If a School Needs It, She Does It

To Sheri Osborne, parent involvement is a verb, not a noun.

For the last 15 years, the Northridge mother of two has devoted her life to improving education at her neighborhood schools and in the Los Angeles Unified School District. One of 26,000 district volunteers, Osborne stands out not only because of the long hours she contributes but because she works alongside administrators to make decisions involving the dress code, student government elections and student improvement.

She has helped raise $100,000 to air-condition an elementary school and $40,000 to open a student computer lab. She serves on numerous school improvement committees. At the meetings, she’s energized and has ideas to spare. She recently attended a teachers conference at USC and is a regular at Chatsworth High School’s football and basketball games.

And from her study hall office recently, Osborne phoned hundreds of parents of children who are failing math to tell them what they could do about it.

Her latest projects are helping plan Chatsworth High’s open house night and assisting teachers and administrators as the school renews its accreditation with the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges.

“It’s like having an extra assistant principal,” said Chatsworth High Principal Dan Wyatt. “She helps us find out how to make things better. She lives here.”

And she doesn’t even have a child currently attending the high school.

Her daughter, Tiffany, a sophomore at Howard University in Washington, graduated in 2001; her son, Jeffrey Jr., an eighth-grader at Nobel Middle School in Northridge, won’t start high school until the fall.

But instead of staying away for two years, Osborne, 47, chose to keep volunteering at the high school.

She helped write a $665,000 state grant last school year that the 3,200-student school received to increase test scores by, in part, providing free tutoring for the school’s lowest achievers.

Then Osborne took on the arduous job of calling the parents of 459 students who got Ds or Fs in either math or English during the first semester to let them know free tutoring is available on campus after school and on Saturdays. (Bilingual teachers will be paid with grant money to contact another 1,074 students whose parents don’t speak English well.) As parent coordinator of the project, Osborne will receive an allotted $17,000 in grant money, which she said she’ll donate to Chatsworth High for student programs.

“I’m so excited I can actually talk to the parents,” Osborne said in an interview between phone calls. “I didn’t know how the parents were going to take it. Some of them didn’t know [about the poor grades], but most of them said, ‘Thank God, somebody called.’ ”

Occasionally, she talks directly with students to find out why they are failing. On a recent school day, a ninth-grade girl sat stoically in a book supply room that Osborne uses as an office, as she reviewed the girl’s grades.

“How did you get a D in painting? What are you not doing, honey?” asked Osborne, who was told it was due to poor “organizational skills.”

When the girl said she couldn’t pass English because the teacher doesn’t explain the concepts well enough, Osborne responded, “What do you mean, you can’t pass it? You need to go to tutoring. Maybe someone else can explain it differently.”

As the girl headed back to class, Osborne reassured her that she can always come back and talk if she has any questions or concerns.

Osborne says it’s essential that parents know their kids’ teachers and instill good homework habits.

“I know that everyone is working, but your child is your No. 1 priority,” she said. “It’s not an easy job. It’s a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week job, and you never stop.”

Before Chatsworth High, Osborne volunteered at Topeka Drive Elementary School in Northridge, where she raised money to create a computer lab and to air-condition all the classrooms. She served as Booster Club president and as a frequent room mom, and she provided a complete Thanksgiving dinner for her child’s class.

At Nobel Middle School, Osborne is a parent community representative for the Northwest Valley Council of the 31st District PTSA, which covers most of the San Fernando Valley. She is on the school improvement committee there and was just reelected to a third term on the School Leadership Council.

Six years ago, she was one of a dozen people to launch Advocates for Valley African American Students, a nonprofit organization that works with students and parents to increase the number of students who continue on to college.

It was the sum of those efforts that prompted the Los Angeles County Office of Education last year to give her the Los Angeles County Parent Volunteer of the Year award.

“She’s very genuine, unassuming and hands-on” said Theresa Gomez, one of the judges, who is president of the San Gabriel Valley’s 1st District PTA. “She can speak to the people in charge, but also to the first-grade parent. She is a spokesperson for kids and their families.”

Since her husband of 21 years is R&B; singer Jeffrey Osborne, “There are lots of other things she could be doing,” Gomez said.

Osborne says she volunteers because she enjoys having a positive effect on education.

“I’m not there for my kids. I’m there for the parents who can’t be,” she said. “I’m a parent to everybody’s kids.”