About OurFocusOurKids.com
My name is Lloyd White. I am the father of 2. My daughter is in the fourth grade at Brookside Elementary; my son is in first grade. When my daughter was ready to enter kindergarten, my wife, Marti, and I had to decide between the public school system and private schools. The reputation of Beaumont's schools was a deciding factor when we moved here 5 years ago from the Redlands school district. It was one reason we decided to go the public school route. Public schools have prepared us both to succeed in higher education; we felt if we remained involved in our children's education they would be able to succeed as well.
As the son of a public school teacher, I learned early on there are good administrators and board members and there are many that are not so good. I began going to the board meetings to judge for myself the quality of the people running the Beaumont Unified School District. I learned there were very few parents involved in what was going on at the district level. As I tried to get more information about what was happening, I found it very difficult to get any information from the district. I tried to find what I needed on the district's website; but I found it to be difficult to navigate and hopelessly out of date. I found the district wasn't using the website efficiently to get information to the public.
When I first brought my concerns to the board and the administration, I found them to be responsive and quick to address my concerns. As time went on, I realized they weren't really interested in increasing parent involvement. They only include parents when it is the politically expedient thing to do or to meet minimum legal requirements. Meeting minimum legal requirements instead of doing everything possible to involve parents seems to be what concerns this board and administration the most.
I decided to start a website to provide a resource for parents but more importantly to provide a platform to get more parents involved. I will continue to address areas where I think BUSD is failing to support parents in a way that could make a significant improvement in our children's education. I know, as the district knows, the real power is held by the parents. I feel the board of trustees and the administration make the decisions they do because they think no one is watching. I'm watching.