level. And I miss you, Brittany, if you're listening, and I need to see you soon.

Andrew: For sure. Yes. That's what this podcast is all about, is growing your social circle Val. [laughing]

Val: [laughing] I think I have collected many friends from here.

Andrew: Her research is totally relevant to Integrated Schools as an organization towards the broader question of inequity in education and in society at large. And so really excited to share this conversation. It pushed my thinking in all sorts of new ways since we had the conversation, which was a while ago now, it has been sitting around with me, so I'm glad we finally get to share it.

Val: I know, and I think I always thought that joining the PTA was the answer to parent engagement, and being involved with my kids' schooling. And her research, you know, started to make me question if that was the way to do it, right? If I was adding to the problem instead of being part of the solution. So I've been thinking about that for a while and, you know, I'm ready to go rogue and create my own caregiver organizations. That, explicitly talk about, the things that we are trying to push here at Integrated Schools versus some of what PTAs have been known for.

Andrew: Yeah, I agree. Like the, the vision of, “What does it mean to be an engaged parent?” is so often tied to PTA. And I think that her research really highlights some of the ways that PTA has been used and probably continues to be used as, as really a way to hoard resources.

Val: Mm.

Andrew: And so the, the representation problem that I know, the number of conversations that I've heard of people were like, “We're trying to become more representative in our PTA, but we're not having much success.” That is by far the majority of the conversations that I have about PTA. And so it's interesting to hear her research on kind of the ways that both we got here, you know, jpw the kind of the organization started, how it became this way, and then you know, what the impacts of that are now on the kids in the school.

Val: So you know, people might feel a little called in, called out, by some things that Brittany brings up in this episode because of what we've been led to believe about the function of PTAs and how we show up as parents. Um, what are your thoughts about that as a White dad from Denver?

Andrew: [chuckles] Yeah. There are certainly moments where I felt implicated in a lot of what she was saying. And so, yeah, I would encourage listeners to, to breathe deep, to, think about how is this actually relevant to, to your life. And, I do think there are ways in which she is talking broadly about research and, the inclination to sort of say, “Well, like, not me, you know, hashtag not all PTAs.” I feel that inclination.

Val: Yeah. And I think that's fair. And I think whenever we are given an opportunity for our thinking to be pushed or for us to hold up a reflection and say like, “Am I operating in this way that doesn't align with my stated values?” And it's okay to pause and think about that and figure out how we can continue to evolve, right? So I believe wholeheartedly, everyone is doing their best in this moment, and each of these conversations offers us an opportunity to do better.

Andrew: Yeah, for sure.

Val: Let's listen!

Andrew: Alright, let's check it out.

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Dr. Brittany Murray: Hello. I am Dr. Brittany Murray. I am an assistant professor of educational studies and political science at Davidson College, a small suburb outside of Charlotte, and very closely in proximity to Charlotte Mecklenburg schools, which is so relevant to what you all talk about here. So thanks for having me on. I'm thrilled to be here. I'm a big fan.

Val: Yay! And you know, another Black bomb from North Carolina. Woo woo!

Dr. Brittany Murray: Yes, yes. I'm excited to represent, so. [chuckles]

Val: That's what's up.

Andrew: Um, tell us a bit about your research. You've covered a lot of ground, but, what's the kind of thread that unifies it in your mind?

Dr. Brittany Murray: Yeah, it is highly interdisciplinary, but I do think at the core of my work is about race, families, and school inequality. So I think about inequality in trust that families have for schools, right? I think about inequality in relationships between families and schools, between families and teachers, inequality in access to resources and opportunities, right. Who gets access to even the information about what they should be doing, right. And, I think the direction that a lot of my work has taken inequality in access to power and influence in schools, um, which those things are just not evenly distributed.

Andrew: Yeah. Why? Why do you care about that? What in your past led you to focus on that?

Dr. Brittany Murray: Oh, my goodness. I am from North Carolina, right? So I'm one of the few faculty members who were lucky enough to get a tenure track job, pretty close to home. I'm from a small town called Pinehurst, North Carolina. I went to UNC Chapel Hill, two times alum, you know. Being from Pinehurst, I was intimately familiar, and curious about residential segregation. I don't know if you know much about Pinehurst. It's a golf community, the U S Open travels there, like lots of money around resorts and golfing, that kind of thing. Right… Country Club. Um, but that's not the part of Pinehurst that I was from, right?

Like, um, I'm from a town called Monroetown and for a long time, and I don't know if it's still that way, but they would not annex it as a part of Pinehurst. And so it was an unincorporated space where, you know… all the Black folks there. So, you know, we were excluded from a lot of services. And also excluded from being able to participate politically. Right.

So I've always been really interested about, how, where you're from, you know, shapes what you have access to. And, because I was in a very poor neighborhood in a wealthy community, I had access to great schools, but it often also meant that they were predominantly White Schools. Right. And the people of color in those schools were poor. You know, it was very little in-between right. You're Black and you're poor, you're White and you're rich. And so my mom was the first example for me of the challenges of parenting in that space. You know, like my mom had to fight for every inch that I made it in the school system. She would always say like, “I have to stay on these schools so they'll treat my baby right.” You know, she advocated for me in order to get in like advanced course taking, to take like the gifted test, like all of that was a fight.

And, you know, she wasn't your traditional PTA mom, right? Like, I would call her a very highly involved parent. She's doing everything at home. She's working two jobs. She's going back to nursing school, but…

Andrew: …she's not running the bake sale.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Exactly! She's not organizing the events, even though she showed up at everything I was at. Right. Like she made time, like she stayed up for hours with me after she would pull a double shift. Right. Making sure, like I had a fantastic project to turn in, right. And providing the structure that I needed to be successful… learning how to advocate for myself, you know, making sure that I knew the importance of education.

She wasn't besties with anybody at the school. Right. So the type of involvement my mom engaged in is not the type that shines to educators. Right. That kind of engagement also doesn't really shine in the research literature either, right? Like, we have pretty narrow, I would say definitions of what parent involvement is. You know, that was really instructive for me in terms of the challenges it means of being a racial minority in a dominant community.

Andrew: And now you find yourself in a really sort of similar environment. I'm guessing, I'm guessing that your past experience has some impact on why you do the research that you do.

Dr. Brittany Murray: You know, my past and my present really, right. Like there's a reason why I came to it. There's a reason why I stay in it. You know, I'm a Black, mother, scholar, right? Like I have kids in the school system and it's tough. Everything that I research affects how I parent, right? Everything that I'm experiencing in these schools is shaping what I even think about my work and my research. I see how my kids are affected. Right. I witness them being left out of opportunities for learning. I see them being over disciplined. Right. I have three Black boys, one Black girl. Right. I see myself as being left out of the PTA, feeling like I can't even penetrate the circle of White moms outside on the playground talking about ways to advantage their, their kids. Right. You know, Davidson is a small town, right? I'm a professor here, in this town and as much capital as I have as a professor, as a Black woman, as a Black parent, I'm still left out. There still feel powerless. Right. That informs a lot of why I stay in.

Andrew: Yeah, that. Yeah. That must be hard.

