Governance is an important part of community engagement. There is tremendous variability throughout the district in how community people are engaged in governance of their schools. Language in our report is important. Words are crude symbols that point to some idea or construct. Some words are value-laden.
Communication is essential.
There are currently no easy and commonly understood ways toshare information from the communities to the schools and from the schools to the communities. Sharing information among schools is sometimes problematic. There is a tension between the autonomy that each school has to chart its own course and the district's accountability to the public. The rationale offered for this method of operation is that individual schools can be more responsive to and reflective of the communities that they serve. We agreed that before our next meeting, each of us would generate a list of community engagement activities that we knew were somehow being effective.