COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT PROCESS LESSONS LEARNED

Transcription

1 COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT PROCESS LESSONS LEARNED A key premise underlying the process revolves around the concept of place and the importance of a sense of community held in the beliefs and values of rural people. They choose to live in small, rural communities because there is something they value about the place. They may value the environment, the people, the isolation, the opportunity to be self-sufficient, the small size, or a combination of these. Whatever the reason place, and what that place has come to mean, provides fertile ground upon which to unite a community in action. Moreover, it stands to reason that if a strategy could be developed that would facilitate the recognition of this common ground, a motivational basis upon which to unite the community in action could be developed. The activities within the Community Engagement workscope are intended to strengthen and enhance community support and leadership for educational improvement through a coordinated process that links educators and community leaders together in support of educational reform. The process involves working with existing community-based organizations in the region to strengthen existing ties between the two, enhance leadership for education, build a community vision for local educational institutions, stimulate a commitment to reform, and to coordinate resources for maximum impact on student achievement. In developing the school leadership, regional partnerships, community involvement, and stakeholder support necessary to sustain long-term educational improvement the following lessons were learned: Lesson 1: Assistance and support for Appalachian schools and communities must be based on locally identified needs, rather than an external determination of problems. Rural communities are typically reluctant to follow outside persons or programs purporting to know how to help them. A key insight from the development process is that rural schools, while resource-poor in comparison with other schools, nevertheless can make significant impact on student learning by coordinating use of their resources toward strategically identified problems. Implications: Local persons are needed to lead local efforts - growing leaders from within the school and community in order to maintain local buy-in and sustain long-term efforts. At the community level there needs to be links between resources, people, and organizations in sustained collaboration to develop the vision, leadership, and commitment for school improvement. At the school level, teacher and administrators need to develop skills to make sound decisions about curriculum, instruction, assessment, student placement, and other critical issues. In both cases, the focus should be on

2 increasing the academic achievement of all students. Lesson 2: Appalachian communities are generally supportive of their schools, but typically have not engaged in the dialogues needed to build a community vision of their schools and a true commitment to quality education. Nor have formal linkages been established to provide ongoing interactions between the school staff and stakeholders (parents, businesses, and community agencies) in the community as a whole. Everyone has a stake in a community's schools. Parents want their children to be well prepared for life. Community members want young people to grow into responsible citizens capable of contributing to the community and school professionals want to be effective in their work. Implications: School and communities are inextricably linked. The value of one affects the values of the other. The fortune of one affects the fortunes of the other. Each has resources to offer the other. The more self-consciously they build on their inherent connections, the better off both will be. Research shows that parent involvement in schools contributes to higher student achievement scores. To meet the changing life styles in today's society and to prepare tomorrows technological needs, business and industry must become involved in education. Businesses working hand in hand with educators can establish effective programs, which help students. Not only will students benefit by learning to be effective and productive members of society, but also businesses will gain more interest in education improvement at the local level. Lesson 3: A major gulf often exists between schools, parents, and their communities. Despite the benefits, the lessons of research, and the widespread bipartisan acceptance of the idea of parent involvement and school-family-community collaboration, most American public schools and school systems have not yet acted to adopt and enforce clear policies for comprehensive programs of partnership. Collaboration is not yet the standard way of working in most schools. School reform efforts often continue to be launched without adequate community ownership. Many schools still keep parents and the community at arm length. Implications: Family...Community...Schools are the Αpillars of public education. From them public schooling draws its strength, receives it mission, and develops its unique character as an institution in our society. It is expected that educational outcomes may be strengthen through partnerships. Although these partnerships may assume various configurations, there are three critical roles that parents

3 and community members may take in the education of their children. One role, parents as a primary resource in the education of their children by engaging in learning activities at home, another role is parents and community members as advocates and supporters in restructuring schools and last community members and parents are participants in the education of all children within the partnership between schools and the population they serve. Lesson 4: During initial contacts with the community, all of those affected by the process need to be involved. The project needs to be publicized to increase interest by school officials in leveraging funds available to the district (e.g., Title 1) for enhancing academic achievement. Conducting a county meeting consisting of variety individuals should be held so people learn early what the process is trying to accomplish. Implications: The better families are informed about the schools and their own children's social and academic progress, the better they will be able to participate effectively. Access to information enables family and community members to support their children's learning and help improve education for all children. Schools in isolation from the community can separate Αschool learning from Αlife learning" and create a false hierarchy of learning. Schools in isolation can create barriers to a community's full use of its investment in education and it can close itself off from community resources that might expand its curriculum and facilities. Lesson 5: Community teams need ongoing support if change and sustainability are to be achieved. The team must meet regularly to communicate and to reexamine the team's goals in order to keep focused on a shared vision and connected to the school. Implications: The viability of a team depends on its continuing ability to identify important issues and harness the creative energy of stakeholders in the school, the community organizations and agencies, in the community for long term change. Finding time to focus on future issues or to reflect on past progress is difficult when current activities demand immediate attention. It may be necessary for the team to schedule special meetings that are devoted to assessing their progress, pace, and direction. By keeping local leaders and community members informed the potential network of team members may be supplemented at a time when, for whatever reason, some members must leave the team. Additional lessons learned during the four years of ARSI working with schools, parents, communities, organizations and businesses:

