Today is the last day of school of the 2025-2026 school year and I’ve been sitting with that more emotionally than I expected to. This was technically not our very first year in the Little Rock School District (we started in Early Childhood at PK4 and I will scream from the rooftops about those programs forever) but this year felt like our first real “big kid school” year. The first year where we fully stepped into the rhythm and ecosystem of elementary school life.
And jump I did. Headfirst into it. Straight no chaser. I joined PTA. I joined the PTA board. I picked up side quests that brought me into just about every corner of the school community. And maybe part of why this year felt so emotionally significant to me is because I’m also a graduate of the Little Rock School District myself.
This was my second year walking my child through the district that raised me, shaped me, educated me, and prepared me for my life and career… now from the perspective of a parent. That changed the emotional texture of everything. There is something deeply humbling about watching your own child walk through systems and spaces that once shaped you too.
Here’s what I saw.
1. There is a LOT that is working inside public education.
I had a choice and I chose public school. Specifically, a public magnet school. Because I do believe there’s something meaningful about a school where every family had to make a proactive decision to be there. It’s a choice on top of a choice.
Private tuition was technically possible for our family, but it would have been tight. What we found instead was a balance I’ve genuinely loved: a tuition-free education paired with the ability to directly support the school and still afford extracurriculars, family experiences, swimming lessons, festivals, and opportunities that help expand our child’s world outside the classroom too.
And one of the things I treasure most about our magnet school community is that when I look out during events, I see a population that actually reflects the city I live in. Multiracial families. Interracial families. Socioeconomically diverse families. Intergenerational families (Give it up for the grandparents, uncles, and aunties!!). Different faiths. Different cultures. Different family structures.
Children growing up around people whose lives are not carbon copies of their own. That is not incidental decoration around “the real learning.” For me, that is part of the learning.
Because I personally do not think someone can move through K-12, college, adulthood, and into broader society with no meaningful understanding of cultural diversity, shared human experience, or coexistence and still be considered deeply educated. You can be very intelligent and still not be very smart. And I have experienced that firsthand in adulthood on the receiving end of bubble-raised adults who clearly have never been socialized to be around Black people, especially not with the knowledge that we are capable and intelligent. But whew… that’s another post y’all.
I don’t care how many credentials someone has. Exposure to difference is part of becoming a fully developed human being. People love to say “we’re so divided” while actively participating in the division.
And one thing I will say very plainly as a parent: It is not normal or healthy for children to grow up in environments where adults are intentionally self-segregating from the daycare and preschool level forward. Before some children even fully come to know themselves, they are already learning:
- who belongs near them
- who does not
- who is “normal”
- who is “other”
- whose neighborhoods are acceptable
- whose families are acceptable
- whose lives are worth understanding
- and whose are not
That is deeply damaging to society and I think one of the greatest failures of modern rugged individualism is convincing people that the highest social good is individualized optimization instead of collective civic life.
Parents as consumers. Schools as products. Children as achievement projects.
But schools are also one of the last remaining places where people still regularly encounter each other across lines of race, class, religion, culture, and worldview. Public policy should account for the civic value of shared institutions, not just the consumer preferences of individuals, especially individuals whose worldviews are increasingly shaped in seeking segregation, in racism, or religious indoctrination. Call me old-fashioned, but I personally think if people want to completely self-segregate educationally and ideologically from broader society, they should have to finance that choice out of pocket and shouldn’t be dipping into public funds to do it. Public money belongs in public schools. Bigot with your own budget.
2. Teachers are doing some HEAVY lifting.
And I don’t mean that in a generic “teachers are heroes” way. I mean long hours. Emotional labor. Supplemental programs. Weekend events. Organizing floats for parades. Quietly filling gaps. Carrying things that absolutely extend beyond their job descriptions because they care about our kids and what happens to them. These are the kind of teachers that poured into me and the kind of educators I see present in my school everyday. You will never ever EVER turn me against educators. There are educators out here holding entire ecosystems together with sheer commitment, Google docs, and printer paper.
I think people underestimate how deeply schools are tied to the social health of a city. Schools shape:
- literacy
- workforce development
- civic participation
- social trust
- neighborhood stability
- economic mobility
- social cohesion
- and people’s basic ability to coexist peacefully with others unlike themselves
You cannot systematically kneecap the institutions responsible for educating the collective body of children in our city and then act bewildered when the city itself begins struggling collectively. I mean you can… but I think it’s far beyond time that we start acknowledging that action as the violence and community harm it truly is and hold people accountable for that harm. That is not how ecosystems work and schools do not exist in isolation.
3. Parents are desperately needed.
And I don’t mean “bring cookies to the bake sale” needed. I mean needed in a “become part of the actual school community” way. In a way where your relationship with the school doesn’t begin and end at drop-off and pickup. On inconvenient days. On tiring days. On days where it costs a little money, time, or energy.
Educators and support staff need adults who come into the building not just to critique or monitor, but to participate. To help. To encourage. To become familiar faces. One of the biggest cultural shifts happening right now is people psychologically relating to public institutions as consumers instead of co-stewards.
Consumers ask: “What can I extract for my individual benefit?”
Citizens ask: “What am I helping sustain for the people coming behind me?”
That distinction is critical because public systems cannot survive long-term if everyone approaches them exclusively through the lens of individualized optimization. No school functions because of individual effort alone. Not teachers. Not parents. Not administrators. Not students.
Everything depends on layers of:
- trust
- cooperation
- sacrifice
- volunteer labor
- tax investment
- emotional investment
- social investment
That’s civic life.
4. You become part of normalcy for kids.
They notice when you’re around. They know who you belong to. They ask about your life. They wave at you in hallways. They tell you stories with absolutely no context and expect you to keep up. At this point, I can barely walk into the building without somebody asking when my babies are coming or how I’m doing.
My favorite interaction from the last two weeks was a kindergartener proudly telling me: “Congratulations on your pregnant!” 🤣
That level of innocent community is kind of beautiful. One of the things this year reminded me very powerfully is that public schools are not just educational institutions. They are one of the last major shared civic spaces many of us still have. They are places where children encounter people from different races, faiths, classes, cultures, and backgrounds. Places where adults are still asked to cooperate with people they did not handpick. Places where communities practice the difficult work of coexistence in real time.
That matters to me deeply as both a parent and a graduate of our district because this district helped raise me too and any intelligence or capability you see in me is a testament to what this district can produce.
5. You do not have to be wealthy to make a difference.
Schools are filling real, immediate gaps every single day. Bandaids for the nurse’s office.
Cheez-Its for a classroom snack bin. Supplies for projects. Transportation support. Festival costs. Field trips. Teacher appreciation meals. Tiny things that become big things when multiplied across hundreds of students. Adding $10–$25 onto an order you were already placing matters if you can afford it.
And if you are affluent and generous? You could dramatically change the course of things for a school community with far less money than you probably think.
Serving as PTA Treasurer this year gave me a much sharper understanding of what it actually costs to do things like feed families for a family night, run a festival, support teachers, or help send kids on educational trips.
I am not too proud to beg for our babies. And I have this year.
If you have resources, connections, time, skills, or treasure to share in any amount and want to help, I can connect you. You really can change lives.
6. The magic of school days is still magical.
Spirit days. Hallway art. Tiny performances. Field day chaos. Book fairs. International festivals. Kids proudly showing you things they made with glue sticks and construction paper.
That magic is still there. You just have to tap in long enough to see it. 💜
I am really looking forward to the summer and I am also going to be missing my school village and will be happy when August rolls around and I hear that school bell again.
Happy summer y’all! 🌻💜