Val: It shows the need for a community, right? Um, that you're desperately seeking to join, and then feeling out a place in that. That's tough.

Andrew: Well that paints a very full and colorful picture of all the things that have kind of made their way into your research and you've ended up doing a lot with all those experiences. You know, we could have six different episodes about all of the various things that you've studied, cause they all feel so relevant, but kind of narrowing in on, on this, like, you know, vision of parent engagement and how parents are involved in school. And like, you talked about the literature, but also broadly culturally, the ways we think about what it means to be an involved parent are pretty narrow. But can you sort of lay out what does that look like in the kind of formal structures? Informal structures? Kind of how you think about that, that role of parents and why it's important.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Yeah. I think for a long time we've taken parent involvement as a universal good, right? Like. We need parents in schools. You know, if, if you're not here, you're doing something wrong. And if you are here, we need more like you, we want to suck you dry, right? Like we want all of your time. And I think that you know, research supports that idea in a lot of ways. You know, we see a lot of research on parent involvement that suggests, you know, these things are improving, graduation rates, achievement scores… so, there's a lot of support for it, but I think, uh, the findings are not very consistent around that. Right? Like, so what are the particular strategies that actually lead to improve student outcomes, right? Is that actually improving across the board? So, you know, there's some research that says, well, actually it benefits you more, if you're from a middle-class family, that kind of parent involvement is what improves your outcomes. Right. So why doesn't the involvement of poor or minority families pay off in the same ways?

Val: Mmmmm… What's the answer?

Dr. Brittany Murray: That's what we're trying to tease through. As of recently, Dr. Jessica Calarco, Dr. Annette Lareau, these researchers that have problematized parent involvement, right? Trying to understand a little bit more about the dark side of parent involvement, right? Like, so you can look at us like the helicopter parenting, which sometimes doesn't improve, but actually can hurt students. Right. In terms of their self-sufficiency, in terms of their mental health, all of that. So, like, you know, we don't have a good grasp on what parent involvement strategies lead to what outcomes for which populations of people. And even at what age, right? So there are so many questions and that the literature does not agree on.

Andrew: It's really interesting to hear you say that, like, we're kind of in the early phases of this research and there's so much we don't know because that's not how we talk about this. Right? Like there are cultural norms and education policy built on this idea, that parent involvement in the really narrow way that we define it is unquestionably good. How did that come to be?

Dr. Brittany Murray: Right, they've taken a lot of the early work about parent school partnerships and Dr. Joyce Epstein's work and like, embedded that in policy. We see that in title one where, you know, there's a requirement, that you fund, parent groups, or parent involvement, at least a portion of your school budget when you’re receiving Title one funds. Right? So it's a part of the narrative around what makes good schools.

But, it doesn't take long, like you just take… peel back a few layers, to kind of understand, well, Hmm. You know, who is, who is parent involvement paying off for? Right? We mentioned that it's paying off for affluent parents, White families. But a lot of the research that we've done so far has looked at parent involvement as an individual level phenomenon, right? Like I get involved for my kid. I advocate for my kid. I show up to my kid's parent teacher conferences and hasn't paid a lot of attention to the fact that parents aren't just coming into school and saying, “I want Johnny to do better.” But they're coming into school and working together and strategizing right. And building interest groups in schools, right. To secure policy changes that will work for their families. Right?

So you know, how do… how does that conception of parent involvement change when we shift from thinking about it individually to collectively, right. To think about these are interest groups of people that are mobilized, you know, to secure resources, right. And like a little mini democracy and you have representation problems there. Right.

Val: You are blowing my mind, right? For real. I’m like ‘dang’.

Andrew: This is the promise and the peril, right? Because like, on the one hand, like you say that, and there's a vision of that, that is like, yes, this is what we need. We need parents who know their kids to be politically active, to be able to organize and hold power and draw resources and advocate on behalf of their kids. And so there's this real promise in it. And then there's the peril, which is like, who does that? How are the systems just set up to allow and who is able to kind of use that system to their advantage because at the moment that system is mostly used by White moms.

Val: Dang

Dr. Brittany Murray: Mmmhmmm… and you know, schools are the place where we're supposed to be teaching students about democratic processes, right? Like this is the first place where you learn how to be a citizen in a community. And in fact, when I've talked to parents and I asked them, why did you get involved in the PTA? “Because I want to be an example for my child of what they should aspire to as an adult or how to be a productive citizen.” Right? So really the first kind of, uh, associational life that kids see is run by White stay-at-home moms.

Val: Oh my gosh.

Andrew: Mmmm

Dr. Brittany Murray: Who were advocating, [chuckles] uh, you know, to reference Dr. Lynn Posey-Maddox’s work and Dr. Maia Cucchiara’s work, like they're advocating for resources and opportunities that would directly benefit their own children. Right. And showing this blind eye to the diverse needs across a school community in creating policies that would benefit themselves. Right. Like, what are we teaching our young people here when it comes to who's involved, uh, in, in, uh, our democratic processes. Right. And I think we have… there's opportunity to do work in that area. Right.

Val: This seems like a good place to, just to get, uh, a little understanding about the history of these, the parental organizations. So what do you know about it? What can you share with us about why these were formed?

Dr. Brittany Murray: Yeah. Um, you know, PTA's have a long history, right? Before women could even participate in our democratic society, right. Before we could vote, women were joining civic associations and Dr. Christine Woyshner could talk about this much better than I could, but to reference some of her work, what we now know was the PTA was formed late 19th century, and started advocating for things like school immunization policies, school lunch, you know, taking a kind of a national level view. But at this point, schools are segregated. [laughs] So we are around like Plessy V. Ferguson, separate but equal. Right. And so they're advocating for White schools, you know, in this era. And there was another association, right? Uh, parallel association, if you will, national Congress of Colored Parents and Teachers, that were working in the Black schools. Right.

So, Brown V Board of education and, you know, all of the resistance to desegregation also happened among PTA's. Right. So, as you desegregate schools, there's dual organizations within the school. What do you do? The same way that you see Black teachers and Black principals lose their jobs, Black PTA's also lost their power. They were taken over by White women. Right? So very storied history there with PTA's. But I think the key thing to keep in mind is that Black parents lost their source of power in schools. Right. They lost a platform to organize.

And that thing, now is the PTA is most commonly led by White women, stay at home moms often affluent, right. They have the time and the resources to be able to carry out these agendas.

Right. And I know you also talk about Dr. McRae's work, Mothers of the Massive Resistance, right. And how White teachers and now White parents, add them in the mix, doing that daily labor of like maintaining a White supremacy within the school building. Right. But in part of that being carried out, within the PTA organizations is disheartening, frustrating, infuriating. [laughs]

Andrew: Yeah, I'm thinking about the kind of multiple levels of educating our kids. You know, that like, we are creating systems that allow resource hoarding by already privileged parents, largely White parents to, you know, advocate to get more things for our own kids, which gives them advantages. But also is like teaching them that this is the way that we engage in civil society. This is the way that we engage in democracy. And what you think of when you think of a good engaged, involved parent is somebody who's a part of the PTA. Without ever having to think about race, ever, having to think about kind of the ways that you are part of this tending the garden of White supremacy that, that Dr. McCray talks about. It's all just, it's all baked in there. That like the path of least resistance is to keep replicating these.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Mmmhmmm, um, one thing too, just to kind of give you a little bit more of the landscape. We've talked about like this decline of civil society over the years, right? Dr. Putnam's work, right. Bowling Alone. We don't see bowling leagues anymore. We don't see this kind of association life that was really prevalent in the 20th century. Right. So they've done this work to kind of track the decline of civic associations over time. And the PTA was a big part of that work, kind of examining the decline in membership over the PTA. But some of my work has suggested that, you know, actual PTA units are still pretty prevalent across schools. But that decline in membership suggests that there are fewer people involved in these. Right? And so you have a handful of people at these schools that are making a lot of big decisions, right?

