In their shoes: K-M parents learn firsthand about their kids’ classes

It wasn’t until the teacher started passing out quizzes that parent Kasheen Brown began to worry a little.

“I thought they were going to make me take the quiz in geometry,” Brown said with a laugh. “I was worried. It’s been some years.”

Luckily for Brown, she was there as part of Kent-Meridian High School’s third-annual Bring Your Parent to School Day Thursday and was able to avoid the day’s quiz, instead watching her daughter, Tapri Nelthrope, 16, get to work.

The day is designed to let parents experience what their children go through on a typical day at high school, as well as to get more connected to the school and their kids’ teachers.

For several parents, like Brown, spending the day shadowing their students around the school helped give her a new perspective on Tapri’s day-to-day life.

“I’m enjoying myself, I really am,” Brown said during lunch at the school’s cafeteria. “I’ve never had this opportunity before.”

Brown said she and her daughter transferred to the school this year and the opportunity to spend a day peering in on her daughter’s life was too good to pass up. Walking around the school with Tapri, Brown said she was able to meet teachers, as well as meet her daughter’s friends, an invaluable experience for a parent, she said.

Brown said she was impressed with the organization of the school and said that though it is more like college than the high school she attended, some things never change.

“The environment feels the same as when I was in high school,” she said.

Brown was among about 60 parents who attended school, and K-MHS Building Manager Debbie Theisen said that understanding is exactly one of the hoped-for outcomes of the program.

“It’s another way to connect our parents and our community with what happens at our school,” Theisen said.

Inside the school, Theisen said, parents get a broader sense about what their kids do on a daily basis, as well as have an opportunity to meet teachers and see how school life has changed since they walked the hallways.

At another table in the bustling lunchroom, Julianne Smasne was having lunch wither her daughter, freshman Lindsey Gonzalez, both of whom were enjoying their day together, though having mom around was “different” for Gonzalez.

“I wanted to spend the day with my daughter and see what her daily activities are,” Smasne said, before adding as her daughter rolled her eyes, “I mess up her daily routine.”

Fellow parent Debi Lovelace was much more straight forward about her intentions.

“I just wanted to see how she acted and behaved and embarrass her if I could,” she said, breaking out into a big grin as daughter Keliesha Lovelace, 14, also rolled her eyes and shook her head.

Lovelace said so far the day had not been as exciting as she anticipated it might be, but said she was more impressed with the work her daughter was doing.

Lovelace said she was also impressed to see her daughter so well-spoken and seeming to enjoy participating in class.

Lovelace, who attended K-M as senior in high school herself said the school seems a little different since she was there, commenting on the vast diversity of the student population, as well as one other feature she noticed.

“The students are very tall,” she said, prompting another eye roll from Keliesha.

So what’s it like having mom tag along for the day?

“Oh my God, she’s so slow,” Keliesha said about trying to get through the halls between classes with mom in tow, adding that she loves her mother, but at school it is a little awkward when mom volunteers you for something.

“Oh, Keliesha will do it if she wants to go to the football game…” she said her mother said during one class.

In all though, the parents said they would probably be a little more understanding of their kids’ days now that they have seen firsthand what it is like to be a modern high-school student.

“I might be more sympathetic,” Lovelace said.

Back at lunch with her mom, Tapri Nelthrope said it was good for her mother to get a sense of her day and know that being a teenager is not all fun and games.

“I just want her to see I do actually work in class,” Tapri said.

And work she does, as mom even tried a bit of role reversal part-way through the morning.

“After third period I was ready to cut, but she said ‘No, mom, you’re going through the whole day!’” Brown said with a laugh.