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You
are here: A Case Study of Community Building
and School District Renewal
This paper was prepared for the Institute for Educational Inquiry, Seattle, Washington in August, 1997.
Helping children learn and improving the quality of education in our schools are top priorities for school districts. Reaching these goals requires many successful working relationships. Building relationships between schools and community begins with a clear commitment to discover a community's capacities and assets. Working relationships require community cooperation and collaboration across multiple sectors. Central to community building is the examination of and reflection upon the thoughts, emotions, tensions and actions of individuals and groups in the community. This process constitutes public inquiry, and community members who participate in the process of public inquiry increase the quality of shared beliefs, ideas, and actions that develop. 1
The Tukwila Community Summit, in 1996, serves as a case study of public inquiry and community building. In August, 1996 more than 70 people gathered to explore a common goal: "To participate together in building a healthier and more connected community." The pages that follow provide an account of the Tukwila Community Summit and the subsequent outcomes. I will also focus on connections of the Summit to advancing the agenda for educational renewal and the supporting conceptual framework. Finally, I will summarize the lessons learned about advancing both community building and school district renewal simultaneously, and raise some questions and issues for future exploration.
THE TUKWILA COMMUNITY SUMMIT
South Central and-Tukwila:The South Central School District is one of the smaller school districts, both in geographic size and in student population, in the Seattle metropolitan area. With 2,300 students enrolled in five schools, South Central is characteristic of many urban school districts. Students represent many cultures and ethnic groups and speak more than two dozen world languages. Sixteen percent of students are enrolled in the school district's English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Program. Fifty-nine percent of students are eligible for free/reduced school meals. Forty-seven percent of students are students of color.
South Central families reside in the City of Tukwila, a community of 15,000, that swells daily with 50,000 commuters who work in the City's thriving retail, warehouse and manufacturing industries. Tukwila is a community in transition. More than half (52.6 percent) of residents have moved in the last five years. Sixty percent of housing units are multi-family. Sections of the City of Tukwila contribute to its high crime rate which led the State in violent crimes per capita in 1995.2
Why Did It Happen?
Both South Central and Tukwila, the city that it serves, have undergone major changes in recent years. A higher crime rate, an increase in the transient population, and an 800 percent increase in new immigrant population are some examples of the current trends. With each of these changes comes the realization that a variety of programs and services with a narrow focus cannot adequately address the issues and the needs faced by the community. This realization helped inspire a movement to broaden involvement and participation from many sources, when working towards solutions for improving the quality of life for Tukwila community members. Several events serve as examples of these efforts including: the Education Summit hosted by the South Central School District in 1990, the Cities in Schools Program, and Tukwila's extended efforts in crime prevention that are based on collaboration of resources beyond the police department such as the Highway 99 Citizens Patrol, block watches, Apartment and Motel Managers and Owners Network, "Night Out Against Crime", and the Crime-Free Multi-housing Program. The common thread of all of these efforts is based on collaboration of resources and connecting existing resources to both the school district and the city.
Given the isolated forces of Tukwila -- its mobile community, many newly-arrived immigrants, and socioeconomic segregation in the community -- there seems to be increasing difficulty in residents feeling connected to one another, or having community connected to schools. In Tukwila, there is a pattern emerging which can be described as an "environment of disconnection." 3 The Tukwila Community Summit was another step in the process of integrating services and resources in this community to address immediate needs.
In December, 1995, I shared the vision of a community summit at a meeting with a school district administrator and a representative from a county service provider agency. There were several ideas which contributed to my-thinking about organizing a community summit. First, was the influential concepts on building "resiliency" in youth by focusing on personal and community resources for healthy development espoused by Bonnie Benard.4 I wanted to challenge the school district and the city to implement prevention strategies to strengthen the "protective factors" for our families, our schools and the community. Second, a training opportunity for community leaders in a comprehensive prevention program was being made available by the South King County Public Health and Safety Network. This community network was organized by the Washington State Legislature to develop locally-based plans and provide resources for community-based efforts to reduce youth violence and other problem behaviors. The "Communities That Care" s training system for risk-focused prevention presented an opportunity for community-based training in prevention strategies. Third, a community summit could be designed as a public process for coming together, a time for community members to become involved and participate in learning and shaping the future of the Tukwila community.
