Orchard Knob Middle School parents are upset that their children don’t have current textbooks. One mother complained that students didn’t get science books until April, just six weeks before school lets out for summer.
“They’re setting our kids up for failure,” said Annette Thompson, president of the school’s PTSA. “How can you compete with the other people of the world if you don’t have textbooks?”
Ms. Thompson will host a meeting today at the Avondale Recreation Center to give Orchard Knob Middle parents a chance to express concerns about the lack of textbooks and other issues at the school that may be affecting the quality of their children’s education.
In a May letter to the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, NAACP chapter President Valoria Armstrong asked federal officials to investigate the school district “in terms of adequacy, equity, class offerings, tenure and capital expenditures based on racial disparities.”
The NAACP alleges that students at predominately black schools in the district get less experienced and less effective teachers, resources and funding.