4 If parents are to be fully engaged as partners in their children's education, they need to understand how the school works and how to become more active in the life of the school. Communications with parents are all too often instructions and decidedly one way. Although parents believe in the importance of a good education for their children, many have difficulty believing that their increased involvement will lead to positive changes. Many parents feel intimidated by the literature, which explains the structure of the school, the educational objectives, and the strategies for school improvement. Most parents want to be involved in their children's education. Many parents feel that attending a meeting is not the best use of their time. Parents attending meetings at the school may awaken unpleasant memories of problems involving their children or their own school experience. Parents make excellent partners in reaching out to other parents who find it difficult to participate in school activities. Perceptions that involvement in education is "women's work," may actually be reinforced by the schools. Fathers and other male family members might be more likely to be involved if they could participate in activities with other men on active tasks, rather than social events or meetings. Because parent s visits to school so often involve a problem, many parents tend to view a trip to the school as a negative experience. If parents are to become partners in their children's education, the school must be welcoming and friendly.

5 Volunteers can do much to raise the level of student s achievement in schools. A volunteer program also offers the chance for parents and citizens to become familiar with the school while providing meaningful support to children and staff. Schools are often overwhelmed by pressure to improve achievement for a diverse population of students, and do not always actively pursue partnership with other community organizations. Parents should be involved in the educational process every step of the way. Parental involvement is the ultimate reinforcement for all teaming activities, the time invested early on will pay off later by creating rapport between home and school and a more supportive environment in the classroom. Parent-teacher conferences are one of the primary means of communication between parents and teachers. If the principal fully endorses efforts to involve parents and is visible and enthusiastic, the staff will be more creative and persistent in its outreach and communications with families. A formal, written parent involvement policy serves to inform educators, parents, and community that family-school relationships are a priority. Parents want to understand what takes place in the classroom during the 6-7 hours that children spend there each day. Schools need to become more effective in providing parent s access to the best thinking about methods and strategies for becoming more effective parents in a way that connects family life and school with academic and personal achievement. Schools and community working together takes time. There is a lack of trust and respect in many schools today and these problems aren't quickly solved. "Top-down" reform initiatives can easily be ignored or by passed by school-based personnel. Innovative school projects are usually funded temporarily, and are not aimed at developing a school's capacity, and therefore are unsustainable.

6 When school based change is attempted, the entire school community--parents, teachers, administrators, community members, and students--is rarely involved and united by a shared vision of improvement for their school. The training of a community engagement team, consisting of educators, parents, community members and often older students, can lead to improvement in overall understanding of one another's "worlds" and increases trust and respect among all members of the team. The process of involving the community in setting goals greatly improves communication, support, and involvement of families and community members. The community engagement teams process for rating indicators and assessing the community has been an effective method of creating a shared vision of what students know. The community will feel ownership of the change effort instead of simply being asked to buy into a school's predetermined priorities. Using community engagement teams made up of parents, educators, community members, and older students to guide the school project represents the first time that all of these role groups have talked to each other and worked collaboratively toward the common goal of success for all students. The process of agreeing on an improvement priority with a team of ten to twelve people is extremely difficult. Most community engagement teams need the help of an outside facilitator or third party in order to focus their improvement efforts. An on site facilitator(s) is needed to be responsible for both guiding the community engagement team through its project and for ensuring that the project is moving forward. With ongoing facilitation the team members can do the actual work of the project instead of being bogged down by administrative tasks that are necessary to move their work forward. Two facilitators, one representing the school and the other representing the community can establish a clear line of communications among all the individuals concerned. The importance of the principal s support and involvement should not be underestimated.

7 Many principals need to have a certain amount of training and professional development in order to have effective community engagement. Education reforms initiated by outsiders have often proven to be ineffective and unsustainable, it is necessary to create true partnerships in communities in order to design, develop, and maintain successful community engagement. Networking with other parents, teachers, and administrators creates an exchange of ideas from one person to another--from one school to another--from one community to another and can help improve community engagement at individual schools. Parental and community involvement requires a lot of time, effort, thought, and endurance. Growth and change within the school are dependent on nurturing--by families, communities, students, and teachers. When parents and communities are actively engaged in the educational process children are more likely to succeed. The definition of effective parental involvement and/or community engagement is not the same for everyone. Staffs at some schools want parents and community engagement only in specific ways and at times determined by the staff. In the past, parental involvement in schools meant baking cookies and organizing fund raising activities. Now parent involvement takes on many forms. The research on parental involvement can be categorized in four ways: viewing parents as teachers, parents as partners, parents as decision makers, and parents as advocates. Parents who perceive that they are receiving frequent and positive messages from teachers demonstrate a tendency to get more involved in their children's education than do parents who do not perceive that they are receiving such communication.

