Socially Just Community

The ideal school should be woven into the fabric of the community that it serves. This is important for it to be sustainable. Connections with businesses and families must be made and forged into lasting partnerships if the school is to have ongoing impact. As the community and school are incorporated together attention needs to be given as to how to bridge divides in the socio-economic and ethnic differences found within the composition of the school’s population. It is imperative that the ideal school encompasses socially “just” ways of involving parents and community members, in order for it to be fully sustainable.

To create a sustainable school community, one first needs to understand their community. For this project our community lives near our ideal school’s location in La Selva Beach, California. In Spanish La Selva means “the jungle”. The area is located between the very different cities of Aptos, Corralitos, and Watsonville. According to the 2000 census, Aptos is 90% White, Corralitos 80% White, and Watsonville predominately 75% Hispanic or Latino. Only Corralitos has more than 15% of another race, which is Hispanic or Latino at 19.1%. The average income in Watsonville is estimated at $37, 617 with 19% of its population below the poverty line. In contrast, the median household income for Corralitos is $70, 781 with around 2.8% of the population below the poverty line. Aptos has higher rate than Corralitos with 7.1% of the population below the poverty line yet the median household is not much lower than it at $61, 843. Both communities have on average much higher economic means than Watsonville. If you combine the Asian and African American populations of these three cities you have 8% Asian and a little over 1% African American. From these few statistics one can see that our ideal school has potential for an ethnically and socio-economic mixed school population.

Now that we know a little of who will be in our ideal school, it is important that from the beginning we address these ethnic and socio-economic differences. We must bridge the differences to create a school community accessible for all of our students. One way we can do this is by having a community center built on our school grounds. As one non-profit working to bring schools and communities together stated, “Schools do not exist in isolation and they cannot go it alone. To keep students in school their social, economic, and family needs, as well as their academic needs must be met. They need the support and help of the whole community. The often heard statement, ‘It takes a village to raise a child,’ is very true” (CSC, 2009). If we can create a “whole community,” then we will be more apt at reaching all of our students. Success will come as our school functions as a “hub” for the White, Hispanic/Latino, Asian, and African American families present in our school. Another school design program said it this way, “Successful schools strengthen a community’s sense of identity and coherence. Like a new version of the old town square, a school can serve as a community hub that teaches its occupants about collaboration and the common good” (NCFEFKF, 2003). Incorporating these principles into our planning will help our ideal school to have a sense of coherence among the three cities represented.

We will need to be creative in considering ways to involve these communities. We will have to rethink a typical lesson plan, parent meeting, and use for a community center. To help us I have compiled two lists to start our outside the box thinking. These lists provide us with various ways to reach the different students, parents, and local businesses represented in our ideal school.

1. Socially just ways to involve families in our ideal school…

• All new families at the school have an orientation meeting with the school’s leaders to orient them to the school and our expectations.
• Have a social justice newsletter where parents, students, and teachers contribute.
• Have a room parent for each classroom (one from each surrounding city if possible).
• Have the parents and students collaborate on a school project such as making a cookbook and then selling the cookbooks as a fundraiser to benefit the whole community.
• Have each child’s family be responsible for bringing snacks to the classroom, once during the year. The teachers can encourage the families to bring cultural food items to the room. The families can use money from the classroom fund that is given to the teachers by the school. This will enable all families to contribute without posing a financial burden on anyone.
• Have parents host after school clubs (gardening club, tech club, cooking club, etc).
• Teachers post the children’s work daily, weekly, and monthly, giving parents a clearer sense of what is happening at school. Posting will be done in multiple languages so all families can read them.
• Parent-teacher conferences are scheduled during the evenings, weekends, and during the school day to accommodate all work or non-working schedules.
• Invite parents and members of the child’s family as guest readers, speakers, teachers in each of the classrooms
• Give homework over the summer in the form of a “summer book”. The children will make these books with their families during the summer, recording their summer experiences. Then in the fall the teachers use them to guide their lesson planning based on the students interests.
• Host monthly reading nights where parents and students come read together
• Tutoring for both children and parents
• Guest performances: Bands, Cultural Clubs, Dancers, etc
• Parents learning English and parents learning Spanish go to class with their child so they can learn the languages together.

2. Socially just ways to use the community center in our ideal school…
• Part of the school’s staff team is someone in charge of community and school collaboration.
• When hosting parent meetings: provide childcare, meals, interpreters, transportation, and offer opportunities for new families to get involved.
• Host town hall forums at the school to discuss relevant school issues and how parents can get involved.
• Host a before and after school program for families that need the child-care and academic support.
• On the weeknights and weekends, host ESL classes, and on-the job training classes for families.
• Have parents become community liaisons for the school. Have one parent represent each of the various ethnic groups at the school. Host a gathering of all these liaisons monthly in the community center.
• Host parent education seminars. Topics could include: positive discipline techniques, budgeting 101, cooking healthy, a parent’s guide to their child’s education.
• Monthly the community center can offer basic health care and immunizations to our families.
• Have a quarterly community fair. Local businesses, non-profits, families, get together and host booths around various themes (health, jobs, food, cultural festivals, etc)
• Career Fair (For adults who need jobs and for children to see the different options available to them in the future).
• CPR and First Aid Classes, Self-Defense classes

These lists are meant to be a springboard for further thought and innovation for schools and community working in collaboration. Constructing a community center on our ideal school’s campus will serve to remind the teachers and administrators for years to come that the community around them is integral to what is happening inside the classroom. It will help us to remember that the community we are working with comes from diverse backgrounds and as educators we need to strive towards building bridges among the differences.

By Jeannie S.


Bibliography:

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Community and School Collaboration (2009) Retrieved August 1, 2009, from Community and School Collaboration website: http://www.c-sc.org/fast.html

Community and School Collaboration (CSC) (2009) Strengthening Schools, Families, and Communities. Retrieved August 1, 2009 from Community and School Collaboration website: http://www.securenetserver.com/cscwa-org/v3/OurPrograms/tabid/97/Default.aspx

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Watsonville, CA information. Retrieved August 10th, 2009 from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watsonville,_ca

Aptos, CA information. Retrieved August 10th, 2009 from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptos,_CA

Corralitos, CA information. Retrieved August 10th, 2009 from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corralitos,_California

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