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Leadership and Collaboration

The teacher seeks appropriate leadership roles and opportunities to take responsibility for
student learning, to collaborate with learners, families, colleagues, other school professionals,
and community members to ensure learner growth, and to advance the profession

Students can only benefit when school districts make an effort to connect with families

and community members. This is especially true in a community as small as Perryville. “Parents

are much more likely to become involved when teachers encourage and assist parents to help

their children with schoolwork” (Henderson and Berla, 1994, p. 18). Although Henderson and

Berla mentioned schoolwork specifically, the involvement rarely stops there. As teachers in rural

Alaska, we have to take extra steps with our communities. In about ⅓ of the schools in our

district, there is no on-site principal. In Perryville, for example, our principal lives 500 miles

away- in Anchorage. On top of that, we only have 22 students in the entire school. Because of

this, my community leadership and collaboration looks drastically different than most other

schools in the state and in the U.S. It’s important to note that our inclusion of students and

community members comes naturally to us due to our size- sharing the work really helps. But it

has also helped to strengthen our implementation of National PTA Standards1.

As with many other school districts, my school communicates frequently with the

families of our students. The difference is that we do it all ourselves. We have a text chain using

an app called Remind, a weekly newsletter, monthly community meetings, and quarterly

parent-guardian consultations. Tacking on the occasional Facebook post and radio

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announcement, the teachers in Perryville school are making certain to meet PTA Standard 2,

communicating effectively2.

The Remind app and the weekly newsletter are some of our strongest connections. The

newsletter includes pictures of the past week, a quick update of what we’ve been doing with

the kids, and announcements of upcoming events and scheduling. The Remind app is a

supplement to that. It’s used for morning announcements, reminders for winter gear for outside

activities, and as a quick way for guardians or students to get in contact with us. As Daresh

(1986) points out, “Lines of communication from the community to the school must be opened

as well” (p. 313). Thus, Remind is helpful because communication can go both ways between

anyone with the school code and the teachers. Parents, students, and community members

have the ability to text us at any point in the day. We’ll get the messages like regular texts or on

the Remind website, so we don’t have to have our phones with us all the time. Additionally, as

mentioned above, Facebook and our local VHF radios are always open for communication.

There are also our monthly community meetings with the LSAC, or the Local School

Advisory Committee. (Note: LSAC is Lake and Pen SD’s version of the PTA.) These are official

meetings, with community members elected as president, vice president, treasurer, and

secretary. There are also other seats in the committee meant solely for the purpose of breaking

ties in voting scenarios. At LSAC meetings, certified school staff do not have a vote or a seat “in

power”. This ensures we’re meeting the PTA National Standard 5, sharing power3. Agendas are

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created and posted in advance, so all community members know when and where the meeting

will be. The meetings are open to the public, and topics are up for discussion, meeting PTA

National Standards 14 and 65, but only LSAC members have opportunities to vote in disputes.

During the meetings, either the secretary or a certified staff member takes extensive notes that

are transcribed into official minutes. This committee is a great example of collaborations

between the school staff and community members. Through discussions and shared resources,

the committee has aided in event planning- like school-hosted sports events, holiday potluck

dinners, movie nights, etc.-, policy creations such as COVID mandates, and so much more. There

is almost always something to discuss, but the meetings are held monthly, or more, just to keep

all personnel on the same page.

LSAC meetings, Remind communications, and weekly newsletters are all whole-school

methods of communication between the community and the school. Some of the most

important forms of communication, though, have been the teacher-guardian meetings we have

three times a year. These meetings are scheduled, but often very informal, and are one of many

opportunities guardians have to speak up for their child(ren); PTA standard 46 . They have been

some of the most productive meetings I’ve had as a teacher. In a relaxed setting, I am able to

visibly see parents grow more comfortable in the school, and get involved in their child’s

learning. I have had the opportunity to discuss students at length, with their guardian(s). We

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discuss academics, personal lives, and social lives. Some meetings are quick and direct. Other

meetings, almost always with the elders (which I am honored to be a part of), last longer just

because our conversations flow naturally and continue past the necessary teacher-guardian

communications.

In all of these forms of communication, my coworkers and I do what we can to involve

the student(s) in discussions. Beyond just getting the experience of adult conversations and

meeting PTA standard 37, we want students to feel as though they are being heard and have a

say in their school events. We also, as often as safety allows, give full control to the students.

The three biggest events of the school year are the annual Halloween carnival and haunted

house, the annual holiday pageant, and the annual Valentine’s day dinner. The Halloween

carnival and the valentine’s day dinner are the crowd favorites, and the kids love planning them

all out. We encourage them to do the community collaboration and leadership themselves, and

they’re (almost) always willing. They design their own flyers, plan all food that the village office

or the school district may need to order, and they make all arrangements in the gym for seating

and activities. They have learned to take charge of events and the importance of

communication with their guests. My favorite part, though, is watching their pride and

confidence grow every time an event they planned is successful. They dress up for Halloween,

get fancy for valentine’s day, and show how much more self-assured they can be.

One of the only community events the school planned without a whole lot of help from

the students was our week-long culture camp. I mentioned this event a bit in my discussion

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about Diversity and Differentiation8. This was our first year hosting a culture camp, so my fellow

teachers and I wanted to keep all of the trials and errors, funding and planning, to just a few

hands. We know as the years go and we plan more often, we’ll be more flexible in students

taking charge. That being said, we did not do this alone. Our culture camp was planned with the

help of motivated community members. Thanks to an LSAC member suggesting and putting

together a culture camp committee, we had volunteers and events planned within a month. Our

village office representative was a huge asset, as she assembled almost all of our volunteers. We

had all different community members come into the school each day that week to teach the

kids about different parts of their culture. We had a volunteer for beading and sewing

headdresses, net making, language and more. The most interesting part was that they were all

different ages. We had a former student eager to volunteer for soap carving- she was excellent

with the kids! We had an elder come in to teach us tricks at making the perfect dough for fish

pie. And everywhere in between, parents, aunties, uncles, and cousins, came in to volunteer

with all different crafts.

In the end, all of this is done to gain students' trust, and build a stronger, more

welcoming working environment. Similar to the way their brains work- they learn new

information best when it can be connected to prior knowledge- teachers must “maintain a

number-one priority to motivate students to like and respect their school, and everyone

affiliated with it. That will happen if students are respected, too” (Pawlas, 2005, p. 322).

Students will be more willing and motivated to learn when they feel their families are welcome

and the adults in their lives have a strong and balanced relationship, with the students best

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interests at heart. “Connected students believe their parents, teachers, school staff, and other

students in their school care about them and about how well they are learning.” (CDC, 2009, p.

1)
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References

Center for Disease Control. (2009). Helping your child feel connected to school. National Center

on Safe Supportive Environments.

https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/protective/pdf/connectedness_parents.pdf

Daresh, J. C. (1986). Effective home-school-community relations for secondary school

improvement. The Clearing House, 59(7), 312-315.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/30186554

Henderson, A. T., & Berla, N. (1994). A new generation of evidence: The family is critical to

student achievement. National Committee for Citizens in Education.

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED375968.pdf

Pawlas, George E. (2005). The administrator’s guide to school-community relations (2nd ed.).

edition. Routledge. https://rb.gy/fdcqxy

PTA National Standards for Family-School Partnerships. (2008). National PTA.

https://www.pta.org/docs/default-source/files/programs/national-standards-for-family-

school-partnerships/national_standards_assessment_guide.pdf