District Offers a Back-to-Basics Approach in Parenting

Here’s a challenging job offer: You work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. No vacation, no sick days, no pay. Headaches are guaranteed and, most important, you are expected to be good at it.

The job, you’ve guessed already, is being a parent.

This is the scenario Patricia Gomez of the Santa Ana Unified School District often offers to mothers and fathers she meets when she talks about parenting.

Gomez is the district’s parent, family and community coordinator. That mouthful means it’s her job to get parents to tune up their skills to help improve their youngsters’ education.

“We have to teach the parents that not only is it important to their children that they participate in their education, we require them to,” she said.

To assist, her office each year offers a series of Thursday night training seminars for parents--with child care provided to help make it easier for them to attend. The first five sessions, all in Spanish, run Feb. 13 through March 13. Similar sessions, in English, will be offered Thursday nights in April.

Some parents who care deeply about their children have never understood they must play a role in their schoolwork, Gomez said. “Some of the immigrant parents come from a culture where the only time they would come into contact with the school system is when something negative has happened, when the student is in trouble,” she said.

She knows from experience. Gomez taught for 15 years in Mexico before immigrating to the U.S. in 1982. You might see that lack of parental involvement as a minus for the Mexican education system. But Gomez points out that it’s ahead of the U.S. on other fronts. When she first taught in Orange County, she said, “I was surprised that the students did not stand up when I walked into class. And I was surprised that they did not always pay attention while I was teaching. Because in Mexico, that was the way it was done.”

But Gomez is a strong advocate for parent participation for all students. A couple of success stories she mentioned, stemming from the district’s efforts to get more parents involved:

* At Heninger Elementary, parents are making costumes on sewing machines purchased by the school for their children’s end-of-semester performances.

* At Carver Elementary, parents formed a group to monitor traffic around the school.

* At district board meetings, some of the parents from previous Thursday night sessions are attending for the first time--and speaking up.

But the district has a long way to go in getting widespread participation. At some Thursday training seminars in the past, she saw “parents totally disconnected, not just from their child, but from society in general.”

But the fact they are there is a start. Assisting Gomez and her staff are specially trained parents who have shown leadership skills. Those parents not only help with the seminars, but spread the word in the community about what the district is trying to do.

“What we do most is provide windows of opportunity,” Gomez said. “We teach people how to be advocates for their children with the school, and how to be role models for their own children.”

Just a friendly reminder that we all might need on occasion: how to be a parent.

Falling Short: The Salvation Army in Orange County is having a food problem: not enough canned goods to feed the county’s poor. Right now it’s about 30,000 cans short of its standard inventory.

“This is the most severe shortage of canned food we have experienced in the last 10 years,” said county coordinator Capt. Lee Lescano.

You can take your canned goods to the Salvation Army headquarters at 10200 Pioneer Road in Tustin, or its Hospitality House, 818 E. 3rd St. in Santa Ana. If you just can’t get there, bring them to me. I’ll take them for you.

People Watch: Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres, former prime minister of Israel, speaks at Temple Bat Yahm in Newport Beach on Sunday. General admission tickets are $18. Peres’ recently released memoirs are called “Battling for Peace.” Peres won the prize in 1994 for his efforts at negotiating peace with the PLO . . . State Supreme Court Justice Ming W. Chin speaks at a Constitutional Rights Foundation luncheon at the Red Lion Inn in Costa Mesa on Thursday. The event will honor participants in the county’s recent mock trial competition for high school students . . .

Mark Johnson, chairman of the Orange County Performing Arts Center and one of its major benefactors, has been chosen Cypress College’s “Americana Man of the Year.” He’ll attend the awards night dinner Feb. 22 at the Disneyland Hotel’s Grand Ballroom. . . . Congratulations to Newport Beach’s Joey Bishop, Rat Pack member and comedian, who turned 79 on Monday. Callers included Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, who used to appear on Bishop’s old TV talk show.

Fighting On: After my recent column about Public Defender Ronald Y. Butler, who is suffering from advanced stages of throat and jaw cancer, he gave me a call. I had not interviewed him before that column because he was ill and under treatment.

But Butler wanted to pass on to those inquiring about his health that he’s optimistic and in good spirits.

“I’m not about to quit fighting now,” he said.

One of the best descriptions of Butler I received came from private defense attorney William J. Kopeny, who has been involved in a number of high-profile cases (Randy Kraft, Dr. Thomas Gionis, the Rodney King defendants). Kopeny once headed the writs and appeals section of the public defender’s office under Butler.

“He was more of a philosophical leader who inspired his troops than a nuts and bolts manager,” Kopeny wrote, adding in a later passage: “In countless small ways Ron has made courageous decisions which placed the interests of clients of his office ahead of Ron’s own.”

Wrap-Up: One of the parent leaders Gomez told me about was Lucila Avina, whose three children go to Harvey Elementary.

Avina told me the training has helped her see that she needed to take more initiative in talking to teachers about her children’s schoolwork.

“Too many parents are afraid to see anyone at the school because they don’t speak English, and they are intimidated,” said Avina, whose own English is limited but improving. “I learned that you need to get involved; you need to see what’s going on at the school. What’s more important than our children?”

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by call-ing the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail tojerry.hicks@latimes.com