Lynwood Parents Investigate Technology Resources in Their Community

by Laila Hasan

Parents from the UCLA Parent Curriculum Project in Lynwood participated in a six-week asset-mapping project to better understand the technology resources available in their community.

On the first day of the technology asset mapping project many of the parents had to make sacrifices to attend this meeting at 9 a.m. at Hosler Middle School. One of the parents had to acquire a babysitter and use a taxi to get to the meeting. Others had to bring their toddlers and infants to the project. What parents perceived initially as an opportunity to discover, investigate and locate technology in their children’s schools, community libraries and churches became an exercise in parent learning about rights to access public information.

As parents arrived at the various sites they were told that they did not have rights to this type of information...

Parents decided to ask personnel at each site three questions: 1) How many computers do you have at this site? 2) What are they used for? and 3) Do you have any Internet connections?

As parents arrived at the various sites they were told that they did not have rights to this type of information, that this information is not for parent use. The parents were shocked and hurt by the reception they received at various locations. Parent leaders immediately contacted the Lynwood Unified School District about this problem and were told that everything would be taken care of and a letter would be faxed to all school sites with instructions on how to respond to the three technology survey questions. Again the parents were denied access to public information about computers at their children’s school.

It was rather unbelievable that this type of public information would be denied to parents. A principal even told several parents that it was not the responsibility of the school to provide computers or technology to students and that it is the responsibility of families to teach children about computers in their homes. There were several churches which had computers as a result of government grants and parents were told they could not use them unless they paid from eighty to one hundred dollars for computer usage for several weeks. In spite of this devastating experience the parents decided to focus on the few sites that did offer answers to the three questions.

All schools except one responded with, "No our computers are not for parents to use at any time" or "they are only for students."

Letra de Amalia L. Hernández

Letra de María Guadalupe Herrera

Letter from Jose Muñoz

Letter from Emma Street

Furthermore, several of the parents raised the possibility that the Internet may have information about school computers in Lynwood. A couple of parents volunteered to call the LA County board of education. Parents were told that the state board of education had a web site accessing computer information on all the schools in the state including Lynwood. Parents were extremely excited to follow through on researching their schools in order to complete the asset-mapping project. They did access the information and use this information to complete the technology asset-mapping project.

In addition to answering the survey questions the parents discovered that most students in Lynwood do not get the opportunity to use computers on a weekly basis. In some of the schools most computers do not even work. Some of the parents asked the schools if parents could use the computers after school during the week. All schools except one responded with, "No our computers are not for parents to use at any time" or "they are only for students." The one school that responded differently is in the process of creating a parent center equipped with several computers and teacher volunteers to teach computer literacy workshops for parents.

Parents completed the asset-mapping project but decided they wanted to present their findings and experience at a Lynwood board meeting. In addition, parents decided to present the district with recommendations, one of which will be the suggestion that families have access to computers at the school site from 3:00–4:15 at least twice a week in order to foster a computer literate community.

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