‘Trusting’ schools to meet the academic needs of African‐American students? Suburban mothers’ perspectives

According to Tschannen‐Moran, ‘Principals and teachers need to build trusting relationships with students and parents in order to accomplish their essential goal of fostering student achievement and equipping students for citizenship.’ In the context of organizational trust, this study explored such relationships with six, middle‐class African‐American mothers. The mothers openly and honestly shared their thoughts regarding the suburban public education system’s ability to adequately partner with them in building the reciprocal trusting relationships necessary to promote school performance and better meet the academic needs of their sons and daughters.