Florida Educational Leadership Standard 4: Community and Stakeholder Partnerships
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Florida Educational Leadership Standards
Standard 4: Community and Stakeholder Partnerships
Standard 4: Community and Stakeholder Partnerships – The principal collaborates with
families, business, and community members, responds to diverse community interest and
needs, works effectively within the larger organization and mobilizes community resources.
Knowledge
I have the knowledge and understanding of:
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Emerging issues and trends that potentially impact the school community
The conditions and dynamics of the diverse school community
Community resources
Community relations and marketing strategies and processes
Successful models of school, family, business, community, government and higher
education partnerships
Dispositions
I believe in, value and am committed to:
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Schools operating as an integral part of the larger community
Collaboration and communication with families
Involvement of families and other stakeholders in school decision –making processes
The proposition that diversity enriches the school
Families as partners in the education of their children
The proposition that families have the best interests of their children in mind
Resources of the family and community needing to be brought to bear on the education
of students
An informed public
Skills
Throughout my internship experience and coursework at FGCU I have learned and evidenced
through integrated essays and artifacts the following list. As an administrator I will facilitate
processes and engage in activities ensuring that:
Florida Educational Leadership Standard 4: Community and Stakeholder Partnerships
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High visibility, active involvement, and communication with the larger community is a
priority
Relationships with community leaders are identified and nurtured
Information about family and community concerns, expectations, and needs is used
regularly
There is outreach to different business, religious, political, and service agencies and
organizations
Credence is given to individuals and groups whose values and opinions may conflict
The school and community serve one another as resources
Available community resources are secured to help the school solve problems and
achieve goals
Partnerships are established with area businesses, institutions of higher education, and
community groups to strengthen programs and support school goals
Community youth family services are integrated with school programs
Community stakeholders are treated equitably
Diversity is recognized and valued
Effective media relations are developed and maintained
A comprehensive program of community relations is established
Public resources and funds are used appropriately and wisely
Community collaboration is modeled for staff
Opportunities for staff to develop collaborative skills are provided
Florida Educational Leadership Standard 4: Community and Stakeholder Partnerships
A learning community is a group of individuals including administrators, teachers, student,
parents, and community members who work together as a team and share a common mission,
vision, values, and goals. Members of a learning community continually help one another, rely
on each other, and learn from one another. The school principal is the leader of this learning
community, and plays a crucial role in creating and maintaining the learning community (Florida
Department of Education, 2006).
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A learning community is bound by its vision for the future. The vision of the school answers
two questions: (1) What is the school striving to become? and (2) What does it want to
achieve? As this vision is collaboratively developed by stakeholders in the learning community
the organization forms a basis for making decisions about teaching and learning in the school
Values of a learning community express what teachers and parents consider of most worth in a
school community. Determining and reflecting on these values will help to guide the vision of
learning. Setting measureable goals will direct the learning community toward the shared
vision. The SMART acronym, which stands for specific, measureable, attainable, reviewable,
and tangible is a commonly used guide for developing organization goals (FLDOE, 2006).
Shared leadership in a learning community is valued and practiced. The principal must act
and engage in activities that promote the shared vision of the school. They must ensure that
the vision and mission of the school is effectively communicated to staff, parents, students, and
community members. They must model the collaboratively developed vision for the
stakeholders. They must communicate progress toward the mission and vision, and ensure that
the mission and vision is regularly monitored, evaluated, and revised (FLDOE, 2006).
Developing parent partnerships is an important component of a learning community.
Parent involvement in schools has been linked to student achievement and increased positive
attitudes towards learning. This doesn’t happen however, without skill, planning, and
understanding of all involved. Student learning is a common desire for both parents and
teachers, although both have varying perspectives. Parents want what is best for their children,
and seek assurance that the administrators and teachers of a school will provide this for their
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loved ones. Teachers and administrators also have student’s best interests at heart. However,
they are ultimately accountable for student learning which requires effective instruction and
classroom management. Teachers generally would like parents to be involved with homework
support, monitoring assignments and grades, and instilling a value for learning in their child
(FLDOE, 2006).
Building trust is the foundation of positive relationships. Parents want to know that their
child is cared about as an individual with particular needs, strengths, and interests. Teachers
and administrators must provide that comfort for parents in tangible ways. Strategies for
building this trust suggested by the Florida Department of Education School Leadership
Program include developing a student inventory where parents can share information about
their child’s learning style and preferences, motivations, and challenges. Another strategy
involves utilizing a home-school learning compact in which all individuals parents, students, and
teachers, agree to take on responsibility for learning (FLDOE, 2006).
Communication between home and school is essential for the partnership to grow. Much
of the communication between home and school is operational in nature such as informative
letters from the principal, field trip permission slips, and event flyers. Too often,
communication for individual students is negative in nature reporting behavioral situations or
unfinished assignments. Taking the time to reinforce the positive aspects of a student’s
activities at school will change the attitudes that both parents and teachers may have when it
comes to home-school communication. Weekly newsletters from classroom teachers are
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another way of effectively communicating the activities of a classroom such as units of study,
homework, class achievements, and upcoming events (FLDOE, 2006).