Val: Yeah.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Typically, um, tight-knit White stay at home moms, right? So less representative, right? Like, power being much more concentrated amongst fewer people.

Andrew: That's really interesting. Right? So that like the total number of people involved in things like PTA has gone down, but like, you know, just sort of in general folks, aren't engaging in civic organizations like they used to. But the total number of actual PTA's hasn't gone down as much. And so you end up with the, kind of the same vehicles of parent engagement, but fewer and less representative people participating in these structures.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Yeah, exactly. And what interestingly, uh, they're more concentrated in racially diverse schools. So we see this relationship between racial diversity and the likelihood for a school to have a PTA.

Andrew: Really?

Dr. Brittany Murray: Yeah. Isn't that interesting?

Val: That is interesting.

Andrew: Interesting. Say more about like what's, what's the, what's the current theory on why that is?

Dr. Brittany Murray: Whew! I've spent so much time thinking about this. You know, I think there's two questions here because you might… one might think, right, that these organizations are forming in racially diverse environments, because like in society you have different constituencies in the schools and you have to be able to have this, process or these platforms to be able to negotiate who gets what, right? Like we need some kind of formal organization, uh, so that people can voice concerns, so that we can, you know, make these really fair decisions, right, about how resources are allocated. That's the more optimistic view I think.

Andrew: They're like, we need a town square that this…

Dr. Brittany Murray: Exactly.

Andrew: … is the version of a town square so that we can like hash out. What do we do? What's important? What do we care about?

Dr. Brittany Murray: That's, that's I think that's one theory. Um, interestingly, I find evidence that’s a little less optimistic, right? Um… [laughing] a little more racist…

Andrew: [laughing] That’s where most things end up.

Val: Right, right, right. We got it. We got it. We know what's up.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Uh, yeah, so I actually do a study where I try to understand that relationship, uh, between racially diverse schools and the presence of PTA’s. So I actually leveraged the timing of the lifting of court order desegregation to see, is this policy lever kind of shaping what these organizations then do.

And so what I find in my data is that when these desegregation orders are lifted and there's no formal mandate to keep our schools integrated. Right. We actually see PTA's dissolve after that. Suggesting that the PTA's are actually more likely to exist in places that are under active desegregation orders, right. Implying that that first theory may not be, um, quite accurate. Right. In fact, these could be places where White parents mobilize in the face of increasing racial threat or racial competition. Right. So what happens when the private school isn't affordable anymore and you're faced with looking at your neighborhood school, that's predominantly Black and has a bad reputation, right?

Andrew: I'll go and I’ll start a PTA.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Yeah, exactly. So that's a public elementary school phenomenon where White parents consolidate power in the face of racial diversity, racial competition over resources. Right. And they mobilize, and it could be right, to maintain this power when resources could be allocated differently.

Andrew: And all without thinking that that's what they're doing, without even having to acknowledge that that's like a piece of what's happening.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Exactly… and now all of a sudden, we're the most valued parents at this school right? Now principals want to please us, right, and depend on us, to improve their school ratings, right? To, uh, be able to advocate at the district level to bring needed resources to the school, right. To fundraise and hire additional teachers, hire additional equipment.

Now, all of a sudden there's a new hierarchy within the school, where the types of involvement that White middle-class parents perform are much more valued than the ways that folks that have been there, right… Black parents, working class parents have, have been doing the whole time.

Andrew: Can you say, can you say a little bit about the damage that that does? I can imagine somebody listening and being like, “Yeah, that sounds great. There's going to be more money in the school. There's going to be better test scores. Like what's wrong with that? Like, what's the downside of that?”

Dr. Brittany Murray: The downside of it. There's a lot of downsides. Just the more tangible downsides are that, well, now the resources are not being spread across schools evenly, right. So yes, you're raising more money, but where's that money going? Right. My research finds that affluent students do better in schools with a PTA than poor students.

Val: Wow.

Dr. Brittany Murray:So that is, you know, evidence for this opportunity hoarding process.

Val: Yeah.

Dr. Brittany Murray: We have a paper where we looked at North Carolina data, you know, controlled for prior achievement. Right. And looked at students when they moved from a school without a PTA to a PTA, and observed that rich students perform better in reading when moving to a school with a PTA, than do poor students, right? Supporting this opportunity hoarding idea that these resources, whether they be financial, whether they be relational, whatever the good is that you derive from these organizations is not reaching everybody. That's more of the tangible resource based problem with it, but the other is that, um, you know, valuing one type of involvement in the ways that you can see and feel, by necessity makes you devalue the ways that other parents get involved, the ways they try to support. Right. Um,

Andrew: The ways that your mom got involved.

Val: Yep.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Exactly. Um, and there's also Jess Calarco, who talks about the privilege dependence that happens right? Where the principals are now trying to make sure we keep these parents happy because we want them to stay in our schools. We don't want them to opt out to the private schools. And so now we're catering to these families at the expense of other families. Dr. Victor Ray talks about racialized organizations, and you know, how, even just the presence of these organizations can serve to reinforce these stereotypes that we have in our heads. Right?

So educators assume the worst of Black families. Oftentimes they assume they're not involved. They seem, they don't care. Right. If they're not showing up at the PTA meetings, if they're not showing up at lunchtime to make copies. You know, now there's these embedded assumptions about why they're not there rather than the norm being both parents having to work. Now you've shifted the expectation around parents engaging in the ways that White middle-class parents engage. And that's just not possible. It's not possible for me, you know? And that's what I've dealt with over the last two years. Like, wow, it is a lot of pressure to feel like I'm supposed to, you know, be in all these…

Val: It’s a lot of pressure.

Dr. Brittany Murray: I can’t do it… I have to work, you know, love my kids dearly. I make sure they eat in the morning. So, you know, I sometimes iron their clothes, but…

Val: You are a better parent than me.

Andrew: If they’re wearing their clothes I feel like that's a win.[laughing]

Dr. Brittany Murray: [laughing] Exactly, exactly. You know?

Andrew: I also think about the kind of generational harm… if you create that environment, that's the school that you go through. What, what is your relationship to school as an institution, when you get ready to bring your own kids into the school environment? It's not just the impact on the kid in the moment, you're setting them up to have a certain relationship with school that is then going to color the way that they end up interacting with school when they’re parents.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Absolutely. And I think there's inequality in the way that teachers deal with families. Right. Teachers often feel submissive to White affluent parents. Right. A little bit more subordinate and deferential, but they feel power over poor and non-dominant families. Right? Like they feel that they're the authority figure that they're in charge. Right. And so, I’ve talked with Black parents who have been banned from the school because of the ways that they have engaged with the school. And that's traumatic that you can't come to the school that your child attends.

