Building School-Community Partnerships: Collaboration for Student Success

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mavis Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Student Success ◽  
School Community ◽  
Community Partnerships

Creating functional and sustainable School–Community Partnerships: Lessons from three South African cases

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 1001-1019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phumlani Erasmus Myende
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Leadership ◽  
South African ◽  
School Community ◽  
Community Partnerships ◽  
Participative Leadership ◽  
Reflective Journal ◽  
Spheres Of Influence ◽  
Group A ◽  
Overlapping Spheres

Globally, there is agreement that school–community partnerships are one of the mechanisms to address challenges that schools cannot address alone. However, evidence suggests that where school–community partnerships have been initiated, their functionality and continuity is not always easy to achieve, and research locally and internationally has not sufficiently addressed this concern. To bridge this gap, guided by Epstein’s theory of overlapping spheres of influence, this paper examined what makes school–community partnerships functional and sustainable. The research used a qualitative case study and employed discursive oriented interviews (both individual and focus group), a researcher’s reflective journal, and document reviews to generate the data. Participants were principals, teachers, and academics from two universities. It was found that for partnerships to be functional and sustainable there is a need to ensure that there is collaborative planning and decision-making, effective two-way communication, eagerness to address power issues, and the creation of a culture that promotes participative leadership. From these findings, the paper concludes that principal’s leadership is only critical at the beginning stage of partnerships, and teacher leadership is central in the functionality and continuity of partnerships. In relation to the theoretical framework, it is further concluded that power is an important element to consider, which either brings partners together or pushes them apart.

Learning from Each Other: A Portrait of Family-School-Community Partnerships in the United States and Mexico

2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 2156759X1001400
Author(s):  
Kylie P. Dotson-Blake
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Academic Success ◽  
School Counselors ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
School Community ◽  
The United States ◽  
Community Partnerships ◽  
Mexican Immigrant Families ◽  
School Community Partnership ◽  
And Function

Family-school-community partnerships are critically important for the academic success of all students. Unfortunately, in the face of specific barriers, Mexican immigrants struggle to engage in partnership efforts. In the hopes of promoting the engagement of Mexican immigrant families in partnerships, this article presents the findings of a transnational ethnography, exploring family-school-community partnership experiences of Mexican nationalists in Veracruz and Mexican immigrants in North Carolina. A portrait of partnerships in Mexico is contrasted with a portrait of partnerships in the United States, highlighting similarities and differences in role, structure, and function. School counselors are offered strategies for utilizing the knowledge of partnerships in Mexico to promote and support the engagement of Mexican immigrants in partnerships in the United States.

scholarly journals A Collaborative Community Education Model: Developing Effective School-Community Partnerships

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 171-188
Author(s):  
Thea DePetris ◽  
Chris Eames
Keyword(s):  
Community Education ◽  
Program Planning ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
School Community ◽  
Community Partnerships ◽  
Conservation Education ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Collaborative Community ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Education Model

AbstractDespite school-community partnerships having much potential to provide educational organisations with authentic teaching and learning opportunities through community-based action projects, they remain under-utilised largely due to the structural constraints and pressures faced by teachers. This study helps fill a gap in scholarly discourse about the specific ways in which school-community partnerships can effectively be developed by providing an in-depth account of an 18-month pilot project with the aim to develop a conservation education program (Kids Greening Taupō) through a partnership structure in Aotearoa New Zealand. An evaluation of the pilot project was conducted using an ethnographic approach, which sought stakeholder perspectives about the program's developmental process through an interpretive lens. Qualitative data were collected through participant observation, semi-structured interviews and document analysis, and then thematically analysed. The findings provided in this article illuminate stakeholder insights and perspectives about the structures established and processes utilised over the three broad stages of program planning, implementation and maintenance, and the resultant environmental initiatives and programs. Through this study, a Collaborative Community Education Model has emerged that may serve as a potential framework or starting point for those interested in creating a new school-community partnership or to modify an existing one.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document