Public Service Fatigue

[flea]

I feel like I've been working pretty continuously - at some times quite hard - since school started in early August to get a Girl Scout Troop going at Casper's school. And I've "succeeded" - we have 4 leaders, so we can run both a Daisy (K-1) and a Brownie (2-3) troop, we had a parent meeting on Monday and have about 12 girls all signed up, and I expect to add several more who are definitely committed and couldn't come to the meeting.

But I feel like I've failed. 85% of the girls are white and upper middle class. The demographic mix of the school is only about 25% white, varying a little by grade. The paraprofessionals who ran the troop last year at after school (all of whom left the school, and after school is not an option any more because of a new district policy - we are meeting on Tuesdays at 6pm at a friendly church, kill me now I did not want to meet on a weeknight but the people present voted for it) managed to run a Junior troop (4-5) as well, and pull a lot of black and Latina students, with 60 girls total.

I don't know how they did it, except maybe having existing relationships with the girls and parents, since they worked at the school. I have tried really hard to send print messages home as well as emails for people without internet access, and to send all messages in Spanish as well as English. I always emphasized that there are financial scholarships for girls who can't afford the $12 registration fee (sadly, there are a lot of families in this situation - including one of our troop leaders. 39% of the children in the city live below the poverty line (which, remember, is only about $21,000 for a family of 4), according to the new American Community Survey data.) And the turnout was all people like me. I guess we keep trying to recruit. I have some names that we can try phone-calling, but I am terribly phone-phobic; maybe my co-leaders are braver.

I'm just so worn out by it all, and we haven't even started actually meeting.

Comments

[sara]

Have you called everyone who was in it last year? That's how I'd start. There might be a feeling that the Nice White Ladies have taken it over and everyone knows what Nice White Ladies want so we'll just back off until we see what they're like (I delight in turning NWL expectations on their heads, but that takes time and practice and experience with a given group).

[flea]

To date, we do not have a list of who was in the troop last year, unfortunately. And we do have a black troop leader, who has an identifiably African-American style name, which appeared on the fliers! (Plus, you know, all the paraprofessionals last year were actually Nice White Ladies. They were just Nice White Ladies that the parents *knew*. I know some of the parents of kids my daughter has been in class with, but I am no social connector, and many of the nonwhite parents rarely come to school events where I would have the chance to meet them.)

[sara]

I wonder if the local GS org would have a list.

And yeah, I think being somewhere not-at-school would be a biggie. We have a semi-active Boy Scout troop at school but can't get anything going for girls (and I wouldn't let my kids get involved with Boy Scouts, so that rules that out). We do have afterschool choir, which is paid for by the parent org. I can't imagine signing up for anything else in the evenings -- right now we are often out four nights a week, which is killing us.

[flea]

I too wonder if the local GS org would have a list. You would think so, no? And yet, apparently not so much.

[loligo]

Here are some patterns that I've noticed in our racially and economically mixed school district: (1) white parents are often interested in getting their daughters into Scouting at the Daisy level, whereas the parents of African-American and Latina girls are more likely to get their daughters involved at the Brownie or Junior level. (2) For economically stressed families, having the meeting after school, at the school, makes a HUGE difference. I'll bet a big chunk of your difference from last year is right there.

I have more to say about this, but I have to go pick up Squeaky....

[flea]

Yeah, I would love to meet at school after school, but we can't meet at the school (it would cost $75 per meeting!) and two of the leaders work until 5pm. It was such a scramble to get any leaders at all that we can't risk losing one (and one of those two is me.)

[loligo]

The social dynamics of scouting in our school district are really weird. First off, each of our elementary schools only covers two grades; that's how they handled integrating the district back in the '70's -- all the kids in town go to one school for K-1, then a different school in a different neighborhood for 2-3, and then another for 4-5. So it's kind of hard for kids to make friends outside of their age cohort.

So, four years ago when the current 4th graders were in K., no one stepped up to start a Daisy troop. So when that cohort got to 2nd grade, there were a ton of girls waiting to get into scouting, and when my co-leader Delora started a Brownie troop two years ago, it was a big racially and economically mixed troop (also, it met after school, and the 2-3 school happens to be located in the town's predominately black neighborhood). Now, when the current 3rd graders (like Chuckles) were in K, someone *did* start a Daisy troop. I didn't sign Chuckles up, because she just wasn't socially ready. That troop was mostly professor's kids, and it's entirely white. After the first year, they decided not to admit new members. So all the girls in that cohort who wanted to join at the Brownie level (mostly black, except for Chuckles) joined Delora's troop.

When the current 2nd graders were in K, another Daisy troop was started. Again, it was almost entirely white at first. But unlike the other, they're open to new members.

So among the 2nd & 3rd graders at Chuckles' school, we now have FOUR DIFFERENT BROWNIE TROOPS. One is all 3rd graders and entirely white. Mine, which is the 3rd grade remnant of Delora's troop plus all the 3rd graders who joined this year, is entirely black except for Chuckles and one other white girl who just moved from Wisconsin. Then there's a racially integrated troop of 2nd graders. Then there's another troop of 2nd & 3rd graders who all live in family housing on campus, mostly the kids of international grad students and post-docs, so that's yet another kind of segregation.

In case you can't tell, I think that this system is NUTS.

[flea]

Well, at least you have active troops! In our Service Unit, which covers the whole city (population under 18: 18,000 - our elementary school, one of 11, has 180 girls in K-5), they only had 150 girls registered as of 2 weeks ago (and school started in early August.) They are not leading very well, IMO.

I have had *several* mothers ask me if Girl Scouts is okay with gay people (crunchy white moms), which may be keeping away some of the hipsters and faculty members. The population in our school is largely: poor black people, poor Latinos where the kids speak excellent English but the parents very little, rich white women with advanced degrees who work full-time and are overbooked and/or too upper-class for Girl Scouts, and aging hipster moms who are too hip for Girl Scouts.

[loligo]

For the record (in case you didn't look this up yourself): the national GS organization claims not to discriminate based on sexual orientation, but suggests that all leaders keep their personal lives to themselves. However, when individual service units have dismissed lesbian leaders, who then point to the national non-discrimination policy, the national org. has declined to get involved. So, on paper, better than the Boy Scouts, but in practice it totally depends on your local culture.

[flea]

I've been describing them as "agnostic" about sexuality. One of our leaders used to work at a GS camp and said that parents would routinely remove their daughters from camp because they believed there were lesbians on the staff (which there were, which was just fine with the camp.)

[riarambles]

My humble suggestion is to stop by/call the local community health center or pediatricians' offices, talk about the program and the scholarshiops, and leave fliers. Talk to the interpreters or bilingual people on staff at the health center. In my experience, they are often the people who mention things like this to parents, and they are ipso facto known and trusted by the community. I (an interpreter) often mention programs or activities to parents, or I mention them to the doctor outside the room, so the doctor can talk about them.