How Did It Happen?
The Tukwila Community Summit was supported by a leadership team who were invited to come together at a meeting in South Central. The twenty-five individuals represented many agencies including the - School District, City, higher education, the local chamber of commerce, government agencies and community members. This leadership team met nine times between February and August, 1996. Several members of the leadership team participated in the "Communities That Care" 5 training approach to prevention in March, 1996, and used this knowledge to assist the leadership team in community planning for the Summit. The leadership team divided into several subcommittees to assist in planning, data collection, reporting and outreach.
Following the concepts and approach to resiliency and community assets, the leadership team made the effort to go beyond needs, deficiencies and problems, and identify the existing strengths within South Central and Tukwila that could be built upon when addressing the issues facing the community. Data collection was gathered by the leadership team and a "risk assessment " data summary report was written for use at the Summit. The report was intended to show some of the trends and the current issues occurring in Tukwila, and gathered data from a variety of sources including the city, school district, police department and the Washington State and King County Health Departments.
The outreach for the Summit was unique in that members of the leadership team lived and worked in different parts of the metropolitan Seattle area. This created an opportunity for the leadership team members to communicate information about the Summit with a variety of people and to encourage attendance. The leadership team also advertised the Summit at community celebrations and gatherings during the summer of 1996 to inform people about the Summit. Personal invitations were mailed to nearly 300 community members. Apartment managers, city officials, students and parents, active community leaders and special members of different ethnic communities, religious organizations and community clubs were personally encouraged to attend this summit event.
The Summit leadership team truly evolved as a collaborative process. Chrislip and Larson suggest a definition of collaboration that goes beyond communication, cooperation, and coordination. They write, "It is a mutually beneficial relationship between two or more parties who work toward common goals by sharing responsibility, authority, and accountability for achieving results." 6 The leadership team truly exemplified this definition of collaboration. The leadership team holding different professional roles, worked together to plan and carry out the organizational activities leading to the Community Summit.
What Happened?
Seventy -five people attended the Tukwila Community Summit on August 17, 1996 at Foster High School. Summit participants included a diverse group of active community leaders, members of the Summit leadership team, and residents who usually do not attend meetings. The day's activities were built around the goal: "With a variety of community members, participate together in building a healthier and more connected community."
The Summit goal extended into five themes which identified issues grouped together as follows:
- Youth Involvement and Academic Success
- Strengthening Neighborhoods and Promoting Community Spirit
- Supporting Families and Building Better Family Relationships
- Improving Communication Between Citizens and Local Government
- Creating a Safer Community
The agenda for the Summit divided the day into four parts. First, a welcome and overview brought greetings from several community leaders and included getting-acquainted activities conducted by the Summit facilitator. A second block of the Summit was dedicated to processing activities around the kind of community that participants wanted Tukwila to become. The activities included individuals working together in groups focusing on one of the five theme areas. The purpose of the activity was for each group to reach consensus on specific, achievable suggestions addressing each of the five focus areas. Lunch conversations were conducted at tables around the question: "What does it take to build a community?" A third set of activities focused on small group discussion on how groups in Tukwila could do better to communicate, cooperate, coordinate and collaborate. The wrap-up activity of the Summit included next steps and closure. Participants of the Summit signed a "Commitment to-Connect" form describing specific activities they would perform in the community and schools after the Summit. Finally, Summit participants filled out an evaluation of the meeting to provide feedback.
What Were The Results?
Immediate feedback about the Summit was attained from participants who completed the Summit evaluation form. Overall, individual responses to the Community Summit were very positive. Eighty-six percent of the participants indicated that they thought the Summit achieved its stated goal. Eighty-eight percent of the participants felt that their attendance at the Summit was time well spent, and seventy-five percent of the participants indicated that they would come to a Summit again. 7 Summit participants also identified a list of individuals, groups and organizations that they believed would be valuable additions to contributing to a Community Summit. Beyond the high ratings for the Summit, 46 "Commitment-to-Connect" contact forms were submitted describing specific activities pledged to be performed in the community and schools by January, 1997. The proposed projects included: joining the South Central School District Site Councils, walking with the Highway 99 Citizens Patrol, and hosting a block party for the "Night out Against Crime." Other commitments included increased efforts to communicate at meetings and to reach out to community members. I am pleased to report that many of these projects were accomplished or are in the process of being completed.
