Mavis G. Sanders

Community Involvement In Schools From Concept to Practice

This article reviews the current theoretical and empirical literature on community involvement in schools to foster greater understanding of the key concepts, themes, and issues in the field. The article describes differing rationales for community involvement. It also discusses four major forms of school-community partnerships and factors that influence their implementation and results. The article concludes with suggestions to increase the capacity of community involvement in schools to positively affect students, professional educators, families, and communities.

How Parent Liaisons Can Help Bridge the Home-School Gap

In this qualitative case study, the author describes (a) how parent liaisons in a diverse suburban district have supported school, family, and community partnerships and (b) the role played by the district family and community involvement specialist. On the basis of analyses of interview, observation, survey, and document data, the author identifies 4 roles played by liaisons that enhanced home-school partnerships. The liaisons provided (a) direct services to families at risk, (b) support for teacher outreach, (c) support for school-based partnership teams, and (d) data for partnership program improvement. On the basis of these findings, the author offers practical recommendations for districts seeking to establish or improve liaison programs to build stronger ties between schools and the families of all students.

Achieving Scale at the District Level A Longitudinal Multiple Case Study of a Partnership Reform

Purpose: Coburn’s (2003) multidimensional conception of scale includes four interrelated dimensions—depth, sustainability, spread, and ownership—that provide a framework to understand scale at both the school and district levels. This study was conducted to understand how reform leaders in four districts implementing the National Network of Partnership Schools’ (NNPS) framework for school, family, and community partnerships influenced progress along these four dimensions of scale. Research Methods: The study used a longitudinal qualitative case study approach. Four districts that had been members of NNPS for 5 years or longer and reported high levels of leadership for family and community engagement were selected for the study. Each district was studied for a period of 3 years. Interview, observation, and survey data were collected and analyzed. Findings: The study found that NNPS reform leaders influenced the case districts’ progress on Coburn’s dimensions of scale through a variety of facilitating practices and activities. In addition, the study found that positive relationships that the reform leaders developed with key actors within the districts and NNPS helped to explain variations in their effectiveness as facilitators of scale. Three factors—intent, knowledge and skills, and access—were found to affect the relationships forged by the focal leaders. Conclusions: The study’s findings highlight the need for more targeted studies on relationship development and maintenance at different stages of reform implementation. They also underscore the need for greater focus on district leaders’ deep understanding of reform principles and the scaling up process in order to promote more lasting school change.

Using Diverse Data to Develop and Sustain School, Family and Community Partnerships: A District Case Study.

This article reports findings from a case study of district leadership for school, family and community partnerships in a suburban district in the mid-Atlantic region of the USA. Analyses suggest that the case districts family and community involvement specialist has been successful in using different kinds of data to achieve a variety of goals that are linked to program growth, improvement, and sustainability. Analyses further suggest that the district specialist has successfully facilitated the collection and use of data among school-based teams for school, family and community partnerships. Her efforts highlight an important district leadership function in an increasingly data-driven educational reform environment.

Missteps in Team Leadership: The Experiences of Six Novice Teachers in Three Urban Middle Schools.

This study explores novice teachers’ experiences as team leaders for school-community partnerships. Six focal teachers who were enrolled in an MA program in teacher development and leadership were recruited for the study. The focal teachers volunteered to serve as leaders of a reading-focused community involvement activity as members of their schools’ improvement teams. Based on the focal teachers’ experiences, this article describes obstacles to collaboration and three responses to these obstacles (neglecting the process to get the job done, doing too much with too little, and failing to follow through) that influenced the outcomes of the activities. These findings are discussed in light of current school reform efforts that rely on team structures and approaches.

Schools, Families, and Communities Partnering for Middle Level Students' Success.

This article identifies key issues, concepts, and strategies that may assist middle school leaders in developing comprehensive and permanent partnership programs as part of their school improvement efforts.

School-Family-Community Partnerships Focused on School Safety: The Baltimore Example.

