Riverdale PA Evolves to Serve Its Diverse Families and Build Community
Riverdale’s Parents Association plays a unique and important role in supporting the mission of our school. As PA President, Mrs. Tiffany Ellis Butts “partners closely with the administration to understand how parents and guardians can best support the students, the administration, and Riverdale’s mission of building community,” she said. She then has to find ways to “bring people together and make the PA stronger.” Mrs. Butts takes pride in the fact that Riverdale’s PA does not operate like a “separate club, off to the side,” but instead works “in alignment with what the school is doing.”
When the administration asked the leaders of the Parents Association for their input on resuming full-scale, in-person events like Experience Riverdale Day and Homecoming this year, “our answer was a resounding YES,” according to Mrs. Butts. As a result, the “calendar of events was overflowing, almost bursting at the seams, because every group wanted to do an event,” she said. Riverdale’s return to in-person school events after two years of pandemic limitations has been met with enthusiastic participation.
Despite the relief at being able to move on from the Zoom world, the PA plans to continue using Zoom and hybrid options for certain purposes if it means added convenience or accessibility for parents. For Mrs. Butts and the PA leadership, any tool or approach that increases parent participation is worth holding onto.
The Parents Association leadership is comprised of an Executive Board, Committee and Affinity Group Chairs, and Grade Representatives. PA Heads and officers for the Lower, Middle, and Upper School divisions serve as liaisons between parents and division heads and help to organize division-specific events and meetings. The numerous PA Committees are organized around different themes and events. Some focus on issues like sustainability and wellness or athletics, while others organize book club meetings for parents or plan events like Faculty Appreciation Luncheons and the annual Ice Skating Night. The PA’s Affinity Groups, similar to those for students, bring parents together based on common cultures, ethnicities, or other elements of identity. Grade Representatives serve as liaisons between parents in specific grades and their class deans. All PA leaders play an important role in creating “opportunities, events, programs, and workshops” that “facilitate engagement,” said Mrs. Butts.
However, there is a common misunderstanding, according to Mrs. Butts, that the PA is comprised only of parents with specific titles or leadership roles. In fact, every parent or guardian with a child enrolled at Riverdale is automatically a member of the Parents Association by default. For this reason, Mrs. Butts encourages all parents to be “engaged and involved in as many ways as they can in the time they have available.” She stressed that “no contribution of time or effort is too small” and that “every parent can play a role.”
Mrs. Butts has been actively involved with the PA since her two sons, Calvin (Class of 2024) and Reed (Class of 2027), arrived at Riverdale nine years ago. During that time, she has witnessed the PA change and evolve in many different ways. For example, the PA has become “more structured and more formal,” according to Mrs. Butts. Riverdale’s large student body and two campuses make it essential to have official bylaws, processes, procedures, and modes of communication.
However, the most important changes in the PA have occurred because “the population at Riverdale has changed—our demographics, our diversity,” Mrs. Butts says. Under Dominic Randolph’s leadership as Head of School, she says, the school has enrolled a more diverse student body. This has resulted in an increase in parent diversity as well. There have been increases in the number of working parents, parents from a wider variety of boroughs and counties, parents of color, and parents of different ethnicities and religious beliefs. Changes in family structure have also resulted in more single parents and people who are co-parenting, Mrs. Butts said. In addition, Riverdale dads have taken on more PA leadership roles in recent years, serving as officers, grade reps, and committee chairs.
These changes in the parent body at Riverdale, Mrs. Butts explains, “affect the work we do in the PA: the committees that are of interest, what kinds of groups we form, how we structure our meetings and when we hold them.” The PA leadership, she says, has “tried to be mindful and adjust to the needs of the community that we’re serving.”
Mrs. Butts believes that her selection as Riverdale’s first Black PA President is a significant “mark of the progress we have collectively made around diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging” at Riverdale. “Representation matters across all identifiers,” she wrote in her welcome email to parents this fall, and it “serves as a model for our children.” In the same way that each student “brings something to the table” and contributes different talents, interests, cultures, and identities to the school, Mrs. Butts believes that “our parent body should feel similarly” about its diversity being a positive strength.
A recent change to the PA bylaws requires PA leaders to attend three DEIB-related events during each year of their term. Mrs. Butts emphasized that this change was made to parallel the recent focus on DEIB work by administrators, faculty and students in response to national activism around racism, intolerance, and injustice. “If you are going to lead the PA,” Mrs. Butts explains, “we want you to always lead by example, and ideally to work on yourself so that you can bring a lens with which you think about your committee, your grade, your event, your programming, or your conversation in a way that is reflective of a DEIB consciousness.” She urges her fellow parents to “attend workshops, go to meetings, read books, listen to lectures, and engage in activities that are going to help you work better with our entire body of parents.”
Mrs. Butts hopes that parents feel empowered to express their authentic selves when they participate in PA and school events. “I find that because of who I am and what I bring to the table—my full, authentic self—it allows others to do the same,” she says. “So often, I get responses from parents who say, ‘Thanks, Tiffany, for being yourself, for saying what you think or how you feel or representing who YOU are because that makes me feel better about doing the same for who I am.’”
In addition to embracing diversity, the PA seeks to “find access points where we can celebrate things we have in common.” Therefore, Mrs. Butts wants to supplement the PA’s structured programs with more casual “fellowship opportunities” that will help parents build relationships and friendships through fun activities like game nights, theater outings, or karaoke.
The PA will play an additional role this year as Riverdale welcomes its new Head of School, Ms. Kari Ostrem. To help ensure a smooth transition, the PA will “plan opportunities for parents to meet Ms. Ostrem and engage with her so that she can see that she has our support and that we are excited about this transition,” according to Mrs. Butts. “We want to work with Ms. Ostrem on having access to her from a parent perspective that gives us a chance to share feedback,” Mrs. Butts explained, “while at the same time not overwhelming or overstepping so that she has the opportunity, especially within her first year, of onboarding with her faculty, staff, and the other admin leadership, and building the cornerstones of what will be her future at Riverdale.”
Because she has school-aged children who will also join the Riverdale community, “Ms. Ostrem will be a parent too—she’ll be wearing a dual hat,” Mrs. Butts emphasized. “Her kids will be enrolled in the school, so she’ll be a member of the PA! She will have that experience as well, to serve in that role. We’ll welcome her input on both sides.”
Despite the significant time commitment that her position as PA President requires, Mrs. Butts says that the rewards are worth the effort. Not only has she made “great friends” through the PA, but she has also gained a “greater understanding and respect for how the school runs and the volume of detail and logistics involved.” In addition, she finds it “very fulfilling and satisfying to be able to give back to the school that has given so much” to her family. She believes that she and other parents are “all benefiting collectively from the relationship that our families build with an institution like Riverdale.”
When asked for a final takeaway message for Riverdale parents, Mrs. Butts responded: “We are very fortunate that the community element of Riverdale’s mission extends to the parent body. If you engage fully during your time here, you and your family will be the better for it.”
Parents looking for further information about Riverdale’s Parents Association can visit the new Parents Association page on the Veracross parent portal and also look out for PA news and updates in the weekly Riverdale Now emails.