Certainly, outcomes resulting from a public inquiry effort conducted at the Community Summit are difficult to measure. I know it takes a lot more than organized conversation to restore citizen trust in government. But, talking about frustrations and hopes for the future is a good place to start. Four months before the Summit, a pre-dawn murder of a coffee stand owner in Tukwila raised the anger and fear of many residents. Covered by television and media, a City of Tukwila meeting two weeks later captured the pain and anger of community members over crime in the community.
Did the Tukwila Community Summit turn anger and pain into power and action? Only time will tell. Clearly, the Tukwila Community Summit presented a concerted effort by concerned adults to work together and to build trust.
A number of activities, partnerships and planning efforts have occurred since the Summit. Listed below are a few examples:
- The Summit leadership planning team continued throughout the 1996-97 school year.
- The leadership team secured a grant for a volunteer coordinator research project that was conducted in 1997.
- Foster High School initiated a 12th grade community/business internship program,-for three-fourths of the senior class.
- South Central's Equity Task Force emerged to become the Equity and Diversity Commission of Tukwila with a new mission: "To eliminate prejudice and discrimination in the Tukwila community by promoting education and understanding that accepts, appreciates and celebrates our diversity."
- South Central participated in a strategic planning process resulting in a six-year strategic plan presented to the School Board in August, 1997.
- Three family liaison support workers were hired by the School District to coordinate stronger parent participation with the schools through outreach.
- More than 300 South Central/Tukwila families attended a second annual dinner and information fair in March, 1997 designed to introduce "new friends and families" to the school district and the Tukwila community.
CONNECTIONS TO EDUCATIONAL RENEWAL
John Goodlad has provided a strong conceptual framework for the role of schools in advancing community in a democratic society. He has identified nineteen postulates as conditions necessary for effective teacher education. Postulate twelve states:
Programs for the education of educators must involve future teachers in the issues and dilemmas that emerge out of the never-ending tension between the rights and interests of individual parents and interest groups and the role of schools in transcending parochialism and advancing community in a democratic society. 8
While this postulate is aimed at teacher education, it focuses directly on the role of schools in a advancing community. The Tukwila Community Summit set its sights at a community exchange of information and ideas about schools and the community leading to shared commitment and action to improve schools and community.
Goodlad has written extensively about healthy collaborative relationships, healthy ecosystems, collaborative community infrastructures and educative communities. Goodlad identifies that communities need collaborating infrastructures to support schools. He writes "Needed are healthy collaborative relationships among all the agencies and institutions serving young people and the rest of the community." 9
Goodlad has also described the "multiplicity of horizontal connections and relationships" needed in democratic communities. 10 He portrays an interprofessional infrastructure including health and human service agencies that provide a "common denominator" for community collaboration.
If schools and community institutions work together to become the educative communities described by Goodlad, it is possible to renew the process of citizens coming together to solve problems. The human conversation that Goodlad describes can be achieved by community members coming together for a common purpose at a common place.
IMPLICATIONS: WHAT I LEARNED
I have learned a number of lessons about myself, South Central and Tukwila, and educational renewal from the Community Summit experience.
The Superintendent's Role
My leadership role as superintendent was very important in activities leading up to and including the Summit and actions that have occurred since the Community Summit. I was able to use my formal authority as Superintendent to invite other leaders and representatives of organizations, government and agencies to serve on the Summit leadership team. When the leadership team was established, I did lay out some ideas as rough sketches for a Community Summit intended to promote discussion and provoke review. Ideas were subject to the leadership team's elaboration and revision in response to other people's experience and ideas in planning a Summit for Tukwila.
My leadership style as Superintendent contributed to the formation and ongoing work of the leadership team as a collaborative activity. Leading a collaborative group where the Superintendent has no "real" control over the people and the organizations represented at the table, drew upon my skills as a collaborative leader. Although several members of the leadership team were South Central employees, most of the participants were professionals in their organizations who were volunteering their time and effort to support school and community development.