Parent involvement may help match home and school demands on students. Research on
student literacy development demonstrated the importance of school-wide efforts to
communicate with and involve parents in their child’s literacy development. This study also
found that in addition to classroom instruction, the most effective schools reached out to
parents in a number of ways including representation on school committees, focus groups, and
through the use of phone and written surveys (Sheldon & Van Voorhis, 2004).
Parents play a vital role in the learning community and need to feel valued as partners in
the education of their students. Providing a warm welcoming environment for parents will
further develop this partnership, as well as produce volunteers for the school. If a school has
an active parent organization such as the Parent Teacher Association (PTA), or an independent
PTO, this provides a wonderful opportunity to involve parents in the learning community.
As part of my educational leadership practicum, I took an active role with the PTA at
Osceola Elementary School. There was an opening for the board position secretary and I
volunteered my services. I was nominated and voted into this position. I attended monthly
PTA board meetings. My duties included keeping a record of the meeting and distributing
meeting minutes to board members monthly.
Artifact 4-1 PTA
Minutes.doc
is a record of meeting minutes
from a board meeting held this winter. I helped prepare and distribute flyers for various
purposes including membership, volunteer coordinating, and events. Most importantly, I took
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on the role of the liaison between the parents and teachers of Osceola. I was the only teacher
on the board, and my input was often asked for as the teacher perspective is always important
to decisions made by the PTA. I was also involved in several action committees. During my
internship I was one of five members of the action committee for Osceola’s first annual
“Neighborhood Block Party”. This event was a combined spaghetti dinner and business expo.
Throughout the year the PTA has developed partnerships with many area businesses. In the
courtyard of the school we set up a “Main Street” of the block party. “Main Street” was a
stretch of tables showcasing our business partners, enabling them to market themselves as
Osceola family businesses for Osceola families. This experience provided a wonderful
opportunity to work closely and develop relationships with some of the most involved parents
and community partnerships of Osceola Elementary.
Artifact 4-2 Block
Party Flyer.pdf
is the flyer which I
developed for the event.
In this fast-paced dynamic world we live in, it may seem hard for schools to keep up.
Technology, learning academies, and the economic times are just a few examples of why
educational systems around the globe need to be constantly changing as the world around us
influences the vision of learning that we have for our students. Schools are required to be
creative in the way that they meet these needs for students in light of budget cut-backs and the
era of high-stakes testing. Joining forces with external partners, working collaboratively to
meet the needs of both parties, is one of the avenues that many administrators are seeking.
Businesses, governments, not-for-profits, and foundations are examples of external partners
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that align themselves with schools in order to stretch limited resources to get more things done
(IBM, 2002).
Children’s learning and development primarily influenced by three spheres; family, school,
and community. Students bring their home and community experiences into the classroom.
The greater community relies on the schools to support and teach the morals and values of the
community and society in which we live. Students are inevitably the main actors in their
education, development, and success in school. Schools, family, and community partnerships
cannot just make a successful student. However, collaboration between school, family, and
community can be designed to engage, guide, energize, and motivate students towards their
own successes (Epstein, 1995).
Joyce Epstein, the developer of the three spheres of influence, has developed a framework
of six types of involvement that is the result of many studies and years of research by educators
and families in elementary, middle, and high schools. This framework may serve as a guide for
administrators and teachers in developing a comprehensive program of school, family, and
community partnering (Epstein, 1995).
The first type of involvement is parenting. Epstein suggests that schools help families in
establishing home environments that support children as students. Sample practices include
providing suggestions for home conditions that support learning at each grade level, offering
workshops, parenting courses, and family support programs, holding neighborhood meetings to
help families understand schools and to help schools understand families, and also conducting
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home visits at key periods of transition from pre-school to elementary, to middle, and high
school (Epstein, 1995).
A second type of involvement is communicating, where the school would design effective
methods for home-to-school and school-to-home communication. Sample practices include
parent/teacher conferences at least once a year, language translators to assist families as
needed, weekly or monthly folders of student work sent home for review and comments,
parent/student pick up of report card with conferences in improving grades, regular schedule of
useful notices, memos, phone calls, newsletters, and other communications, clear information
on choosing schools, courses, programs, and activities within a school, and clear information on
school policies, programs, reforms, and transitions (Epstein, 1995).
Methods of communication have greatly increased due to technology in recent years. One
type of communication technology that is very useful at accomplishing the goal of connecting
home and school is a phone-caller system such as Parent Link or School Messenger. This
system allows an administrator to record a voicemail message that is then set up through the
computer to be sent out to a database of student phone numbers. This is a great way to send
reminders of important events such as school start dates or tips for success at home the night
before a state standardized test. It can also be used to monitor attendance by sending
automated messages to parents when students are not in school. I first learned about this
system through an administrator interview that I conducted for the educational leadership
course Technology for School Leaders. This assignment is
Artifact 4-3
Administrator Interview.doc
.
