Reframing the Narrative

Shelley Mann moved to Bexley when she was pregnant with her first child after hearing about the suburb’s reknowned school district. “I really bought into the idea that the best test scores, the highest top-ranked schools are the best schools that you can send your kids to,” she says. But just as her daughter was getting to kindergarten age, Mann found herself moving to Columbus in the midst of a divorce. “I kind of bristled against the idea of sending my kids to Columbus City Schools at the start,” she says, noting the district’s negative reputation, “but it was my only option.”  

Mann began researching her options within Columbus City Schools (CCS), looking to find the best school for her child. Ten years later, she’s experienced five different schools as a CCS parent—at the pre-K through high school levels—and says she’s learned a lot since those early days of digging into school data. “My journey, I think, probably mirrors a lot of white parents’ journeys on this path where at first you kind of just buy into this idea that there are, you know, good schools and bad schools, and you want your child to go to the good school,” she says. Now with a second young daughter in the district and her oldest in high school, she feels differently. “Since I have been in the Columbus City School district … I’ve become a really big proponent of the district and the schools.”  

Mann learned something else from her research on public schools: the importance of supporting school integration. “For me, it was reading Nikole Hannah-Jones’ work in the New York Times,” she says, pointing to the journalist’s writing on the educational benefits of integrated schools for Black students. “When children are going to schools that are, you know, ninety percent Black families, they don't have as high of outcomes as if they're going to schools that are more mixed … and the same goes for children who are attending white schools.” (Jones’ 2016 story about her family’s school choice experience in New York City's segregated system is available to read for free here.)  

Mann’s advocacy in this area led her to co-found Integrated Schools Columbus in 2021 along with two other areas parents: Emily Brown and Molly Farrell. The group is a chapter of the Integrated Schools national organization, which was founded in 2015 with a mission to prepare and support “families with racial or economic privilege” to integrate public schools. During the Columbus chapter’s monthly Zoom meetings, area parents discuss sending their children to “global majority schools”—where students of color outnumber white students—and how they can be helpful allies as members of the school community. “Really the biggest thing we can do is make the personal choice to send our children to a global majority school,” Mann says. 

Integrated Schools encourages parents to make this choice by taking the “two tour pledge” when deciding where to enroll their child. In addition to visiting at least two global majority schools, caregivers are asked to educate themselves about systemic inequities, and to build authentic relationships within the school. The organization provides resources to support families throughout this process (including one called the Awkward Conversations Guide), and at the same time, chapter meetings offer space for families to discuss their experiences. 

Integrated Schools Columbus’ work has expanded over the past year to include topical book and film discussions in addition to regular monthly meetings led by Mann and her co-founders. The group is hosting a conversation called Prioritizing Equity when Choosing a School over Zoom on February 1. Mann says all are welcome to attend and learn more about the organization and the two tour pledge as they begin making enrollment decisions for next fall. 

Integrated Schools Columbus has also started partnering with like-minded organizations in the area, including the Columbus Education Justice Coalition (CEJC). Izetta Thomas, a co-founder of the CEJC, has attended Integrated Schools meetings as a parent. She says in an email that “it was very interesting to see parents of the social majority discuss their privilege and the roles that they play in shifting the narrative of public schools, especially the schools within Columbus City Schools that … are under-resourced.” 

Though the partnership is still emerging, Thomas pointed to school funding and resource campaigns as areas for collaboration, and shared what their groups stand to gain—and learn—by working together. “It's integral for parents with privilege, especially white parents, to recognize their roles in justice work, [including] how it can help and how it can harm the parents and students of the global majority who are typically unheard,” she says. 

Mann and the Integrated Schools Columbus team are committed to helping parents navigate these issues as they work to transform the city's public schools—and change the conversation.

Integrated Schools Columbus will host “Prioritizing Equity When Choosing a School” on February 1 at 8 p.m. on Zoom. Register here. And in case you missed it, check out EdInk’s 2024 Guide to CCS Enrollment.