“Many times parents, although they’ve been active in elementary, middle or high school in supporting the school and being active, when their son or daughter gets to the University they feel like ‘there’s no role or place for me there,’ and our parents council is to convey to them that they are welcomed to be part of San Francisco State,” Nava said.
Some students see college as leaving the nest and would prefer to keep it that way.
Rhea Decker is a 22-year-old cell and molecular biology senior at SF State. She has been supporting herself since she moved to San Francisco when she was 18 to attend the University. Her parents have had no involvement in her college career and that’s how she likes it.
“I wouldn’t really want (my parents) to be involved because I’m pretty independent and at this point in my life I just feel like I should just be accountable for myself,” Decker said.
One of Gumas’s primary concerns about the council was to make sure it didn’t come across as a haven for what she called “helicopter parents” who hover over their children and attempt to keep track of their every move.
“We’re not there to keep tabs on out kids.” Gumas said. “That was a really big concern of mine. The council is a way for all the parents who have been involved in the PTA, who have been involved in their children’s sports to continue being involved and enrich their education.”
The Parents Council is still in its beginning stages of becoming a campus organization.
According to Nava there are currently about 60 parents who have expressed an interest in becoming part of the council with whom they would like to form some kind of a governing board for the organization. On top of that they have the emails of about 6,000 parents who they will invite to join the group.
The organization will be primarily website-based but there will also be one to two events a year on campus for parents to attend. In spring 2012 they plan to host a parents weekend where they will have presentations about the current state of the University and their academic goals.
