Community & External Leadership

Candidates who successfully complete a district-level educational leadership preparation program understand and demonstrate the capacity to promote the current and future success and wellbeing of each student and adult by applying the knowledge, skills, and commitments necessary to understand and engage families, communities, and other constituents in the work of schools and the district and to advocate for district, student, and community needs.

STANDARD 5 COMPONENTS

Component 5.1 - Program completers understand and demonstrate the capacity to represent and support district schools in engaging diverse families in strengthening student learning in and out of school.

Component 5.2 - Program completers understand and demonstrate the capacity to understand, engage, and effectively collaborate and communicate with, through oral, written, and digital means, diverse families, community members, partners, and other constituencies to benefit learners, schools, and the district as a whole.

Component 5.3 - Program completers understand and demonstrate the capacity to communicate through oral, written, and digital means within the larger organizational, community, and political contexts and cultivate relationships with members of the business, civic, and policy community in support of their advocacy for district, school, student, and community needs.

As part of the course EDLE 76544 Community Relations & Communication Skills with Dr. Boske, we were challenged to look at comprehensive community needs from a district perspective.

As part of the work, and in conjunction with the district's strategic plan, several face-to-face interviews were completed to collect qualitative data and narratives. Most of them were constructed informally, either during work with staff, “out & about” with community members (NELP 5.1), or other informal opportunities that presented themselves.

Three trends presented themselves from these conversations and included communication between administration and teaching staff (intra), communication between the district and parents (inter), and concerns about supporting students and families at home (NELP 5.2).

One of the challenges to the school district became:

“How does the school district ensure timely and effective communication protocols while engaging a wide audience of stakeholders?”

Several research-based strategies were presented and shared with district leadership at the time, and some were incorporated into what we do today. For example, shortly thereafter we instituted a weekly newsletter (that had been dormant for some time for various reasons) and my role is to perform final edits, launch via a mass-mailing program, and then further distribute on the district's website (which I have designed, populate, and maintain) and social media channels (NELP 5.2).

The newsletter is a combination of a message from the Superintendent, notices, information from our buildings, and any other pertinent information the district needs to share. We distribute to 4,000+ email addresses each week, and this style of campaign seems to have increased the overall understanding of school operations in general.

This Comprehensive Needs Analysis was performed and presented as a final project in EDLE 76544 Community Relations & Communication Skills with Dr. Boske in the fall of 2019.

In addition, I had the opportunity to be creative, to create, to synthesize, to make sense and build meaning from my own learning and the resulting art installation (a mobile) is something I'll always remember. This project came as a direct extension from the above coursework and challenges we were asked to absorb.

Analysis & Artist's Statement (from "Opportunity" - see link above)

During the data-gathering phase, it became clear that all of the "NO" statements (i.e. ping-pong balls) for all the days would fill up an entire container.

Not only did the balls represent a student who answered negatively to a statement, as in "My parent's don't support me", but also an opportunity to engage, connect, and lift up.

Each ball was an opportunity for change, a way out of oppression, and a call to action by the school, community, and its leadership.

The idea for "Opportunity" grew out of the text "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by Paolo Freire - a heavy, difficult to digest tome on education reform. Freire writes that to become fully human, one needs to free oneself from oppression (Freire, 1970).

Many, many factors oppress our students today - home, friends, adults, work, life - a heavy burden for anyone to shoulder.

Freire continues to describe a life of oppression that occurs due to unjust systems (Freire, 1970). Our students today are mere participants in such an unjust system, and many are not aware it's even happening. Freire (1970) challenges all to liberate themselves from such a system, and break free of the chains of oppression.

Growth then, becomes the path forward (Freire, 1970). Education, according to Freire can best be described as flawed - a dehumanizing system, where the student is a mere vessel, and the teacher (oppressor, powerful) holds all knowledge, and dispenses what they must, but only just enough to remain in control. This action by an unjust agent perpetuates the cycle of oppression, argues Freire.

Solution?

Freire (1970) suggests a new pedagogy, and new way to teach and learn, and to grow, that creates an environment of creation, of opportunity, of respect and love. Such a system would respect all parties equally, and seek for equality, arming the individuals with the tools needed to break free from oppression of any kind.

Our students, too, represented here as oppressed individuals in a multitude of manners, need the connection to break free. They need support to move forward, a helping hand, a shining light in their own individual darkness.

Each ping-pong ball represents an opportunity to liberate another. Each ping-pong ball offers hope, however anonymous, that there are those out there who know themselves to be oppressed, and have the courage to tell someone. This exhibit, and data gathering, is perhaps the first step on the journey towards liberation, a better life, and a more free, loving, and humanistic experience.

What can we do about student engagement?

This art installation offers a medium by which individuals can engage in critical conversations around oppression.

Students, adults, or any stakeholder involved could be, nay, should be provoked into meaningful dialogue around issues our students face daily. Dialogue, according to Freire (1970), offers hope.

It's meant to be interactive - each label showing the negative side (RED) offers a solution, a token of hope, once flipped over on the (BLUE) side. "I don't have a friend at school." becomes "Connect me."

Each one an opportunity. Each ping-pong ball a person in need.