On Saturday, March 26, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law launched its Parental Readiness and Empowerment Program (PREP) with a parent workshop at Porter Elementary School in San Diego, California.

Source: Lawyers’ Committee’s Educational Opportunities Project

On Saturday, March 26, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law launched its Parental Readiness and Empowerment Program (PREP) with a parent workshop at Porter Elementary School in San Diego, California.  The workshop, “School Discipline: Parents’ Rights & Responsibilities,” was presented in collaboration with the San Diego Unified School District’s Parent Outreach and Engagement Department.  The event was a great success with about twenty parents, school administrators, and teachers in attendance at the workshop and contributing to a lively discussion on school discipline. 

At the workshop, parents learned the importance of being a good advocate and how to improve their own advocacy skills to support their child’s education.  Parents received an overview of the school discipline process and also gained valuable information on the suspension process.  Utilizing a variety of learning methods such as role plays, group discussion, and question and answers, parents enthusiastically participated in an interactive learning session to increase their knowledge of the school discipline process and effective advocacy techniques.  The participation of the principal and teacher provided parents with another perspective instrumental in increasing parents’ understanding of the topic of discussion and will also help shape future positive interactions between parents and school staff.  Parents left the workshop better informed about how to advocate for their children and eager to put into action the skills they learned. 

Thanks to the support of our volunteers from Qualcomm and DLA Piper, video of the suspension role play can be viewed at our PREP YouTube Channel at http://www.youtube.com/PREPparents