Parents at Richmond's first charter school want to talk directly to members of the Richmond School Board and school administration, and they're tired of others getting in the way of the dialogue.
That was the clear message sent to members of the School Board and the governing board of Patrick Henry School for Science and Arts at a meeting Thursday night that didn't play out as planned.
Only two members of the city School Board came to the meeting of the Patrick Henry Parent Teacher Association, which had invited board members and school administrators two weeks ago in a plea for a better relationship between the school system and the fledgling charter school.
But the School Board thought the meeting had been postponed, as it had requested in private meetings with members of the Patrick Henry board.
"It's just the same old stuff," said Jesse Senechal, a parent who made the invitation at a School Board meeting last month. "It's the same old method of communication. Come and talk to us directly."
Donald Coleman, School Board member for the 7th District, explained the misunderstanding and asked parents not to think the worst, despite an often rocky relationship between Richmond Public Schools and Patrick Henry.
"The RPS board does not want Patrick Henry School to fail," Coleman told an audience of 40 or more parents, teachers and school officials, who applauded his declaration.
Sharon Burton, president of the Patrick Henry board of directors, told parents that members of her board had been making progress in discussions with Superintendent Yvonne W. Brandon and School Board leaders who had asked that the meeting be postponed. Parents insisted that the meeting go on as scheduled, and Burton said Patrick Henry never told city school officials that the meeting would be postponed.
"We put ourselves in the position of facilitating between the parents and the School Board, and probably we shouldn't have," Burton said.
Coleman was joined by 2nd District board member Kimberly Gray, who came from a legislative reception at City Hall that also was attended by Brandon and some other board members. He said 1st District member Kimberly Bridges could not attend because of a death in her family, and others had conflicting commitments.
The meeting gave parents a chance to pose questions about Patrick Henry's future to members of the School Board, who delivered a letter to parents at a holiday gathering in mid-December that detailed the system's concerns about the charter school's shortcomings. The PTA invited board members and administrators to Thursday night's meeting to talk directly about those concerns, as well as parent issues with the School Board.
"The reality is, the PTA wants to communicate to the board," Coleman said. "That was not our practice in the past. In the past, our communication has been with the Patrick Henry board."
"I promise you in the future when we get correspondence from the PTA, we're going to get straight about where the correspondence is going to go," he said.
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