2.
3 School-Community Interface
School is rooted in the society and is an agency for the first basic lessons in the process of
socialization. It is a reflection of society; the society directly and indirectly determines the goals
of education and controls and determines all that goes on within the four walls of the institution
called the 'school'. The school is important for its role of socialization, on the other hand, for
determining, foreseeing and preparing students and society for what lies ahead- for today's
generation is tomorrow’s future agents of social change.
Defining Family, School, and Community
A school-community interface can best be understood in terms of a collaboration between all
stakeholders wherein the resources of families and the community through collaboration with
schools becomes essential for developing comprehensive, multifaceted programs and services.
What do the terms family, school and communities entail?
Families: It is important to ensure that all who live in an area are represented including but not
limited to, representatives of organized family groups with the aim to mobilize all the human
and social capital represented by the family members. This gives strength to the concept of the
neighbourhood schools.
Schools: This includes all institutionalized entities that are responsible for formal education
(e.g. Pre-primary, primary, elementary and secondary) the aim being to draw on the resources
of these institutions.
Communities: This encompasses all the other resources (public and private money, facilities,
human and social capital that can be brought to the table at each level (e.g. health and social
service agencies, unions, businesses, recreation, cultural and youth development groups,
libraries. justice and law enforcement, religious community institutions, service clubs, media,
institutions, all stakeholders, parks, etc.).
What are school-community partnerships?
One recent resource defines a school-community partnership as: "An intentional effort to
create and sustain relationships among a school or school district and a variety of both formal
and informal organizations and institutions in the community. (Melaville & Blank, 1998).
This partnership implies:
• a formal contractual relationship to pursue a common purpose with each partner’s roles and
obligations clearly defined. In the case of schools and communities, partnerships may be
established to enhance programs by increasing availability and access and filling gaps.
• The partnership may involve use of school or neighbourhood facilities and equipment,
sharing resources, fund raising volunteer services, mentoring and training from
professionals and others with special expertise, information sharing and dissemination,
networking, recognition and public relations.
• Mutual support, shared responsibility for planning, implementation, and evaluation of
programs and services, building and maintaining infrastructure, expanding opportunities for
assistance, community service, jobs, internships, recreation, enrichment, enhancing safety,
shared celebrations, building a sense of community.
School-community partnerships can weave together a critical mass of 'resources’ and
'strategies' to enhance caring communities that support all youth and their families and enable
success at school and beyond. Strong school-community connections are critical since they
represent a promising direction for generating essential interventions to address barriers to
learning, enhance healthy development and strengthen families and neighbourhoods. This kind
of partnership requires an enlightened vision, creative leadership and new multifaceted roles
for the head teacher.
Why School-Community Interface?
It is increasingly being felt that schools, families, and communities should work, closely
with each other to be effective and to achieve their mutual goals. Schools are located in
communities and are not islands with no bridges to the mainland. Obviously, schools have been
more successful in accomplishing good things. The schools have contributed to moral
understanding and socialization among students. Success in these areas has been quite frequent
and significant. School experiences are held to outweigh the influence of the home in the areas
like reducing some types of group prejudices, negative beliefs and intolerance towards other
religious and races. In view of the crumbling structure of the joint family system, socio-
emotional-psychological problems arising out of the stresses of modern day living, single
parenting, violence, increasing incidence of sexual, physical and emotional abuse amongst
children, the state of transition and, at times, flux in society requires that all institutions and all
stakeholders work in close connection. Each problem is linked with the other. posing barriers
to teaching-learning, parenting and socialization. As a consequence of this, simplistic and
single factor solutions cannot work. An interface between them becomes important and
imperative for the following reasons
• to enable schools to improve
• to improve academic outcomes and achievement for students
• strengthening families and the neighbourhood to reduce student's problems or at least
ensure an effective handling of the problems
• to enhance effectiveness of schools
• to increase parental involvement in school projects and decision-making
• to provide a comprehensive, multifaceted and integrated transition from school to society
and a continuum of interventions
• designing intervention to reducing social problems e.g., drugs, school gang activities,
violence, bullying, smoking, alcohol, etc.
• to help the school take decisions about the environment e.g., parks, garbage collection,
disposal, recycling, community libraries, community halls and services, polluting units,
commercialization of housing, industrial and educational areas, etc. Adequate social
pressure in this regard can also result in effective legislation in these areas.
Schools are more effective and caring places when they are an integral part of the
community. Reciprocally, families and other community entities can enhance parenting,
socialization, and strengthen the fabric of the family and the community life by working in
partnership with schools.
Families and communities are mutually dependent. The family and its institutional and
personal fabric make up the community while at the same time community conditions affect
the way families function. What strengthens one, strengthens the other. We will try to
understand the dimensions of this relationship further in the discussion below.
Family-School-Community Partnership
What Drives Schools to Collaborate?
Researches have shown that wherever there have been attempts to connect schools and
communities there has been an improvement of results for school, students, families and
neighborhood. Research also indicates that family-community engagement shows positive
effects on the following:
Attendance Improvement in teacher as well as student attendance has been reported in schools
ensuring community involvement suggest& greater teacher and student accountability
Drop-out rates Schools reported lower drop-out rates significantly.
High risk behaviours Disruptive behaviour in the classroom substance abuse and an overall
improvement in student behaviour in general has been reported. Students felt and reported a
higher sense of adult support both from parents and teachers resulting in less out of home
placement, lower rate of child abuse, better child, development practices and improved social
relationships.
