Changes are happening at the Healey School in Somerville, and this is an important time to seek out and carefully listen to parent opinions. A new principal, Jason DeFalco, arrives at the Healey School on 1 July 2010. Important decisions about the structure of the Healey School are being considered by the School Committee this month.

Twenty parents and community members came together with Spanish, Krèyol and Portuguese translators to discuss the future of the Healey for three hours at the Mystic Activity Center on Saturday, May 1, 2010, over a homemade meal. The meeting was friendly and comments seemed frank and sincere. Parents took full advantage of what they expressed was a rare opportunity to talk across lines of Healey programs, race, class, and language; they noted that many misconceptions they had about one another were raised and discussed. After an introduction activity that had us declaring roots from across the country and world, we mused about the absence of parents with long generational roots in Somerville. Several noted that the forum would have been made even better by a stronger showing of parents whose children attended only the Neighborhood program (many parents in attendance had children in both the Choice and Neighborhood programs).

Parents offered opinions about the kind of school they wanted. At the same time, they expressed confusion about the difference between the Healey’s programs, and concerns about an uncertain future for the school and the impact of this moment’s instability on children. Three issues that generated spirited and varied responses were:

• parent involvement and outreach opportunities that increase children’s academic success;
• access to activities and field trips across programs, along with the parent resources required to make them happen, and
• teaching an array of skills that children now need to handle diverse 21st century environments, especially communication skills and the capacity to speak a second language.

The meeting ended with a straw poll about the three options for the Healey School that stirred strong emotions among participants. The majority of participants felt that the options to either maintain and/or combine the Choice and Neighborhood programs would benefit children most. Only one participant chose having a separate school for the Choice program as one of the two options marked on their poll. Most participants felt they could not be sure about which option was best for children until they had more particulars about how the Choice and Neighborhood would be blended and whether or not some important practices in the Choice Program would be maintained after the merge.

Key questions raised at this parent forum were passed on to the Healey’s principal, Mr. Sabin, who answered them by invitation at the OneVille bi-monthly Multilingual Parents’ Coffee Hour held on Friday, 7 May 2010.