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Parents' Corner: A Few Words From a New Parent.
by Colleen West, Parent of Former DVS students
From the Winter 2002 Newsletter

My three children (ages 10, 12, and 12) entered DVS last spring, after being unschooled at home for all their early years. They wanted more kids to be with on a daily basis, without the strictures of traditional school to interfere with the way they spent their time. We as parents wanted the full Sudbury Valley-type experience of freedom and responsibility in a democratic environment. And with the benefit of a beginner's mind, I can say it has been both very exciting and sometimes painful to watch our children respond to this environment.

There are many exciting changes I have observed in my children's thinking and speaking skills. (I will talk about them as a group, to avoid singling any one out.) They are all more able to speak about their rights in relation to others, and articulately so. They are able to craft agreements with each other about the sharing of possessions, games, and computer time, with a sharpened sense of their own needs in relation to other family members. They also amaze and delight me with their growing ability to see different facets of complex phenomena in their worlds, be it the events of September 11th, or the sentencing of a fellow student in Judicial Meeting.

There are also exciting changes in their social skills. They play with more abandon, with more open arguing, and more wild physicality. They are more likely to say what they do and don't like in social settings which intimidate them. And they are just beginning to initiate changes they want to make in the school environment, something which requires formidable social skill as well as good thinking and speaking skills.

The difficult part for me as a parent, who has spent the first 10 and 12 years responding to her children's needs and wants, is to stand by when the school environment does not respond to them. It has been hard to witness their loud and hardy complaints and their legitimate suffering as they recognize this school-world is not the same as their home-world. It has been hard to just listen as they talk about the subtle uses of power on the part of staff and students and what they perceive as injustices done.
So with a mixture of excitement and pain, I watch my children grow at DVS in the midst of struggle and move toward independence. Our family is growing in the process.

Diablo Valley School admits students of any race, color, sex, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin to all rights and privileges, programs and activities generally accorded or made available to students and staff at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan program, and athletic and other school administered programs.

Our school has enrolled students from: Antioch, Berkeley, Clayton, Concord, Danville, El Cerrito, Lafayette, Livermore, Martinez, Oakland, Oakley, Pittsburg, Pleasant Hill, San Francisco, San Leandro, Vallejo, Walnut Creek and other communities in the Bay Area.