Column: Learning Matters: Teachers, other parents help ease anxiety about school transitions

I’ve written and spoken before about Betty DeRosa, retired John Muir Elementary and Wilson Middle School teacher. She was PTA president at Muir when our eldest child started kindergarten there 30 years ago.

I mention her now because she and I recently spent some time together, and the visit set off a reverie of memorable school transitions of the sort many parents experience.

DeRosa was one of the people whose welcoming words and manner made a positive difference for our family’s journey through school.

I first heard about Betty from other parents in the Glendale Community College parent-education preschool program, more than two years before our daughter and the other 2-year-olds in the class were due to enroll in kindergarten.

The moms in the group were already worrying and wondering about their neighborhood elementary schools.

I wasn’t inclined to move, as some of my friends were doing, but I did wonder, was our neighborhood school a good school? I didn’t yet know any parents with children at John Muir. “Talk to Betty DeRosa,” more than one parent advised me. “She’s a parent down there, and Betty likes it.”

Nearly two years passed — as our family welcomed our second child and continued with parenting education at a cooperative nursery school — before I got Betty’s phone number and gave her a call. It turned out her younger son was preparing to start kindergarten, too. Betty was headed off on vacation, but she gave me the number of another mom, Ann, with a son in school and another ready to start.

So, I called Ann, and she invited me to meet her at Palmer Park, where our children could play and we could talk. I connected with her right away, as our daughter and her son enjoyed the rocket slide. By the end of our play date, I had the assurance I needed, and our children had become friends.

On the first day of kindergarten, our daughter sat down on the rug, facing the teacher, with hardly a look back at her apprehensive mom, and I went off to volunteer on Betty’s PTA board. From then on, the web of relationships among parents, teachers and our children expanded, as we all learned to deal with the challenges that would come with each new year.

Through elementary school, with its Halloween carnivals, reading groups, testing, teacher assignments, and especially with the arrival of our third child, I relied again and again on supportive friends and teachers. Before long, it was time to worry about the next big step, and the question arose: Would the neighborhood middle school be OK?

This time another parent eased my mind. Karen, who taught in a neighboring school district and had a daughter a year older than ours, came back from a visit to Roosevelt Middle School with a positive report. “It was good,” she told me. She liked the teaching she saw as well as the behavior of the students. She also liked the principal, the late Judy White, who was so welcoming of all her students and their parents.

So off to middle school we went, then to Glendale High, and through all of it, we appreciated the relationships that helped ease our minds and smooth our children’s paths.

We know our children had the benefit of an excellent school district, but we also know we had it pretty easy. Our children were physically and emotionally healthy, and they grew up in a family that was at home in the school system. Notwithstanding the district’s considerable efforts and the resources available in our community, many parents start out unfamiliar with the norms of American public schools or where to turn for help if their children need it.

Some things have changed in 30 years. The coop nursery school our children attended closed years ago, and the Palmer Park rocket slide has been replaced with new equipment. Parents now research kindergarten options on their cellphones soon after their children are born, and they schedule meet-ups with other families online.

But the Glendale Community College parent-education preschool is still going, and there are parents and teachers in every school ready to ease parents’ concerns.

I’m still grateful for the help Betty gave me, but more to her credit was the help she gave another mom, Anahid, whose son was in Cub Scouts with ours. Anahid was new to this country and definitely new to the traditions and expectations that were part of the annual Pinewood Derby. She had no idea how much time and paint some families put into shaping and decorating their boys’ little race cars.

Anahid’s eyes still fill with tears when she talks about the special award of merit Betty gave her son at his first Pinewood Derby.

JOYLENE WAGNER is a past member of the Glendale Unified school board, from 2005 to 2013, and currently serves on the boards of Glendale Educational Foundation and other nonprofit organizations. Email her at jkate4400@aol.com.