Luna Perez, a deaf student in the Sturgis, Michigan school system for 11 years, along with his parents believed for years that he was on track to graduate high school with his class.  Months before his graduation, however, the district revealed that it would not be awarding him a diploma.

As it turns out, the school district “allegedly” misrepresented Luna’s educational progress, awarding him inflated grades and advancing him from grade to grade regardless of his progress.  Sign-language aides who had been assigned to Luna were either unqualified or absent from the classroom.  One aide did not even know sign-language herself and attempted to learn it on her own.

The Supreme Court recently cleared legal hurdles which prevented Luna Perez from suing the Sturgis School District for money damages for failing to adequately meet his educational needs.

Besides being a triumphant moment for all students with disabilities in American schools, this case also raises the issue of how much do parents really know about how their child is doing in school.

Learning Heroes is a non-profit with a mission to bridge the communication gap between public schools and parents about student academic progress.  Heroes says their research shows that there is a big gap between what parents think about their child’s progress and how their child is actually doing.

In 2022, Heroes conducted a survey of 1,400 public school parents around the country and 92% of believed that their children were performing at grade level.  Yet National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data was at the same time showing “significant” declines in reading and math.

In May of 2022, Learning Heroes asked parents how confident they were that they had a clear understanding of how well their child was achieving academically.   Eighty-six percent (86%) of parents said they were “Extremely” or “Very Confident” in their understanding of their child’s academic achievement.  However, only 58% of teachers think “most or all” of parents have a clear understanding of how their child is achieving academically, down 11% from 2021.

How well does Hartford Public Schools communicate the true nature of students’ academic achievement to parents?  The district’s communication tool of choice is ParentSquare.  Word on the street is that they would be better off using carrier pigeons.  Many parents do not use the ParentSquare app or ignore its messages.  Many parents do not provide the district with updated contact information so messages from the district are never received.

Hartford has the Hartford Parent University where one of the main goals is to increase parent engagement with the schools.  HPU offers 10 different classes to parents, including Navigating the Hartford Public Schools system, Overview of Student Centered Learning, and Understanding the Individualized Education Plan (IEP), all which would give the parent insight into how to monitor their child’s academic progress.  However, in 2022, only 107 parents attended the program.

In Hartford, as happened in the Luna Perez case, the fact that a student passes from grade to grade or receives a diploma in many cases means little as to their actual academic growth and achievement.  A Hartford teacher recently relayed to me a conversation overheard between graduating seniors in Hartford.  The students had been accepted at UCONN and one of them was stressing whether they would be able to do the work.  When the non-stressed student told the other not to worry, they were “A” students, they would be able to handle the course work.  The stressed student wasn’t heartened, “but they were Hartford As” was the reply.