Val: That’s very traumatic

Dr. Brittany Murray: You know, and this is shaping the relationships of cultures between these families and these schools.Like, I… it's confrontational. It is conflict. We're not listening to each other. We don't hear each other. We don't like each other. Right. It's not… there's no trust. Right.

Andrew: One of the, like the way, the ways that, that particularly White parents, but kind of in general, the ways these parent organizations, gatherings of parents operate is through this idea of social capital. And I wonder if you can just tell us, like, what is social capital, at least in the way that you think about it with regards to parenting.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Yeah, I think about social capital as any type of resource, whether it be social, financial, material, psychological, any kind of resource that you derive from a relationship. Right. And, the ways that you can mobilize relationships to your advantage. And I think that there's different utility derived from different types of relationships. There's a famous Granovetter paper about the strength of weak ties, right? Where, you would think that the most beneficial relationships would be like the close-knit familial bonded relationships. Right? Where, you know, we know each other, we're family, we go to the same church, but actually you derive a lot of benefit from these weaker ties that are across the social distance because that's how you find out about things you don't know. So…

Val: Uh, huh?

Dr. Brittany Murray: That's where you go to, to get this new information about a job opportunity, right. Or about a scholarship opportunity. Right. These weak ties, like our, you know, we're just meeting each other. Right. Andrew, like, but this is very advantageous for both of us. Right? Like, so there's this weak relationship that we're making here that's arguably just as valuable as a more close-knit bonded relationship with a family member that might support me in a time of need. Right. That might loan me money because they know me so well.

Andrew: This is that, that difference between I think, what you refer to as bonding versus bridging social capital, right? That the bonding capital is what you get with those close knit relationships. But that bridging is what you get across social distance people who are maybe more of an acquaintance, who are, you know, less like you socially and it's not like one of those is necessarily better than the other.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Right. There's, there's different types of benefits you get from different types of relationships. And I think it's really interesting to apply that to schools and the kinds of relationships that we have between families and between families and schools. And so one of the things that we examine is that, well, what kinds of relationships are more closely linked with these opportunity hoarding processes that we see? And what we did find, is that, you know, in places where that bonding social capital is dominant, where you see that families are kind of in this membership club, it's easier to exclude people who are not in it. Right. It's the circled up on the playground phenomenon everybody's circled up. And so we don't even see people that are not a part of that circle.

Val: Correct.

Dr. Brittany Murray: And if you're on the outside of it, you know, you can forget it, right? There's hard… It's hard to tap into the, like, these bonds are tight and strong and impenetrable in a way.

Andrew: And so we see, we see those types of relationships. Those can drive a lot of the like parent involvement in schools. The idea of PTA, certainly at White wealthy schools, often like the image and the image that comes to my mind is a really close knit, tightly bonded group of parents who are advocating for their kids, the clique, um, that, that there's, and there's, I think it drives a lot of engagement in the school. It drives a lot of connection to the school for those people who are on the inside.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Absolutely. Right. And they're not just bonded among each other. Right. They're closely bonded with the principal. Right. And so they have the principal's ear. Teachers are like “Come over after school.” Right. That kind of thing, where there's this insider knowledge, this insider information, you know, knowing how to navigate schools, school is embedded in that. Right. And not everybody has access to that.

Val: I think that's why I may have not ever been threatened by those groups because I did have insider knowledge. Like, you know, I had the superintendent's cell phone number, so, there was no need for me to feel threatened by that because I was already on the inside and they probably saw me as like that social capital was helpful to them because I had direct access to a lot of people that they didn't.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Mmmmhmmmm. Yeah, that kind of reminds me of Annette Lareau.Um, she has a paper about how parents use social capital and social ties to address issues in the school. And middle-class parents are much more likely to work collectively to address problems. Right. And, you know, I imagine these bonded groups, you know, they're more likely to go above the principal's head and go to the district. Right. And make a lot of noise about things. Whereas working class families are much more likely to respond individually to problems.

Val: Right, right.

Dr. Brittany Murray: So you know, who’s gonna listen to you when you're just showing up and you’re one person, you know?

Andrew: And so now you have both the social capital that comes from a collective rather than an individual, plus it's coming from the more resourced White folks who are going to be listened to more. I mean, you get that exact same group of Black folks together. They're not going to be listened to at the district level in the same way. So not only do you have like collective power, but you also have it in the form that is more likely to be listened to and to be heard.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Andrew: So talk about bridging capital.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Yeah.

Andrew: This is the maybe, maybe where we try to find some, some hope. [laughing]

Val: Yeah. Right. [laughing]

Dr. Brittany Murray: [laughs] Well, I think, you know, you would think that, um, bridging capital is the key, right? Oh, we need to include everybody. We need to reach out to everybody. But a lot of like these superficial relationships don't go anywhere either. Right. So schools can do a ton of outreach to get information to families that are typically on the margins. But that doesn't necessarily bring them together in any way. In fact, it's a lot of work. Right. And what we see in this paper is that it just doesn't pay off in the ways that you would think in the absence of the bonding social capital that needs to be there as well.

Andrew: What does a school look like that has all the bridging capital, but no bonding capital? Like what is, how does that actually play out in real life?

Dr. Brittany Murray: I think when, when you're in really diverse spaces, right, where you have people speaking different languages, you have kids coming from all different neighborhoods in the school. I think, um, principals take the approach that, “I can be equitable by making sure there's something for everyone.” Right. And translating things to get it to everybody. Right. But oftentimes that communication is a one-way street, right. So it's the school who… holding all the power and disseminating information. Right. Or it is the PTA, that holds all the power and in some ways, a paternalistic kind of way, right. What individuals and what people need. And to think about Dr. Ann Ishimaru’s work, right, there’s not this collaboration, right? Like it's not really leveled power dynamics, right. It is a one-way thing where the places with the power are kind of deciding what's useful.

Val: Yeah, for sure.

Dr. Brittany Murray: And so we saw issues popping up there too, because families didn't know each other and couldn't connect with each other's needs. Right. So you have a PTA for example, they think they're doing their best to outreach, but they're not getting the participation that they think they want. They're like, well, you know, we're having performances, we're offering food, we're offering childcare. But we still just are not getting a lot of attendance. You know, people don't care and they're frustrated, tired, overworked, you know? And so nothing's happening. I think that resonates with a lot of PTA leaders across the country who want to be doing this. But are frustrated with all the work falling on a few people, right. Um, not getting the engagement they want to see. I think that characterizes a lot of the schools that are employing that bridging social capital… we're trying to reach everybody, but without the bonding... Exactly. Without engaging people in more meaningful ways.

Andrew: Can you say a little bit about, about trust? I feel like, like in reading one of your papers here.

Val: I circled trust on my paper!

Dr. Brittany Murray: I did too!