Working with the Fund for Educational Excellence and Johns Hopkins University, schools throughout Baltimore, Maryland, have formed the Baltimore School-Family-Community Partnership Program. Schools participating in this initiative plan and implement partnership activities that target specific school goals, including improved student safety. This article describes student safety activities initiated by Action Teams in three Baltimore Partnership schools. Further, it shares participant insights into the ways these programs provide urban public school youth with greater support in avoiding maladaptive behaviors, supply them with safe havens after school, and ensure that they can travel to and from school without harm. INTRODUCTION In our nations states, cities, and neighborhoods, students exposure to and involvement in violence is increasing. Baltimore, Maryland is no exception. Between April 1, 1993, and March 31, 1994, 293 youth under the age of 20 were hospitalized for assaults in Baltimore. This number constitutes approximately 62% of the total number of hospitalizations for assaults among youth in the state of Maryland (Brownell, 1995). The violence that youth in Baltimore are exposed to is symptomatic of the increasingly distressed nature of their communities. Seventy-two neighborhoods in Maryland have been classified by the Annie E. Casey Foundation as severely distressed by virtue of their high levels of poverty, female-headed families, high school dropouts, unemployment, and reliance on welfare; 62 of these are in Baltimore City (Gouvis, 1995). Such distressed communities are often permeated with drug markets and drug-related violence. In 1996, for example, the Baltimore City Police Department (1996) reported processing 11,332 juvenile arrests. The five most common offenses were automobile theft (1,169), cocaine possession (1,035), possession of cocaine with intent to distribute (1,027), common assault (881), and marijuana possession (828). Further, 211 juveniles were charged with handgun-related offenses in 1996. The majority of these youth (168) were African American males between the ages of 14 and 15. While some of these arrests were for the use of handguns in violent offenses, most arrests (86) were for carrying a handgun. Although data is not available to explain why youth in Baltimore carry handguns, national studies indicate that protection against violent assault is a primary reason for juvenile gun possession. The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence (1997) reports that in a nationwide profile of juvenile gun possession and use, 70% of students who said they carried a gun said they did so to protect themselves from a perceived threat. These statistics indicate that for far too many youth in Baltimore and in the nation, exposure to, involvement in, and fear of violence is a familiar part of their daily existence. The statistics also emphasize the need for treatment programs that serve youth and families in violent situations, as well as prevention programs that assist youth and their families in avoiding violence. As one response to statistics such as those noted above, schools throughout Baltimore are working with families and communities to create safer environments in which children can live, learn, and grow. Many of these schools are members of the Baltimore SchoolFamily-Community Partnership Program. This program works with the Fund for Educational Excellence and the educational center at Johns Hopkins University to develop comprehensive school, family, and community partnerships in the Baltimore public schools. Through the program, member schools plan and implement school, family, and community partnership activities that target specific school goals, including improved student safety. This article describes the Baltimore program, discusses several partnership activities to improve student safety that have been planned by various schools in the program, and highlights activities in three of the schools that are working to ensure the safety of Baltimores most valuable resource-its youth. …

Principal Leadership for School, Family, and Community Partnerships: The Role of a Systems Approach to Reform Implementation.

Based on data from a longitudinal multiple case study, this article describes how district-level expectations, policies, and practices affected principals’ responses to an external reform in two school districts, one urban and one suburban. The specific reform highlighted is a comprehensive family and community engagement approach developed by researchers at the National Network of Partnership Schools (NNPS). The study’s findings suggest that district leaders facilitated principals’ effective implementation of the NNPS reform by creating clear expectations, establishing coherent contexts, and providing tangible supports and rewards. Over time, these actions reduced resistance and increased buy-in among school leaders. Implications of these findings for education research and reform development are discussed.

Sustaining Programs of School, Family, and Community Partnerships: A Qualitative Longitudinal Study of Two Districts.

This study draws from 4 years of qualitative case study data to describe how programmatic and district factors interacted to affect reform sustainability in two school districts—one urban and the other suburban. These districts have been implementing a reform developed by the National Network of Partnership Schools (NNPS) for over a decade. NNPS assists schools, districts, and state departments of education to develop comprehensive programs of school, family, and community partnerships. Findings suggest that reform characteristics, specifically the evidence base, costs, and flexibility of the NNPS reform, and district leadership, specifically district leaders’ reform knowledge, professional influence, and reform focus converged to explain, in part, the case districts’ success in sustaining the reform. Implications of these findings for reform developers and leaders are discussed.

Leadership, partnerships, and organizational development: exploring components of effectiveness in three full-service community schools

Full-service community schools are viewed as an approach to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for underserved student populations. The realization of these goals, however, is not guaranteed. According to Richardson’s (2009) research-based model of highly effective community schools (HECS), the effectiveness of full-service community schools depends on 3 interrelated components: leadership, partnerships, and organizational development. This qualitative case study uses the HECS model to examine different levels of effectiveness among 3 full-service community schools in an urban district in the eastern United States. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of Richardson’s model for practice and research.