8 Training in parental involvement has been found to be important for teachers, but many do not receive this benefit. Only about half of the states in the nation have parent involvement requirements for teacher certification. Training that address effective parental involvement would benefit school board members as well as teachers and school administrators. There is no one best way for schools to effectively engage parents and the community in the achievement of their children. Each school and its community will have to develop, test and refine their own strategies, Teachers, through their interactions with parents, play a major role in encouraging parents to support learning at home. There seems to be a relationship between the age of the child and the forms of parental involvement. Greater efforts to involve parents are seen at the preschool and primary levels. At the middle and high school level parental involvement practices decline. Most communities are not aware of achievement levels of students in math and science Current community activities that support achievement in math and science are not known. Community members are unaware of community involvement in school transformation (improvement) or technology plans. There are no community profiles. There is very limited information available concerning community engagement (involvement) and science and math achievement If scaling up is to take place a district level person must be identified and committed. The community engagement process is an evolving process and may be differ in each community

9 Local vision about increasing math and science achievement of all students does not exist Although there are pockets of innovation, the rural regions lack the local cooperation to translate isolated successes into regional impact. Teacher and administrators in Appalachia lack access to information and expertise available in other parts of the state. School and community change must be based on locally identified needs. The community must assess itself for it own needs. Local communities need some assistance in developing an instrument for assessment Some community groups are involved such as Forward in the Fifth, PTA's, PTO's, athletic and band boosters, Prichard Committee, 4-H Extension, Library Power, and Education Alliance. There seems to be unorganized parent and community support in some areas. There seems to be no clear community vision to build broad-based support for school reform Although there are some partnerships with business and industry, there is not much involvement of business and community leaders with the educational system. Student s expertise is not used in an effective manner, to assist their peers and encourage selecting quality math and science courses. There is a need to connect facilitators from the various sites by electronics, so they can interact with each other. A community engagement web page or a spot on a listserv for community engagement is needed. Community engagement facilitators need access to computers and on line services Conclusions: Rural schools, working in partnership with local leaders and residents, can have a positive

10 impact on community viability and education improvement. This is especially true when students, working alongside adults, are given meaningful opportunities to engagement in community-based activities that serve the needs of the community while simultaneously addressing the learning needs of students. By building the social capital of the school and youth, the community not only helps to develop responsible citizens, but also creates opportunities for tomorrow's leaders to emerge. However, without building strong support among community organizations, groups, individuals, and leaders and shoring up support through policy development, it is unlikely community involvement initiatives will work or last. The most successful partnership efforts that have sustained their programs from beyond the formative stages have been those with policies that grant them permission and resources to exist. Future Readings Batey, A., & Hart-Landsberg, S. (1993). Riding the wind: Rural leadership in science and mathematics education. Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. (ERIC Document Reproduction Services No. ED ). Blackman, L. (1992). Building School Communities. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the National Rural Education Association. Traverse City, MI. (ERIC Document Reproduction No. ED ). Brown, D. W. (1994, October). Teachers and principals view shared decision making: should parents, community and students be involved? Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Rural Education Association, Tuscaloosa, AL. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED ). Burch, P. (1993). Action Research in Family-School-Community Partnerships: The Experience of One Rural Elementary School. Institute for Responsive Education, Boston, MA. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED ). Burns, R. C. (Ed). (1993). Parents and schools: From visitors to partners. Washington, DC: National Education Association of the United States. Ellis, T. & Others. (1992). Community Visioning: Generating Support and Action for Community Education Association, Detroit, MI. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED

11 ). Education Commission of the States. (1993). What communities should know and be able to do about education, Denver, CO: AU. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED ). Grissmer, D. W., Kirby, S. N., Berends, M., & Williamson, Stephanie. (1994). Student achievement and the changing American family, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, Institute on Education and Training. Kentucky Appalachian Task Force. (January 1995). Communities of hope: Preparing for the future in Appalachian Kentucky. Lexington, KY: AU. McClure, R. (1993). Parent and Schools: From visitors to partners. Washington, DC: National Education Association of the United States. Miller, Bruce. (1994). Community/School Development Partnerships (CDC) project. Portland, Oregon: Northwest Educational Laboratory. Molloy, P., Fleming, G. & others. (1995). Building Home, School, Community Partnerships: The planning phase. Austin, TX: Southwest Educational Development Laboratory. Montanta State Department of Instruction (1989). A Model for Rural Schools to Involve Parents in the Education of Their Children. Helena, MT. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED ). Ohio Education Partnership (1995). Making the Grade With A New Generation of School: A Best Practices conference. Sashkin, M., Egermeir, J. (1993). School change models and processes: A review and synthesis of research and practice. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, Programs for the Improvement of Practice. Seal, K.R., & Harmon, H.L. (1995). Realities of rural school reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 77,(2), Sokolof, H. (1996). A deliberate model for engaging the community. School Administrator, 53(10),

12 12-14 & Stoops, J. W. (1994). The use of community-based support to effect curriculum renewal in rural settings. (Rural Curriculum Handbook No. 4.) Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED ). U. S. Department of Education (1996). Putting the Pieces Together: Comprehensive School- Linked Strategies for Children and Families. Warren, R.L. (1965). Studying Your Community. The Free Press, MacMillian Publishing Co., Inc., NY.