Andrew: That, that the lack of, if you don't have those, the bonding social capital, it's hard to have trust.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Exactly. I think that, without really knowing people, what's the point of coming and showing up, and that's what we heard a lot of. Right? Like these people are just going to do what they want to do anyway. It doesn't matter if I'm there or not. Why would I show up at this for the same group of people to make all decisions and just let me know what's going on.

I've actually been doing some more interviews with organizations in North Carolina and learning that a lot of the decision- making in PTA's happens via text thread among like five people. You know, like this is not a, we're going to make decisions at our general body meeting. Like that's not usually what happens at general… like general body meetings are like, we're going to tell you what we decided and, you know, be thankful to us that we're taking on the work of the school that you don't have time to do. Right. And, um, that's not really effective for, you know, for people, you know, it's the folks that are, that are bonded, right. That are in that board that are actually making all the decisions.

So there's just not a ton of trust that even when I show up, I will have a voice. Right. There's not a ton of trust that if I show up and say something, that people will hear me and take my concerns seriously. So we need both in schools, that paper kind of supports that the schools that do both well, um, are really where you see, uh, resources and opportunities and information being distributed the most, um, broadly, right? The most equitably, right.

And I think that requires principals and school leaders and PTA's to be really intentional about what they're doing to build those kinds of relationships like that doesn't happen by accident. You know, schools that we saw that were doing this really well were intentional about providing opportunities for families across the social distance to get to know each other. Right. Structuring activities that weren't just at the school all the time, you know, like going into different neighborhoods and like bringing the events to you. Right. And giving parents the opportunity to, authentically get to know who else was at the school?

Andrew: One of the things I noticed in your case study, Oakdale, um, this kind of like high bond, high bridge environment, there, there was a lot of intentionality. There was a lot of, you know, like really kind of explicit talk about things like race. And then it seems at least like there was also some kind of affinity space work as well.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Yeah.

Andrew: There was like a Black parent organization. Can you talk about kind of like, like the, the importance of that?

Dr. Brittany Murray: Yeah. And we talked a few moments ago about the history of PTA's and how Black parents were essentially pushed out and silenced for the predominantly White PTA to come into desegregated school spaces. And so, I've been able to observe a parent organization actually in Durham, North Carolina, where Black mothers are coming together as almost like an alternative for the PTA. Right. And it's called Parents of African-American Children. And they are working to help direct PTA resources to students that wouldn't necessarily be recipients of that kind of thing. Right. It is an approach that allows more people access to what's going on and engages families a little bit differently than the regular PTA would and does oftentimes right.

Providing that platform for families to get to know each other within and between groups is really central to building both forms of capital. I've talked to families that said they can go into PAAC where… a Parents of African-American Children meeting, and talk about things that they couldn't talk about at the PTA meeting. Right? Like it felt like a safe space. And also they go into the PTA meetings as a group. Right. And they feel supported now when they have something to say where they feel like they have people that are there that are going to back them up. So it's not just you going out on a limb in a space where you're the one and only one feeling this way, but you actually, you know, we talked about earlier, you actually have more of a civil society going on in schools. Like you're getting closer to some of these democratic processes when people are able to collectively organize and not just one venue. Right.

Val: I have a question. I'm just curious… that group, is it, um, diverse in terms of class as well?

Dr. Brittany Murray: I think that that's one place where they have struggled is to really reach across class lines. One thing I will say is that their approach is that it doesn't matter if working class parents don't have the time to show up because they see themselves as a village for all children. Right. And so they're literally built on the idea that involvement doesn't look one way. Right. Whereas PTA, you know, you're kind of required to show up, required to bring this required, to organize this, um, PAAC is like, who has the time? And we organize around all students, regardless of whether or not your parent has the time. Right. So that's, that's a shift right there and thinking beyond just my own kid here. Right. So that's literally part of their mission is like to stand in the gap, for families who can not be up here to hold school leaders accountable, to meeting their kids' needs. And so what happens when we take that shift of, you know, I'm up here to support my kid versus I'm up here to look out for these kids.

Val: Yeah, both of my kids are going to new schools . You're just giving me lots to think about in terms of how I want to show up. And I was wondering, like, okay, I do have… certainly some of the time that some other parents may not. How do I build? How do I bond? You know, and create these trusting relationships so that they do trust me to go and stand up for all of their kids. Cause I don't, I wouldn't necessarily know all of their kids' experiences. Right? And so, yeah, it's just given me a lot to kind of think about.

Dr. Brittany Murray: You know, I'm hearing you say that and I'm thinking one, one thing that's interesting is that parents, especially parents on the margin, I don't know, are always aware of how their experiences are connected. Right. So one of the things that PAC does is to talk about the achievement gap in the school district, right? Like let's make you aware of the history of systematic inequality and like the fact that your child got suspended is not just because of your child actually, but like Black kids are being disproportionately suspended in our school. Like this is happening here, right? It's not just your kid that's struggling to learn how to read. There's an achievement gap present. Right? And so what does it mean, um, when we mobilize Black parents around this mistreatment of their children and it's because it's not just an individual phenomenon.

Val: Right.

Dr. Brittany Murray: And so that, uh, awareness around, what can the school be doing differently to address and focus and prioritize these issues rather than just the fundraising? Right. If the PTA focused on… right. There are real issues here and we need to grapple with it and we need to make sure that parents know how their families are being affected by this.

You know, a part of the way that I see my job is to educate people about the inequalities built into the school system. And I think we take it for granted that things have to be this way and that, um, they, and they don't. Right? And so organizing Black parents, um, around these issues, I think is really important work.

Val: That feels hopeful.

Andrew: Yeah. For our White privileged audience, I know so many people who feel like PTA is a deeply problematic enterprise. And I think we have highlighted a number of the ways that that is true here. And it is still present in so many schools in so many places. So if you're showing up in a new school, particularly if you're entering a largely Black and Brown school as a White parent, you know, what does it look like to, to participate, to not participate? Like where is, how do you kind of lean on this idea of bridging and bonding and social capital, recognizing the kind of unearned privilege that you show up with. Like, what would you ask parents to at least be thinking about if not explicitly do?

Dr. Brittany Murray: Yeah. And let me say this too, that, you know, that call to action is big, right? Like that takes a lot of space in your life to think about organizing and advocating. So continue taking care of your children in the way that works for you and is best for your family. You know, and when you prioritize yourself and your own mental health, like that's the, that's all we can do. But I do think that, for parents that do take it on themselves to get involved.... So the PTA moms, you're kind of talking to you right now, the folks that have the time, the space, the resources, I think it's important to reflect on who's in your inner circle and who you're talking to. And who's a part of these decision-making processes with you. Right? And do they reinforce your ideas or do they challenge your ideas, right? Like, is this about you saying that, you know, what's best for a school community. Or is this about you listening and, working with people in the school community, to chart a path forward and decide what goes best.

So I think building on that, bridging and bonding work that, parents specifically that are involved in these organizations can think about how do we not just create this one way street with us giving information and like barking orders at people of what to do, but like, how do we authentically build community? Right. What does it look like? What, what do fellowship opportunities look like? Not just in school, but like in people's communities, right? Like, what does it mean to be a model for students for how to engage democratically, right? When there are different people with different needs, and different levels of power, like how, how can we be an example really for what democracy in a diverse society should look like, right?

