Two
blocks from Boston's Government Center, six floors up, and four weeks
into her new job as deputy superintendent for family and community engagement
for the Boston Public Schools, Glenola Mitchell is getting a rare moment
alone. "I was just reading Leave No Child Behind," she says,
referring to the U.S. Department of Education's broad initiative, made
into law this year, that requires primary and secondary schools to meet
state-set education goals. A strong component of the policy is to increase
levels of parental involvement and provide more "supplemental services"
for academically at-risk students, including tutoring and extra classes.
At a Washington news conference in January when the bill was signed into law, U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige remarked, "I can assure you there is no more powerful advocate for children than a parent armed with information and options."
Parental involvement is music to Glenola's ears.
"I grew up in West Virginia, where parents collaborated on everything," she notes. Yet a host of factors including economic pressures, especially in urban areas, often discourage parents from participating. That's where Glenola comes in. "My agenda is to really change the image that has been tied to the Boston public schools as not being parent friendly," she says, by supporting parents and getting them to collaborate more with the school on their children's education.
Glenola is intimately aware of the twin difficulties of working and keeping the home front stable. After working for many years as a secretary, and then an administrative aide, she decided to go back to school. Not having finished her undergraduate degree wasn't holding her back at work, it was just that "I wanted to do things on a higher level," she recalls.
In 1986, after first learning of Cambridge College from a sign on the commuter train she rode to work everyday, she enrolled in the then-nascent graduate studies preparation program, and the Master's of Education Administration program. Glenola was able to apply her existing undergraduate course credits, and her life experience, to gain entrance.
Attending school wasn't just about a diploma. "Beyond getting that degree, my goal was to serve as a role model for my two boys -- especially being African-American -- and to emphasize the importance of education, and striving to reach for higher goals," she says.
Balancing her marriage, raising her two boys (then aged 12 and 17), a job, and her education took finesse. "It was a rough time," she notes. "I said to my kids, I think I'll drop out, and they said, No, you cannot quit; what do you need from us to help you?" She went on to graduate in 1988, and immediately was hired as the executive director of Career Expo Planning Committee Inc. in Boston, which provides career opportunities and scholarships for students of color. No one had stayed at the helm for more than a year; she led it for nine.
Glenola lauds her Cambridge College professors for bucking the "leaving students pretty much on their own" principle that most colleges operate on. "For the professors to have put themselves forward as another strength unit for you is pretty rare," she says.
She counts the Pro Seminar ("Pro Sem") as one of the high points of her education, which helped her identify her leadership potential.
The Pro Seminars were so valuable, she says, because of the participants' diverse backgrounds -- both cultural and job-related -- and the guidance of Bob Prague, the instructor.
"It
was a strong support mechanism for people who were reentering the college
life and had family and career attached to it. You had someone to talk
to who could understand what you were going through," she notes.
"You became extended family members."
Next: Larry Rosenstock