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It is very important to include as many outside resources as possible when creating a culture of success for students. The saying goes, "It takes a village", applies very well to education as much as raising a child. The more resources that are included in the process the better the product will be. Going through the educational leadership program exposed me to various community based resources that provide assistance to educators without a lot of publicity. This involves both community based organizations and parent based organizations. What we mean is parents and other community members substantially involved in all aspects of schooling, from teaching and curriculum to discipline and organizational structure. We mean a deep interweaving of parents and community with the school and the school with the parents and the community (Scheurich, p.120). The first community based organization is the Rotary. This organization has stepped up and offered junior students the opportunity to spend the day with city officials. The leaders of the Rotary make all of the initial contacts with the officials and then work very closely with the school to make sure the experience is a benefit. This takes more effort than you might think. They must make contact with over 20 offices and coordinate activities with the city hall at the same time. The students come back from this experience with a better understanding of how local government works and how they can easily get involved. The next community based organization that became known to me on a great scale is the Ladies Auxiliary. This is a group of ladies associated with veterans and the military. This group has spent years trying to get young ladies more involved in the community and improve their understanding of how important it is to be a positive part of the community. They recruit and financially support young girls to attend the All-State government experience in the state's

capitol every summer. This also takes a lot of organization and effort on their part and most people don't know this happens or understand why they do what they do. The first parent organization I want to address is the school's booster club. This is our local organization of parents who have students involved in extracurricular activities on some level. These students may play sports or be in the school band. In either situation, the parent sponsored booster club raises thousands of dollars that is given to the school. This money pays for new uniforms, meals after contests, hotel rooms for state competitions, and may even pay for banners to hang in the school commons. All of this extra support generates community pride in our school and makes the public aware of all of the success that we have experienced. The last situation I want to address is the system of parent teacher conferences. These conferences held every fall and spring have become a right of education. While I acknowledge there are flaws in the system and we need to increase parent turnout, the benefits to those students who are represented is invaluable. To be able to meet a mom or dad or even a grandma or uncle, helps make the teachers more aware of the home life and the support system of each student. These one on one contacts can go a long way if a student starts to struggle or needs some extra support. The more open the lines of communication are the stronger the relationships will be between educators and parents. This is a vital piece to the success puzzle. Up to this point in my career, I have not done a good job of including outside resources. I have not taken the time to initiate contact within the community or ask for assistance from any clubs. I now know this is a wasted resource. In order to be understood by the community you must let the community be involved in the system. My experiences with the Rotary and the Ladies Auxiliary have shown how easy and beneficial this relationship can be. Community based

groups are always looking at ways to help out the school and involve young people. This can't be ignored. As a future leader who is focused on helping teachers help students be successful, I need to work on including the community and families even more. Specific ways that I may be able to do this is to work on improving parent participation in conferences. The more parents we can get the better the support there will be. We need to dialogue with parents and make them understand how important it is to be involved in their childs life at school. They need to see the value of a five minute conversation with a teacher and know that it will make a difference. We need to show teachers how important frequent and meaningful communication to parents is. We need to make this relationship a priority. Parents must be invested stakeholders in the process and there must be constant communication with parents. Traditionally, when a school has a parent-teacher conference night or an open house, it's the parents of the high achieving students who attend and show up. This reinforces the research that indicates the more involved the parents are the more successful the students are. This makes perfect sense. If the parents know what's going on, they already have a vested interest in their child, and now they can focus their energies more specifically in helping them be successful. Even though I feel I have a strong relationship with parents, I also feel that this is a major area of growth for me. I can talk to parents very easily and can relate to almost any situation. I enjoy finding out about the life of the student and the life of the parent as well. The more I know about the students, the better prepared I am to be proactive in the school setting to situations that may arise. I need to do a better job of being proactive in reaching out to the parents. Phone calls

and emails are such a simple way to improve relationships and yet it's something I need to be more aware of. This is an area all educators can improve upon. Scheurich points this out when discussing barriers to improved relationships between schools and parents. the problem with the stereotypical views about good parents First, lets consider the problem of viewing the school as primary and the parents as secondary. (Scheurich, p.121) The problem is the philosophy that is has to be us or them. Some modern educators struggle to see the relationship between educators and parents as anything but adversarial. This is understandable after decades of parents and politicians challenging the authority and practices of schools. Schools have taken the blame for many of the problems of modern society. While schools cannot be absolved from the issues, they are certainly not the only problem. Parents, politicians, and schools must all work together, not point fingers. Scheurich again states; What we want to suggest, as many others have, is that we need to rethink this model for all schools-for all parents. What we suggest is that educators and parents start thinking of schools as a real collaboration in which both educators and parents work together as equal partners to be successful with all children. (p.121) As a school leader, I feel we need to get parents into our buildings and into our schools. There needs to be a sense of importance for a parent to take off from work at 4 o'clock on a Thursday afternoon to talk to their child's teachers. We need to get parents to come to school events; plays, musicals, sporting events, and open houses. I need to send this message to the parents and communicate sincerity in it, ask them to come. Then, when they do show up, I need to make sure that their time is not being wasted. I need to work with staff collaboratively to brainstorm solutions to getting better parent involvement in conferences and school events. I need to do follow ups with both parents and staff after these events to see how things when.

Then, if there were issues, I need to work systematically to analyze what the problems were, how there were created, and what we can do to not have them continue. This is all part of being an educational leader. Communicating with all members of the school community, valuing their input, and emphasizing the importance and benefit of their time involved in the school. If parents and students know that we have to meet certain guidelines and mandates, and they know how we are going to do this, then they will be involved and we will achieve more student success. It's a collaborative concept. We also need to acknowledge the community better. We need to take the time to say thank you. This can take a variety of forms, but may include student made banners to be hung in windows, classroom acknowledgements published in the school newspaper that will eventually be in the town newspaper. There needs to be a better effort to show appreciation to all of the support systems that exist. I know that I am now looking at more ways to include community organizations and bring parents into my classroom. It absolutely takes a village and I need to acknowledge that as a leader and embrace it, not avoid it.

Resources:
Scheurich, James Joseph, and Linda Skrla. Leadership for Equity and Excellence: Creating High achievement Classrooms, Schools, and Districts. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2003. Print.