Developing and Maximizing Community Partnerships and Resources

We have a community rich in resources and good intentions; many companies and individuals are willing to help our schools.  There are barriers, however, to translating good intentions in to sustainable help at our schools.  What is keeping those resources from consistently, efficiently and effectively benefiting our students? 

Good intentions become frustrated when there is not a system in place to effectively “connect the dots” between willing community partners and the needs at the school sites. Unfortunately a lot of good will has been squandered in the past because there is not a clear point of contact (at the schools, at the District) and because the school sites lack the capacity to consistently follow-through and nurture these partnerships.  

Some schools have been more successful than others at pulling in community resources and connecting them with school needs, but even those schools struggle in the absence of a District-wide system designed to support community partnership.

Our IIPK Action Team will:

• Look at models used successfully in other communities.
• Gather input from school administrators, district staff, parents and the community (businesses, congregations, cultural institutions, individuals) about what an effective community-school partnership support structure would look like in our community.
• Support efforts to pilot the “community schools” model at Washington and other PUSD school sites.
• Turn consensus into support (financial, political, institutional) for putting a practical, sustainable District-wide system in place.