Last month, Cushon Bell was attending a conference in Georgetown where she listened to Michelle Rhee, the controversial education reform advocate, and determined she was going to talk to her.
So Bell chased her down: "She went left, and I went left."
Pictured: Cushon Bell with sons (l-r) Devan, Dustin, and Dylan. Photo By Gina Bilajiw Long.
Bell made a pitch to Rhee to consider the soon-to-be-open position of Pasadena Unified superintendent: "Some people do fantasy football, I do fantasy superintendent selection," she said. Rhee wasn't interested, but she did email Bell with some other possibilities.
Leaping into the breach isn't unusual for Bell, an Altadena mom and education activist. (She was also a write-in candidate at the recent school board election, although she didn't win a seat). Bell -- whose two oldest sons attend Sierra Madre Elementary School -- was chosen to represent California at the Moms Congress on Education and Learning at Georgetown University on April 10-13, and came back from the experience with a raft-full of ideas about how to improve education locally.
For the past two years, Parenting magazine has chosen 51 outstanding "mom education advocates" -- representing each state and Washington, D.C. -- to attend the annual congress to meet with the country's most prominent education and advocacy leaders.
This year, the delegates met to discuss everything from common state core standards to arts education and school nutrition. Speakers included Rhee, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and a presentation on school nutrition from Food Revolution, which is spearheaded by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.
And it was the nutrition aspect that really made something click about what she brings to the table: "I get the connection, and I think it's super-important, but I'm not sure I can carry all the torches," Bell said. "There's got to be somebody else who can do this, and I know some parents, it's like their theme -- but being there made me have this moment where 'that has to be your thing too'. If education is your thing, than all this falls under the umbrella -- on some level you have to go a little bit further than the next person.
"This was an a-ha moment," Bell said. "I've taken on a lot, haven't I? You don't really get to pick and choose."
Since coming back from the conference, "making your school a community hub ... has been something that's been sticking out for me."
Creating a "community hub" means "keeping [the school] open outside of the school day and making it a place where the community can plug in." Among the ideas is creating a "walking school bus" or "rolling bike train," where students gather together to walk or bike to their neighborhood schools, thus getting important exercise in during the school day.
And on a personal basis, attending the conference means that she's now rethinking where her boys go to school:
"Since I've been back, this is something I've been wrestling with since the beginning. Possibly going to my local [Altadena] school seems more do-able now. I've been here ten years, and I've seen about five schools close, so as this last round was happening I can't really be that upset because I don't use my neighborhood schools. i mean, I can list the reasons why I don't, but the fact remains that I don't, so I've been kind of rethinking that whole thing."