My role in leadership in this collaborative process drew upon some qualities and skills that I think were proven vital in this experience. This included building a vision with the leadership team of how a community summit could bring people together to build a better future for schools, children and families in the Tukwila area. Second, I was able to listen and communicate with the Summit leadership team before, after, between and during the leadership team meetings in order to gain a greater understanding of the needs, the concerns and possibilities for the community building needed for the summit. Third, my leadership style incorporated group process knowledge and skills. The process of collaboration involved many meetings allowing the leadership team to sort through problems, create alternative solutions and make decisions. The meetings drew upon group process skills needed to run effective meetings to ensure active involvement of the participants, giving them a sense of ownership in the process and obtaining commitment along the way to follow-through on responsibilities.
The work of the Summit leadership team was also empowering. Everyone serving on the leadership team worked in subcommittees to plan the Summit. Group members were also trained as table facilitators who assisted with the activities on the day of the Summit. All members of the team were involved. While I was able to bring people together, see promise in others and bring school district resources to assist in planning the Summit, I learned that the reason the Summit was well-planned and even happened, was because of the collaborative efforts of many -- not in the individual ability or agency or the school district, as one.
The Setting: South Central and Tukwila
What I learned about South Central and Tukwila, after undertaking the Community Summit, was that collaborative processes can be very successful in planning and achieving a goal. With the involvement of the leadership team, and the leadership team members involving others from their respective organizations to contribute to the Summit, there was a tremendous capacity for supporting the Summit event through collaboration and support of others. For example, representatives from the Chamber of Commerce were able to secure banners displaying the Summit goal at the Summit event. The City Manager, a City Council member and the City Police Chief all were able to enlist Tukwila City officials and staff to attend the Summit and contribute to discussion and reflections about the community. In addition, South Central paid for the Summit facilitator and the cost of the breakfast and lunch which were provided. A grant secured from United Way paid for the cost of a Summit administrative assistant. All of these efforts combined were key ingredients to make the Summit successful.
Another lesson learned pertains to the Summit event itself. At the Summit, we heard the voices of many stakeholders, families, businesses, apartment managers, parents, city and school officials and other groups and institutions. The ability of many to reflect and participate in developing ideas and draw on personal convictions energized the community spirit that day. There was evidence of widespread participation throughout the day on important topics of change and critical issues facing the community. Although the School District hosted the Summit and was leading influence in planning and holding the Summit, the issues raised were community issues, not narrowly restricted to only being school related. But, while the issues discussed may lie more with community concerns, the implications for schools were considerable.
Finally, while the Summit did not necessarily result in consensus on one particular action, that was not the objective. The Summit produced an agenda for a range of action and follow-up activities tied together by a shared sense of purpose and direction. When people joined together as a "summit community", they shared many interrelated purposes. However, when strategies and action plans were created based on the five theme areas of the Summit, several strategies inevitably turned to the school district to carry out the action plans. Schools were deeply imbedded as a means of sharing and carrying out the will of the community. When Tukwila community-members identified institutions at their disposal, they looked to the schools as one of those leading institutions. The School District gained legitimacy through the Summit experience, especially from community members who had not made contact with the schools before participating in the Summit.
ADVANCEMENT OF THE EDUCATIONAL RENEWAL PROCESS
In the book, Educational Renewal, Goodlad writes
Individual and institutional renewal are closely intertwined - the setting provides a context for inquiry, a mission and problems for pursuing this mission, provides subject matte, and require of the settings stewards, not just dialogue, but reflection, reading and inventing and rethinking. 11
What I learned about advancing educational renewal through my participation in the Summit, was that the internal conditions in the school district and the City of Tukwila enhanced the possibilities of collaboration to produce the Community Summit. The leadership team became the stewardship group which didn't restrict itself to dialogue and thinking, but also to action. While the Community Summit planning started with the Superintendent and a handful of people, it was propelled by encouragement from collaborative partnerships believing that a broad range of people can come together to reflect, inquire and plan to renew their community. The renewal experienced before, during and after the Community Summit was a simultaneous renewal, experienced by both the school district and the community. Underlying, the feeling of renewal was a belief that we were going to make a difference.
