AIBU to think parent groups should be representative of schools ethnicity

[sportsshop2]

DSs primary school is quite diverse - over 50% but in an area that was very white until recently. 20 parents in year group of 60 have been organizing prom etc and have asked for help but then ignored all offers from anyone not white or possibly even European. As they are on a private facebook group it is not obvious to those individuals who has been included.

The school itself is integrated, kids mixed and staff are great. I would like to raise this to try to improve things for future years. Would HT think it is outside their remit? Would governors help or as it is all volunteers is racism impossible to prevent?

Also have you tried simply messaging the facebook group, saying "hi, I would like to help, my DC is x in class y. Please can you add me on the group?" Keep a record of the message, send a follow up to the organiser on whatsapp too. If you don't get any reply, send a copy of your messages to the school and pta and ask them to investigate why you were ignored

Not racism

I would expect what's happened is that the couple of parents who started this have engaged with only their friends and friends of friends rather than opening it up to all parents (who they don't necessarily know). If the leader or leaders are white, I imagine they probably just have white friends. I know our parent's organisation is very cliquey. They all go out for drinks with each other and meet up. I've never been invited and am never asked directly for help with anything. I'm very middle class and white, btw, but clearly just not one of the gang (which actually is fine by me!).

Have they not accepted offers from only non-white parents?

@bobcatbobcat

Definitely worth mentioning to HT?

Have they actually ignored offers of help? If so that's not great at all.

I find in the school I work in that often parents of minority groups don't offer as much and it can be hard to help them to feel included. Equally you cannot make people volunteer for stuff!

This is my experience as well.

It's actually less parents of minority groups, more any parents who aren't middle class, from whatever ethnicity, who are harder to make feel included.

What help are people offering? A massive group of parents all wanting to “be involved” sounds like a bloody nightmare. Although obviously any “committee” type thing should be organised fairly, if I was doing it (I often seem to end up doing this kind of thing) I know I’d pick the three or four parents I already know, who already do all the boring tedious crap at pta events and I can rely on to get stuff done. They are all with one exception white stay at home mums, because they are the people who have time and offer to do book sale every Wednesday lunchtime, cake sale on Thursday after school, making tea/coffee for six nativity performances, turning up on a rainy Saturday to weed the school garden etc etc. Diversity would be great and I wouldn’t actually turn anyone away, but my priorities would be getting it actually done. I would however absolutely welcome a parent/group of parents, of any colour/background who wanted to actually take on the whole thing, rather than “be involved”. I’d happily hand it over wholesale.

Wanting to “be involved” in my experience often translates as “turn up for one meeting to make the interesting decisions and express opinions about the fun stuff” not “I’m offering to organise the printing and selling of tickets” or “I will keep the accounts and arrange to pay the suppliers” or “I’m offering to make 800 yards of bunting” or “I’ll come and clean up at 11pm after everyone else has gone”. If that sort of help has been turned down I’d be stunned.

It sounds like it’s just an informal group of parents getting together to try and organise something nice for their children and their classmates to celebrate the end of primary school. That’s not the sort of group that should have to think about diversity quotas. If it’s led by the parents, then it has nothing to do with the school, and they shouldn’t be expected to get involved.

I agree with the theory that a couple of alpha mums (or class reps) have recruited their friends and told their friends to invite their friends and ignored any interest slips sent in by other mums. My experience of the playground was that people tended to be friends with people from their race so if the mums who started the group were white British then most of the group would be too.

I suspect they thought that if anybody else wanted to join then they'd send a FB message or talk to someone in the group in person so that they could be included.

I would recommend gathering detailed facts before raising with the school. Any allegation of racism in any environment (work, school, whatever) would require that.
The whole thing could be embarrassing (not to mention offensive) if it turns out to be a misunderstanding.

My experience at dd's school (and I say this as an ethnic minority) echoes others - it's generally a struggle to get volunteers and it tends to be the same people who volunteer over and over. And yes the majority have been white and female.

I would have loved it after the various school fairs if more people volunteered to clear half eaten plates of food off the ground (as some parents couldn't be bothered to use the bins) or wipe tables, clean floors, heave chairs around etc.
It was the same people 3 years in a row volunteering for the worst jobs - only two parents of colour (including me) volunteered. And its a very diverse South London school.
Its not exactly exercising white privilege to volunteer to unblock the toilets.

If they have organized something outside of school and are all set I’m not sure why they should accept more people to the group, too many cooks in the kitchen and all that.
If they have asked for volunteers and then only accepted people based on ethnicity obviously that is not on. If they have added people first come first serve or based on what help they were actually offering then fine.