The
community around a school makes up a large part of the influence our students
experience. As school leaders, the community often seems more
treacherous than helpful. However, this volatile powerhouse could be used
to benefit your school greatly if used wisely. The following are some ideas to
help incorporate your community to share in your school's vision for
educational success...
Know your Community
Go out
and shake some hands. Meet people. Know business owner’s by name. It is
important to be visible and known in a positive light within in the community.
It is better make your own first impression rather than depend on the
words of others. Also, you never know who can help your school prosper.
Learn the
history. Make an effort to go learn about how your city or town came to be.
Learning about the history of an area can help you make a better educated
decision about the vision for the future of your school. Furthermore, by going
out and talking to those lifelong townspeople they feel respected that you
care. These people likely stayed for a reason and usually have an unparalleled
pride in their community and its history.
Educate your Community
Share your vision for
educational success. Many times proactive education can help you avoid those
unwanted conversations spawned by the misinformed public. By establishing
public goals for educational success you answer the question of “Why?” before
it is even asked.
Know a local reporter. Be
in contact with a reporter from your local newspaper so you can easily share
and celebrate the current happenings at your school.
Start a monthly digital
newsletter or blog. This is just another way to share positive event going on
in your school and to get your voice out to the public. Get on Twitter or
Facebook and share the successes of your school. Do whatever you can to keep
them informed.
Form a community based
school improvement group. This group can be used as a think tank that involves
community members, parents, administrators, teachers and possibly even
students. This group can focus on understanding your vision and exploring
new ideas for either technology integration or community involvement and can
used the wealth of wide spread knowledge to help inform the different members.
Utilize your Community
Buy locally. Eat out at
local restaurants on a regular basis. This sounds like a meaningless
tasked but it is noticed when you do make that effort to help better the
community outside the school. Also, do your best to share the wealth. If
you buy pizza for your staff during conferences, use one establishment the
first time and a different one the second. Have your student council
arrange with the store owners on the main street that they can paint the
windows of the town stores to celebrate Homecoming.
Celebrate your Community
Have student groups perform
at business openings. There are multiple types of groups that can perform
and represent your school to help celebrate their community. Encourage your
performing arts (band, choir, orchestra and theater) and athletes (dance and
cheer) to go out celebrate their community by performing at a community event.
This, in turn, also helps their respective programs gain support.
Participate in Parades. Have student groups advocate for their cause why
they also celebrate their community. This kind of town pride goes hand-in-hand
with school pride and if you can get a whole town to support your movement of
bettering students life through education and enrichment, the powers are
endless.
Mobilize your Community
After the
initial connections have been made with the community, ask for help.
Establish your school vision in the community and most people who can and
want to help, don’t know how to help. Form a wish list and encourage
programs to form their own wish lists. Create and encourage your programs
to utilize donorschoose.org and other crowdfunding websites. Promote these
sites through social media. People cannot help unless they are informed on how to help.
As an
educational leader, you are the figurehead of the institution you represent. It
is important that the public's perception of you be a constant consideration.
This is part of the great responsibility that is educational administration.
That being said, instead of sitting back and waiting for people to develop an
opinion about you through hearsay, go out there and make a positive connection
right away. Show your support for your community and it will come back to
benefit your students in a great way. Help your community help positively
impact its students by sharing your schools vision for educational prosperity
and letting it reverberate through your community.
Tom
Rucker
Twitter:
@tomrucker
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