Community and School Relationships
Introduction
Deer Isle-Stonington is a rural, traditional, natural-resources based economy in which a large percentage of opportunities continue to exist for community members to earn a living (through fishing and other trades) without a high school or college education. The school district acknowledges, however, that a strong community and good life is about more than making a living, and is therefore working hard to increase community support for education. Education is, in today’s economy, more vital to the trades and to fishing—which now includes the conservation of fish stocks, the replenishment of species, local area management, and community-based regulation—than ever before, and local organizations such as PERC are working with fishermen to fill educational gaps. Deer Isle-Stonington can transfer traditional characteristics—ingenuity and entrepreneurship, required in the individual owner-operator culture of in-shore fishing—to job opportunities in the growing, global Creative/Information Economy sectors, surpassing the tourism and retirement sectors, and maintaining the island’s historic independence with increasing prosperity.
Current Focus
The schools have made a great effort to make the public feel more welcome in the schools, even while relocating the schools outside of the village centers. More participation is still sought through increased awareness of the schools’ successes. The school community also seeks, through its Magnet School efforts, to level off a school population that is currently shrinking while the local economy and housing markets turn more toward the tourism and retirement sectors.
Community and School Relationships Goals
- To create value in the community for the schools by reflecting in the curriculum the Island’s strengths and heritage, by creating magnet schools for students who have a particular interest in the arts, marine trades, applied engineering; and to educate students who are able to build and sustain the Island’s future.
- Intended Outcomes
- Increase parent and community participation in the schools’ academic programs; increase parent attendance at school meetings and parent-teacher conferences.
- Students make a documented difference in the community via a restructured Community Service-Service Learning program.
- Maintain and/or increase the island school population via an active magnet school program to attract tuition students who have a particular interest in the arts, marine trades, applied engineering.
- Students are engaged in problem-solving issues needed to sustain the Island’s future, such as affordable housing, job-creation, etc.
Strategies
- Communicate results, particularly through tracking and sharing with both students and community success stories of graduates.
- Increase community support for education, and communication between school and communicating, by leveraging current technologies to implement a consistent communications/public relations program. Examples include but are not limited to:
- K-12 e-newsletter or website to increase staff communication, with a sector open to community access; short, student-created slide and video presentations to screen at public events;
- Via newsletters, news columns, presentations and meetings promote parents’ responsibility for academic achievement; more family involvement;
- Wider distribution of school committee agendas and minutes; published minutes of faculty meetings
- Every teacher and class does at least one community-based learning project, and the island’s strengths and heritage are consciously and consistently integrated to the extent possible.
- Teach students about available jobs and how education will help them succeed, including bringing successful alumni into class and community discussions.
- Create and implement a marketing plan on the district’s “magnet” areas (marine trades; arts; applied engineering) to achieve an aggregate increase of 5 tuition students per year.
- Schedule evening Home Visits and Meetings for Educational Teams (not just for social workers) as needed.
Future Directions (a.k.a. the Parking Lot)
- Conduct an annual school-wide community project (example, bridge implementation; swimming pool; etc.) that is planned at least one year in advance and thus well integrated through curriculum.
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