Community Involvement

Essential Question: How can community involvement help increase our reading scores?

Developing and establishing partnerships with our community will be an ongoing process. As we continue to explore the community partnership process, we will focus on strategies that will help build a strong partnership.

• Develop a shared vision: In this strategy, we will work with all stakeholders in developing a common goal (focused on reading achievement) that aligns with our School Improvement Plan (Blank, Jacobson, & Melaville, 2012). 
• Form relationships and establish agreements: This strategy will address building relationships with stakeholders and determining levels of involvement. It is imperative to create and organize opportunities to sustain involvement (Blank, Jacobson, & Melaville, 2012). 
• Promote open conversation and collaborate: According to Blank, Jacobson, and Melaville, "Sharing ownership is critical for sustaining community school work" (p. 16). This strategy will focus on opening the lines of communication to share ideas, express discernment, and to cooperate. 
• Use data to drive partnerships: This strategy will allow our school to analyze data and determine the needs we need to address through our partnership (Blank, Jacobson, & Melaville, 2012). Benchmark data will play a critical role in our data collection.
• Determine community resources: This strategy will focus on the financial aspect of community partnerships. It is important to understand all community partnerships will not provide financial support to the school. However, depending on the goals created with stakeholders, funding for research based programs, technology tools, and instructional supplies may be needed for achievement and growth  (Blank, Jacobson, & Melaville, 2012). 

 During the course of the year, the entire staff will participate in professional development that breaks down these strategies.