So meet people, reach out, you know, talk to people that are not, uh, the same as you, right? If you're in that circle of parents on the playground, like open up, right. Invite somebody in that's different or talk to somebody that's different. Right. So humanize those around you, and you know, build community where possible. And I think that school leaders and policymakers have much more of a responsibility here, right. Like a lot of reasons that we see the PTA activity, the way it is is because schools are underfunded, right. So we're turning to parents for help because we don't have enough, you know… So we're creating this new hierarchy of parents because of the you know, we're relying on parents of means who can turn their public school into a private school essentially, right? For their own kids. And so, you know, one of the strategies that are out there right now like we've seen the redistribution efforts, right. And different places like Portland, New York. That comes with its own problems as well. Right? Like it comes with a lot of animosity. It comes with a lot of paternalism, right? You're, you're redistributing your PTA dollars. Then you're also probably telling a different organization how they should spend their money and what they should do. Right. And not valuing their culture and what they want to do. And I think that redistribution takes the emphasis off schools, not being adequately funded in general. Right. And we should not have to rely so heavily on this external fundraising mechanism that can fuel so many hierarchies among families in schools.

On the other hand, school leaders, I think, can create routines in schools that send that message and also, uh, encourage families to get to know each other. I love, uh, taking moments to re-imagine schools in ways that, um, you know, families can be authentically engaged with each other and supportive of each other and commit to their kids and all the kids in the building. Right. You know, other people's kids.

Val: Right.

Andrew: I mean, PTA is a vehicle for connection to the school community. If there aren't other vehicles, if there aren't other ways you think like, okay, I want to like go and meet other parents at the school. Where am I going to do it? Probably PTA. But now you're like, you've, you've, you're bringing all the baggage of PTA along, along with it.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. That, you know, there's so much opportunity there to reimagine what a school day looks like and what these organizations that are just, we are taking for granted things that we do. Right. The part of the grammar of schooling, right? That we do. I think that gives us opportunity to rethink some things and how they fit around uh a generation of women that are breadwinners. Right? Like a lot of these policies are structured around women being, stay at home moms. So much of this is about a generation changing much faster than I think education policy can keep up with. Right.

Andrew: Yeah. It seems like in a lot of your research, the ease with which in the school context, White parents build bonding, social capital, that that just sort of happens almost without a whole lot of effort, that it's really easy and that the kind of work is in bridging social capital. And I'm wondering if you notice a difference outside of the school context or outside of institutional conduct, my initial thought when I was reading that was I totally see that happening in school. And like out in the rest of the world, it feels like the opposite. Like I see like the ability of Black people to make bonds with each other even when they don't know each other feels like it happens much easier than it does for White people outside of the context of school.

Val: Yeah.

Dr. Brittany Murray: That's that is, yeah, that's a great, that's such an interesting observation. Like that would be a cool paper [laughing] just to investigate. And I mean, there are sociologists doing work on, right, like racial differences and, you know, social capital and networks. Right. And, um, I think it's fascinating to think about it among different institutions. Like I, I think one thing that I've seen is that like Black parents, uh, have not needed the school for relationships in the same way that White parents have.

Andrew: Yes ma'am.

Val: Ooooooh, save that.

Dr. Brittany Murray: So when you think about the mobility that White families have, they're often moving away from like where they grew up, like, you know, like that part of that employment discrimination means that Black folks are not getting jobs in the same way across the country. Right? And so Black families are much more likely to be in proximity with family, perhaps with Church communities, and other social or community contexts in which they don't need any new friends. Right. But like, I think White moms are going into new communities are like, they're relying on the schools to…

Val: Yeah.

Dr. Brittany Murray: …provide their social relationships for a lot of parts of their life. Right. Like they're relying on those social relationships for much more than I think Black parents typically do. And again, this is my experience as a parent. Um…

Andrew: Certainly my experience…

Dr. Brittany Murray: Yeah, so…

Val: And I'm a Black parent, but I've moved a lot. And so I can totally understand both, right? Like, I'm new to the city. Where am I supposed to meet people? I work at home, you know, so I meet people via podcast. [Andrew laughs] Thanks. Or people, um, through school or kid activities. So I totally…

Dr. Brittany Murray: Yeah.

Val: …see that being a possibility.

Dr. Brittany Murray: I definitely think it's a race and a class process too. Right. Um, so you mentioned earlier, how it’s been harder to engage working class Black parents in organizations like the PAAC? And I do think that that mobility among Black middle-class families, has oriented us a little bit more toward, drawing on the school as part of our network. One, because we know it's advantageous to do, right. It's like a hidden curriculum for parents right, of what you need to do when you go into a new school that I don't think is that information isn't distributed evenly. But also I think there's some racialized components to that as well. Where Black families are generally closer to home. Right. And, or their neighborhoods where they grew up. Right. And in some ways may know the families in some contexts may not like some of the families at schools right. May have this history. Right? So I think, you know, school and the relationships at school, Andrew, you mentioned earlier, like being, harmed at school. Right. But having traumatic experiences at school, pushing Black families out of school, and like, I only want to deal with y'all when I have to, you know, um, so generational trauma.

Val: Right.

Andrew: That’s the other piece I think too, like it's easy as a White person to walk into a school and assume that you know, it's going to be net positive. That I can make friends that my, that my arrival is welcomed. I mean particularly as a White man. The fact that I am showing up in a school is like, I get an award just for that. Right. I get a trophy, and there is this sort of assumption that it’s going to be a space that is kind of welcoming and inclusive and, and grateful for my presence. That is, that is different. I'm sure.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Whereas when a Black woman comes into the school, everybody assumes there's a problem.

Andrew: Right.

Val: Yep

Dr. Brittany Murray: “Why are you here?” skepticism, right. Like, well, what did I do? As soon as I go up to school to talk to my kids' teachers and, uh, you know, especially in this all White context that we're in now, it's defensive, right? Like, you know, let me tell you all why this was none of this was my fault. Like I'm just coming to volunteer.

Andrew: Yep. Right.

Val: That's it. That’s it.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Just coming to say, Hey! [laughs]

Val: That's it. That's it.

Dr. Brittany Murray: But you know, I even observed this, even with PAAC organizations trying to form. They got a lot of resistance from principals for that, right. Like Hm. A group of Black women coming together. I don't like that. Right? So they got a lot of pushback from that. They're still getting pushback from the school board, from the state PTA itself is giving them some friction around like, Hmm, can you do this? Right. Like, people have so much skepticism about Black folks organizing. Right.

Val: Yeah. This is fantastic.

Andrew: It's so great. Um, this is, yeah. Um, I'm honored to be in this conversation. It's so great. We've had so many amazing Black women guests on this podcast.

Val: Yeah we have. I was thinking the same thing.

Andrew: And every one of them has some story about their mom. [Dr. Murray laughs] Like what, what role their mom played in…

Val: Yeah. Mmmmhmmm.

Andrew: …getting them there. And it's like worth just pausing for a moment to think about the two of you as Black moms and the role that like, the ways that you are shaping and advocating your kids’ life. So I think, um, I can't imagine that it is ever easy. And yet I think you are building up your little, I mean, yeah. Four kids is a lot of, a lot of kids to build up Dr. Murray…

Dr. Brittany Murray: I know [laughing]

Val: A lot of kids will watch out for.

