School Boards and the Art of Communication
by Judy SaksPublished in partnership with the National School Boards Foundation.
Communication is a two-way street, and that means parents and school boards have to work together to improve every aspect of school life.
Take the Montgomery County, Maryland school board, for example. A few years ago, the school board saved $800,000 a year by staggering the starting times for its elementary, middle, and high schools and reducing the number of school buses and drivers needed to transport the students by allowing each bus to make several runs. But many parents in this large, suburban district outside Washington, D.C. were unhappy having high schools open at 7:25 a.m. and teens standing at bus stops at 6:30 a.m.--and they told the school board exactly that. This fall the board--responding to parents' needs--directed the superintendent to review bell times in Montgomery County and other districts, analyze studies on teen-age sleep patterns, and recommend new school day schedules.
As elected public officials accountable to their communities, school board members strive to make certain their school district policies reflect their community's values in education. School board members must understand their citizens' needs, hopes, and aspirations in order to convey those ideas to the superintendent and staff.
Getting Connected
Keeping their fingers on the community's pulse is not always an easy task, however. Parents, busy with their own lives, may not attend school board or Parent Teacher Association (PTA) meetings or answer school surveys. Often, school board members must take the initiative and use creative approaches to reach out to parents and other members of their community. Increasingly, they are using technology to exchange ideas with residents. One Colorado school district held an electronic community forum on educational priorities, for example, and a Utah district publishes its proposed school board policies on the Internet.
But the school board is only one source of good ideas. Parents, acting as individuals and through their elected PTA leaders, often find creative ways to make their voices heard and their ideas known.
Here are two award-winning programs--one which the school board initiated and one in which parent participation played a key role--that schools across the country can adopt or adapt to their needs:
Reaching Out
The Clovis, California United School District found a way to engage all parents as partners in their children's education and to involve residents in leadership roles at the school and district level. Through its GoalSHARING Program--which won a Magna Award for excellence in school governance from The American School Board Journal--the district holds an annual Educational Congress, a major community event involving several hundred parents, employees, students, and community members. Participants review the district's mission and discuss new initiatives.
In addition, nine standing district advisory councils (each cochaired by a school board member and a district administrator) meet monthly to discuss district issues. And more than 1,000 parents participate on School Assessment Review Team committees, which play an advisory role to the school principal and staff. All parents are also asked to complete an annual survey identifying top areas of both parental concern and satisfaction--information that is shared with teachers and administrators. The result is a participation process that helps the board formulate policy and defuses situations that could cause conflicts.
Parent Power
Parents played a major role in designing the "Parent Connection" program at Northlake Elementary School in Longview, Washington. The program, open from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. three times a week, offers students extra help with homework while it gives parents a chance to improve their English skills or learn how to use a computer so they can become more involved in their children's education.
Funded with both federal and state monies, the program, originally designed for economically or educationally disadvantaged students, now is open to all students and their families. More than 400 families participate in the Parent Connection, and parents' continuing involvement is the backbone of the program. The U.S. Department of Education awarded the Parent Connection a Certificate of Excellence, citing its achievements in raising student test scores.
