By Susan J. Miller
ANN BOLGER, for twenty-seven years the
beloved parent coordinator at the Graham and Parks Alternative Public
School, died of cancer on May 23, 2001. She was 61. The parent liaison
positions that are now a universal feature of Cambridge schools are
based on the job she created, and her work is nationally recognized as a
model for family involvement in schools.
Ann began her career in education as a parent at the newly
established, parent-founded Cambridge Alternative Public School (CAPS),
which later became Graham and Parks. In 1974, she was hired as a
half-time -- and the next year as the full-time -- parent coordinator
under the principalship of Dr. Len Solo, who had just arrived to lead
this small, dynamic, fledgling institution. Ann and Len worked closely
together until Ann's death. Today, Graham and Parks is considered a
model of successful education. In 1993 it was named one of the country's
outstanding schools by Redbook magazine; it was designated the Disney
Learning Partnership Spotlight School of the year 2000. The success and
innovations of the school are inextricably bound up with Ann's tireless
efforts and imaginative ideas.
The position of family coordinator was crucial to the form of
education Ann and Len championed, founded on the belief that a school
should be a democracy in action, a community made rich by the
involvement of parents, staff, and students, both in decision making and
in the educational experience. To achieve the goal of integrally
involving parents in the running of the school and in the classrooms,
each family had to be known and their individual skills and talents
marshalled and encouraged.
As the first parent coordinator in the city, and one of the first in
the country, Ann had to invent her job. In the days before a centralized
school assignment system was established, she created an admissions
policy for CAPS, a complex process looking at race, gender, and income,
She developed a system for forming well-balanced classrooms, she
initiated a springtime open house for kindergartners entering the
following fall, and she wrote an almost-daily newsletter packed with
school and community news that was sent home with every child. She made
sure that teachers were accepting of parents in the classroom, and she
encouraged parents to come into the classroom, whether to cook an ethnic
dish, read in the mornings, or talk about a career as a doctor,
architect, or coach. She was the force behind the book bag program, in
which each child from grades K-2 is sent home with a different canvas
bag of paperback books every other week throughout the year.
Her office was always humming with activity. She was the person you
turned to in any sort of need, who never stood on ceremony, never
considered a job beneath her. She was the person to whom a sick child
would go if the school nurse was not in. She was the one who did the
lice check, who was never afraid to literally get her hands dirty. Yet
she was equally adept in a public capacity, speaking and writing
eloquently, and serving as a mentor to and trainer for the newer parent
liasons, meeting with them twice monthly. "Everyone admired her," said
Lena James, family coordinator at the King Open School for twenty years,
"She was a consensus builder who in the midst of sorting out conflict
never alienated any group or person."
Len Solo, at a lunch given in April 2001 to honor Ann and other
members of the school staff, said, "If this school is like a body, Ann
is the heart and soul." For her, "there was no job too small and no job
too big." Len referred to her as his coprinicipal, with a voice equal to
his on all the committees in the school. She came in at 7AM and often
worked until 10PM "I never saw her get angry at a parent or a child,"
said Len, in awe, as everyone who knew her was, of her patience and
compassion. She was a tireless voice for equity in the school, insisting
that all systems, from admissions to class placement, be run with
utmost fairness, and that attention be paid to the needs of each child.
She worked hardest with families who had the least and who needed the
most. She "embodied goodness," said Len. "As an incredibly moral
person," she "raised the moral level in the school."
Ann Keefe was born Dec. 3, 1939 in Back Bay, Boston and grew up in
Cambridge. Her parents were immigrants from Ireland. Ann graduated from
Matignon High School. She was an avidly curious person, fascinated by
people, a news hound who read the paper daily, watched and attended city
council meetings, and was a community activist with special interests
in affordable housing and health care. In addition, she was a talented
artist who got great pleasure from drawing and painting. "She was very
engaged in life and community," said her daughter Mairin, a "fun mother"
who took her five children out every weekend to the movies, museums,
and plays, sent them off to Europe when they were older, always
encouraging them to see the world. The Bolger household was lively, the
door always open to neighbors and friends, for whom Ann would drop
everything and listen, asking "How can I help you?" if there was a
difficulty that needed sorting out.
She served for twenty-one years on the board of Cambridge School
Volunteers, Inc., distinguishing herself as an outstanding advocate for
parents in the education of their children. For 15 years she was a
member of the School Health Task Force, successfully lobbying for
additional school nurses and fora comprehensive health policy for the
schools.
Ann was survived by Frank, her husband of forty-one years; her
sister, Peggy Umanzio, of California; her children Erin, Sean, Mairin,
Sheilah, and Colleen; seven grandchildren; and countless grateful
students, parents, teachers, and administrators.