Andrew: A lot of kids to watch out for, but it's, uh, it's important work.

Dr. Brittany Murray: It is.

Andrew: I'm just really grateful to you for coming on and sharing your brilliance.

Val: Yeah. So much. I have taken so much from this, and I appreciate you doing that and inspiring me to keep going.

Dr. Brittany Murray: Well, this was really a lot of fun and I just thank y'all for having me. I've been, I'm like, oh man, my work is so relevant to this. I want to get on this show. So I'm appreciative, uh, of Chantal putting me on, and this has been… surpassed my expectations. So I enjoyed talking to you both. This has been great.

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Andrew: So Val, what did you think?

Val: Well, I need to give you credit for finding Britney's research and booking her onto this episode

Andrew: No, it was Chantal Haley.

Val: Oh, that's right.

Andrew: Dr. Haley's the one who, who was like, you know who you really need to talk to.

Val: Well, I'm taking away your credit and giving it back to the Black woman, um [laughing]

Andrew: I'm totally fine with that. Well deserved. [laughing]

Val: Because her research… You know, it, it, it's changed me since we've had that conversation and I think, it's really made me consider the ways in which I want to get involved, how I wanna get involved, and I actually see a path from Brittany's conversation of involvement that happens after my kids graduate or leave a school, right? So, say my hope and dream is to have a caregiver organization for educational justice at school. Right? That's my alternative to the PTA. I can see being involved in that well after my kids graduate.

Andrew: Right.

Val: It becomes for the benefit of all kids for educational justice. Right. And I, I think that's really important because too often once a child leaves a school, you do become disconnected from that because it is about your individual child. But we know that here we're committed to all children and I think she's just given me new ways to think about the possibility of that.

Andrew: Mm. Yeah. I love that because right. I think there's kind of one degree removed from just my kid. It's like, let me think about all the kids in the school. But I think there is this, this kind of one step removed from that even of. You know, our society's a better place, like our country's a better place. We have the potential to actually continue to shape and, and be impactful in the lives of students and of parents and of families going forward by continuing to be engaged in these ways that, that maybe don't look like… I mean, yeah, there's nobody on the PTA who's not a parent or maybe a grandparent in the school, like what does it look like to have an organization? What does it look like to have a structure or, you know, and kind of how formal does that need to be? That is the community coming together to invest in the school?

Val: Right. I left the episode feeling really hopeful despite the fact that some of the things she's shared were very tough to hear. Right. And, I wanted to talk a little bit about the system that is in place that requires PTAs to do this work of hoarding resources, essentially, right? Because we haven't funded our schools in a way that we can, we can worry about other things, right? PTAs have to be concerned about getting the funding so that their kids can have these experiences.

Andrew: Yeah, that part to me was really fascinating because in my mind, and I don't, I don't know like how accurate this even is, but certainly my understanding of what a PTA was from growing up was very much around kind of, extras about, you know, are there t-shirts? Maybe there's like cool water bottles, or, you know, Field Day has some parents to help support. And I'm sure there were other things that were going on with the PTA, but the difference between then and now in terms of the funding piece of it was totally shocking to me when I, when I learned about it, you know, that the PTA fundraising is filling a gap. And it's a, it's a meaningful, real important gap between what we should be giving kids and what we were actually giving kids between what money we have to invest in schools and what money we should have to invest in schools. And so, the need that PTAs are filling is real. We need more money in schools, we need more funding.

Val: I just learned recently with a PTA that was raising funds to send teachers to professional development, right? So you, you're right, like…

Andrew: Right.

Val: This huge need.

Andrew: Yeah, and so the system has kind of created this need because we don't fund our education adequately. Now there's a need for funding and, and we know that the ability to engage in that is not determined by how much you care, is not determined by how invested you are in your kid's education, is not determined by how much value you place on education as an institution, but is determined by these larger factors that are, you know, that are based in race, around how much generational wealth do you have around what type of work do you do, are there two caregivers involved? Do both of them have to work? What kinds of jobs do they have to work? When do they have availability? What sorts of resources can you pour into a school? And so, you know, on the one hand it's like totally understandable and in many ways admirable, that folks want to show up and pour resources into a public school and pour their, you know, time and energy into it. And yet the system is set up such that, that ends up creating these hierarchies, this sort of, you know, hierarchy of value of which not only which specific parents are more or less valuable to a school, but like what type of parent engagement is more or less valuable to a school.

Val: And I'm thinking about administrators feeling the need to then privilege those parents because they know they are a valuable asset to getting funds to the schools. And that feels so vicious.[laughs] You know, um, like a really vicious cycle that, I hope folks who are active in their PTAs do take a moment to like, listen to this, this episode and reflect on whether their PTA is acting in that way and how to kind of break that cycle, you know, what that might look like. And it might look like advocating for more funding, right? It might look like letting the administration know we're able to do this, but this doesn't mean that you privilege our kids in, you know, everything that we do, like we have the ability to raise funds, and this is for every kid, not just my kid. Right. Saying that explicitly, I think that's important.

Andrew: Yeah, I mean, I think that it's so, it's so tricky and I definitely have not figured out what the… How to, how to find the balance of that. I was super involved in the PTA in the very beginning of elementary school. And you know, PTA was quite small at that time. We like eventually raised $2,500 and bought the teachers a laminating machine.

Val: That's what's up.

Andrew: So that all, that all felt fine. And then, you know, as the school attracted wealthier and Whiter parents the PTA grew in numbers and in fundraising ability. And you know, on the one hand, like the school still has not nearly enough money, right? Like we still are making really hard choices between, you know, mental health supports and an additional teacher and paraprofessionals and all these things that we should not be having to make choices about.

Val: Correct.

Andrew: And the PTA funding that's showing up makes a real tangible difference in the lives of the kids in this school. And, and so on the one hand, like, that feels really important and at, you know, at what cost? And at what cost to the parent and community at the school? And at what cost more broadly where the, the parents who are outraged, rightfully so that the school doesn't have the resources it needs, are able to fundraise and fill those gaps rather than marching downtown. I mean, we talked about this with Heather McGee a little bit like, you know, I can, I can go out and help fundraise and then my kid this year will have another field trip or will have another mental health professional in the building. I can go downtown to the capitol and I can advocate, I can call my senators, I can advocate for more school funding and if that is effective at some point, which, you know, who knows if that ever is, it's five years down the road. It's 10 years down the road. Like, I, I, yeah, I don't know. I still feel really stuck on how to, how to balance that.

Val: Okay, so how do we advocate for systems where our resources don't leave, you know, when the kids leave, because, the truth is if the White parents who are now interested become disinterested… we're back at a place where we're working really hard to raise $2,500 for a laminating machine, or, you know, whatever that is. And so I don't, I don't have the answer either because, um, obviously I have followed the same path, right? Like my kids were involved in the school then, you know, now I'm involved in the next one and, And I'm still deeply committed to justice in our schools. And so how do we, how do we sustain that for people who, who care like us, who will care long after our children leave those spaces?