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Another way that technology has improved communication is by e-mail and school
websites. Not all, but many parents have e-mail accounts. Parents and teachers who choose to
use this method of communication are often able to communicate regularly in an efficient
manner. As an administrator and teacher, there is a need to be cautious of using e-mail as a
communication tool however as school e-mail accounts are matters of public record so it is
necessary to exercise professional judgment when e-mailing a parent regarding student
academic or behavior issues. A good rule of thumb is to use e-mail for operational reasons such
as homework assignments or event information. When discussing students the teacher and
administrator should stick to facts and ask for the parent to call or come in for a conference to
discuss the student.
School websites are another way for families with internet availability to gain access to
school information. One of my duties at the school that I currently work at is webmaster of our
school website. As part of my educational leadership practicum I was asked by my mentor to
put additional hours into developing functions of the website that would increase school to
home communication. In response to this, I developed an “OES Notices” page. Osceola
Elementary has a standard “Wednesday Home Communication Folder” which all students take
home for parents to be reviewed, as suggested by Joyce Epstein. Many of these notices were
already in electronic format so I uploaded them to the OES Notices page. Notices not in
electronic format could be scanned and saved as pdf files to be loaded onto the page. The idea
for this page actually came from a tech savvy parent on the PTA who was mentioning to me
that it would be nice if she could pull up the Related Arts schedule on-line rather than having to
hold onto a piece of paper for a month, a great example of a parent/teacher relationship that
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developed into positive outcomes for the school. The OES Notices page can be accessed here
Artifact 4-4.
A third type of involvement is volunteering, where the school recruits and organizes parent
help and support. Sample practices of this involve school and classroom volunteer programs to
help teachers, administrators, students, and other parents. An annual postcard survey to
identify available talents, times, and locations of volunteers, or parent patrols or other activities
to aid safety and operation of school programs is another idea (Epstein, 1995).
Learning at home is the fourth type of involvement. Schools should provide information
and ideas to families about how to help students at home with homework and other
curriculum-related activities. Samples practices include providing information for families on
skills required for students in all subjects at each grade, information on homework policies,
information on how to assist students to improve skills on various class and school assessments,
a regular schedule of homework that requires the students to discuss and interact with families
on what they are learning in class, activity calendars, family academic activities at school,
summer learning activities, and family participation in setting student goals each year (Epstein,
1995).
The fifth type of involvement is decision making. Schools must include parents in school
decisions and help to develop parent leaders and representatives. Sample practices include an
active PTA or PTO, advisory councils, or committees, district-level councils and committees for
family and community involvement, information on school or local elections for school
representatives, and networks to link all families with local representatives (Epstein, 1995).
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In Florida all public schools are required to have a school advisory council. The school
advisory council (SAC) assists in the preparation and evaluation of the school improvement plan
and the school’s annual budget. Most of the SAC is made up of parents and community
members not employed by the school (Beckham & Raiford, 2003). As part of my internship I sat
in on several SAC meetings and observed the dynamics as they are formally run and reported.
The sixth type of involvement is collaborating with the community. To fully involve the
three spheres of overlapping influence, schools must identify and integrate resources and
services from the community to strengthen school programs, family practices, and student
learning and developing. Samples practices include providing information for students and
families on community health, cultural, recreational, social support and other programs and
services, information on community activities that link to learning skills and talents including
summer programs, service integration through partnerships involving school, civic, counseling,
cultural, health, recreation, and other agencies and organizations and businesses, service to the
community by students, families, and schools, and participation of alumni in school programs
for students (Epstein, 1995).
Epstein’s Framework of Six Types of Involvement and Sample Practices is displayed as a grid
in
Artifact 4-5
Involvment Framework Grid.pdf
. There is also a table for challenges and redefinitions for the six types of
involvement, as well as expected results.
Schools are a fundamental structure in organized societies. Because of this unique position,
school administrators and teachers have an excellent opportunity and immense responsibility
Florida Educational Leadership Standard 4: Community and Stakeholder Partnerships
to use this structure to prepare our children to be active and involved participants in the
community and society in which they live. Schools are a place where the shared morals and
values of the community can be modeled, taught, and reinforced. Developing partnerships
with parents and community stakeholders will further the journey of the community in
attaining their vision for the future.
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References
Beckham, J.C. & Raiford, S.A. (2003). The Florida school administrator’s legal guide. Bulverde,
TX: Omni Publishers, Inc.
Epstein, J.L. (1995). School, family, community partnerships: Caring for the children we share.
Phi Delta Kappan, 76(n9), 701-713.
Florida Department of Education. (2006). Florida school leaders: The William Cecil Golden
school leadership development program. https://www.floridaschoolleaders.org/
IBM. (2002). Change toolkit. http://www.reinventingeducation.org
Sheldon S.B. & Van Voorhis F.L. (2004). Partnership programs in U.S. schools: Their
development and relationship to family involvement outcomes. School effectiveness and
school improvement, 15(2), 125-148.