When writing about community, Goodlad has attributed the meaning of community in two ways: first as a geographical entity such as the City of Tukwila, and second, as a metaphor for an institution such as a school district or a city as a "community of learners." He writes, "The educative process required is one of self-understanding and self-transcendence." 12 The Community Summit served as an educational process. It was a public inquiry, a time for reflection and a time to plan strategies for change and renewal. Equally important, the Community Summit contributed to the "healthy ecosystem" the rich and diverse ecological model described by Goodlad that is needed for understanding and improving our schools and communities. 13
CONCLUSION
The Tukwila Community Summit serves as a case study of community building and school district renewal, simultaneously. This project was dependent upon the collaboration and support of others and was an important event for both the school district and the community. Goodlad has written that children are more likely to grow in schools when the community infrastructure supports their total welfare and development, and when all parts of the infrastructure are attentive to their power in contributing to a community's educational function. I. I believe that the Tukwila Community Summit was a big step forward to bring together the schools, community and other institutions that support children, families and community services.
I would like to suggest some questions and issues for further exploration which emerged from this case study. What is the continuing role of school and school district leadership in engaging communities for renewal? What is the role of community leadership in engaging schools for renewal? What are the steps for communities and schools to become "educative communities?" How do school and community leaders create the conditions for fuller participation by those who work in schools, those who work in communities, and the families and community members, themselves, to participate more fully in "renewing" activities? What is the level of readiness necessary in a school system and in a community to bring people together? Is the work that was done in South Central and Tukwila generalizable and replicable? How do we measure the value to children of activities such as community summits in renewal when faced with the pressure for outcomes and achievement?
Goodlad has written "Renewal -- whether of ponds, gardens, people or institutions - is an internal process, whatever the external concerns and stimulants. It requires motivation, dedication, systematic and systemic evolution and time." 15 There is great wisdom in this statement. Building relationships between school and community takes a renewed and strengthened commitment, understanding, awareness, communication, involvement, participation and a whole host of other traits that define a willingness to work together. This last year has helped me to see more clearly that collaborative partnerships, community building and school renewal also require motivation, dedication, systematic and systemic change and time.
NOTES
2. Violent crime includes murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault City of Tukwila Annual Police Report, 1995.
3. Donna H. Kerr, "Democracy, Nurturance, and Community," in Democracy, Education and the Schools, edited by Roger Soder (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996), p. 56.
4. See Bonnie Benard in Northwest Policy, September, 1992.
5. Communities That Care: Risk and Resource Assessment for Preventing Adolescent Problem Behaviors, (Seattle, Washington: Development Research and Programs, Inc., 1994).
6. D.D. Chrislip and C.E. Larson, Collaborative Leadership: How Citizens and Civic Leaders Can Make a Difference, (San Francisco Jossey-Bass, 1994), p. 5.
7. Tukwila Community Summit Final Report, South Central School District, p. 33.
8. John I. Goodlad, Educational Renewal: Better Teachers, Better Schools, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994) p. 86.
9. Goodlad, Educational Renewal: Better Teachers, Better Schools, p. 225.
10. John I. Goodlad, In Praise of Education, (New York: Teachers College Press, 1997),.p. 59.
11. Goodlad, Educational Renewal: Better Teachers, Better Schools.
12. Goodlad, Educational Renewal: Better Teachers, Better Schools, p. 234.
13. John I. Goodlad, editor, The Ecology of School Renewal, Eighty-sixth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 210-221.
14. John I. Goodlad, "Retrospect and Prospect," in Access to Knowledge: The Continuing Agenda for Our Nation's Schools, edited by John I. Goodlad and Pamela Keating, (New York: The College Entrance Examination Board, 1994), p. 335.
15. John I. Goodlad, "The Occupation of Teaching in Schools," in The Moral Dimensions of Teaching, edited by John I. Goodlad, Roger Soder, and Kenneth A. Sirotnik, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990), p. 25.
Michael Silver, Ph.D, was formerly Superintendent of South Central Schools in Tukwila, Washington. The district is located in King County, Washington near Sea-Tac International Airport. He is now Director and Assistant Professor of College of Education - Educational Administration at Seattle University.
You can reach Michael Silver at Seattle University or by email : silverm@seattleu.edu
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