Andrew: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, part, part of it is what does it look like to meaningfully advocate for better school funding? Because it's one thing to say like, Oh yeah, yeah, I believe in more school funding and I'm gonna vote in favor of that ballot initiative if it ever comes up. But in the meantime, I'm gonna raise $80,000 for my kids' school.

Val: Right.

Andrew: I don't know because I mean, like, I, I feel this tension now because the elementary school where my youngest is, it still desperately needs more money and now has meaningfully more money, certainly from parent fundraising, than two of the schools that are within a mile of it.

Val: Mmmmm.

Andrew: And they, their needs are even greater than our needs.

Val: I'm thinking too about if we remove this idea where we have to rely on parents to raise the funds, it requires administrators and teachers to learn different ways of interacting with caregivers in terms of engagement. Right. And I think that'll, that'll be a good thing where it will feel more, like a partnership in many ways. We're talking about it and there's still so many questions that I'm left with, um, and so many things that I'm wondering about. I, um, I will confess that I have not joined my kids' PTA this year. And I think a lot of it was because of the conversation with Brittany, and I've been trying to figure out ways to support them at their new schools. It's really important for caregivers to positively contribute to the school and I, you know, I'm thinking about what Brittany said in terms of we've, we've assumed it's a universal good to have parents involved, right? That has been the assumption. And we are by no means saying like, stop being involved in your kid's school. So if I am modeling a bad idea by not being a member of PTA right now, forgive me, we're, we're transitioning,

But what I also wanna emphasize is, what was connected to what Brittany said in terms of civic engagement. So as parents, as caregivers, we can model additional ways to be engaged. And so if our children see us being at every caregiver thing that we can make at school and advocating, and talking about like, the importance of funding to our neighbors, like all of those things count. And so, um, not only modeling, “Hey, I have free time as a suburban, non-working parent with means to, you know, come and hang out at the school.” There's other ways that we can show our children that we value them, their education and their school, and, uh, keeping that in mind.

Andrew: Yeah, I, yeah, I love that because I think, I think it's easy to get lost in the, the fundraising piece of PTA, and I know schools where that's the only thing that they view as their job is to raise funds.

Val: Mmmmm.

Andrew: And no question we need more funding in schools, but I think we don't only need more funding in schools. What sort of community engagement, what sort of community involvement is participating in the school? Is showing up in the school? Is supporting the school? Is a really important factor in, in every school. And so thinking about ways. Maybe it's showing up at the PTA and trying to nudge the PTA towards a vision of community engagement is one way to show up.

But I think another way to show up is what does it mean to become a part of the community? The privileges that you bring to the community are sometimes financial, but are also your unique perspective. And so what are the vehicles like? Harness your unique perspective. What are the ways to show up and say, okay, here's, here's what I'm bringing to the table from my standpoint, from my experiences, and how do we use that to help, you know, shape the type of education that all the kids in this school are getting? That has nothing to do with resources, but it's still like a really important role that parents should play. And I think, you know, what does the school look like? How is the school welcoming or, or accommodating of that is another question. But, but that feels like a, you know, a different way to be an involved parent. Like Dr. Murray's mom was, you know, show up and, and advocate and, and be there. It does not necessarily look like running a bake sale.

Val: Right, I'm thinking about just the shift that type of thinking also requires for, for administrators and teachers.

Andrew: Mmmhmmm.

Val: And those folks also being able to recognize the different assets that families bring when they cannot fundraise or support financially, right? All of that will require a shift. And I think the caregiver organization for educational justice is where we start.

Andrew: Right, right.

Val: It started right here.

Andrew: Yeah. No, I think that, I think that's right because you know, we talked about this sort of Oakdale, her like, case study of a school that had high bridging and high bonding social capital is doing better work at least than, than, than schools that have one or the other or neither. And this idea of needing to have bridges, needing to have wide ranging loose ties, but then also have bonding connections where people feel invested and feel like they're, you know, they're bought into the school and that they have a voice that all makes sense to me, and I just think about how overworked and, and like often underappreciated teachers and school administrators are. And this feels like something that requires intentionality and thought and planning, and to put that on their plate as well feels really hard when it's like, yeah, I'd love to do that and I need enough money to have another counselor in the building.

Val: Correct.

Andrew: What am I gonna focus on?

Val: Ugh. Yeah. Brittany, Dr. Murray, you got us. Got us thinking. Um, we appreciate you.

Andrew: Yes. Yeah, it was a, yeah, a great conversation. Certainly has, has stuck with me, left me with lots of ideas and, and not a lot of answers as, as is often the case. So if you were hoping to get to this point of the episode and hear all of the answers, you've come to the wrong place. But, uh, that doesn't mean we don't have some suggestions about action steps you can take. So, Val, as we are doing this season, what are you thinking for action steps coming outta this conversation?

Val: Um, definitely think about how you're showing up as a parent. So if it's in a traditional PTA, what are some ways to make sure that it's not about how many resources you can get for the sake of hoarding. Moving past what works for your kid to how can we have conversations about how we can support all children? I do think it is possible to transform PTAs in a relatively quick amount of time. And, I say that because I think right now it's driven primarily by the status quo or what has been done, and you only need a handful of parents to say like, we're gonna, we're gonna do this differently. We're gonna try this differently. And because of the, the nature of kids growing out of schools, right, there's lots of turnover. So there's lots of chances for things to be new again and, uh, not being afraid of that.

Andrew: Yeah. I'm thinking about how I show up now in this new school as well as continue to show up in my old school. Thinking about what other ways are there to show up. A conversation I had with a Black mother about PTA at our elementary school where she was just like, Oh, that, like, that's not for me.

Val: Mmmmm.

Andrew: That's not a space for me. And so, you know, maybe it is your, your parents organizing for racial justice…

Val: Yes…

Andrew: …or you know, whatever, whatever it is, PORJ.

Val: [laughs] No, it's not gonna work.

Andrew: We'll need a new acronym, but, um, you know, like, like what, what else? What are the other options that don't carry the baggage of PTA with them to say, Here's a chance to get involved in this thing that, that we know we all believe in, which is that we want our kids to thrive and we believe that if parents have a voice in that, that's more likely to happen.

Val: Hmm.

Andrew: What sort of structures exist? So, would encourage listeners to figure out some way to get involved in your school community.

Val: And call us and tell us how you're doing. We love the voice memos.

Andrew: Send us your voice memos. Find that voice memos app, record us a little message and send it out… podcasts@integratedschools.org and yeah, we'd love to hear how you're grappling with this question of PTA So White.

Val: In the meantime, take this episode, play it at your PTA, have a discussion about it. Really dig in. You are the change that you seek.

Andrew: Yeah, that's right. And uh, also, Be the change that we seek by…

Val: …giving us some change. [amused tone]

Andrew: …by giving us some change, [laughing, Val laughs] over on Patreon with a small monthly donation that helps keep this podcast going. We'd be grateful for your support. patreon.com/integrated schools.

Val: Awesome.

Andrew: Well, Val, I'm not exactly sure what the answer to PTA is, but I'm grateful that I get to keep thinking about it with you and grateful to be in this with you as I try to know better and do better.

Val: Until next time.