School brochures

MaryWrite@aol.com
Wed, 1 May 1996 10:07:27 -0400


On Tuesday, I received the Summer Community Education Program brochure from
my school district and decided to do an equity check on it. On the K-2 page
the picture above the "Fun with the Macintosh" course description is a little
boy sitting happily in front of a computer. On the K-3 art page there is a
picture of 3 girls and 2 boys proudly displaying their artwork; the boys are
in the foreground of the picture and are part of the focal point along with
one of the girls. You have to look closely to see the other two girls. On the
grade 3-7 science page, there are two boys sitting happily at computers and
another picture of two boys working diligently at a scienc lab station. The
t-ball page is somewhat better with an action shot of a boy, an action shot
of a girl and an action shot that could be either (it would be interesting to
take a poll to see what gender would be identified in that picture). By the
way, all of the kids in the pictures are caucasion.

I spent the entire day in Mankato, MN last Friday at a seminar on gender
equity that was facilitate by David Sadker and Phyllis Lerner. The school
board chair and gender equity specialist from our district, both women, were
with me. After looking over the brochure I put in a call to both of them and
asked them to do their own equity check and let me know what I thought. I'm
still waiting for call backs but wanted to throw this out to the list to find
out what's going on in other places?

Is this a policy issue? I have a good friend who always says, "The devil is
in the details." Do school districts need policies to help them attend to
these details or do we rely on their common sense, confident that they should
know better? Your replies, private or otherwise, would be greatly
appreciated.

Best regards,

Mary Miller


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