Baron's facilitative leadership approach to school constituency collaboration

Baron offers a plethora of prudent advice for moving school constituencies from connecting to collaborating. It is essential to note that the first step in doing so is to effectively connect with school constituents. The author identifies the primary constituency groups as faculty, community members and parents, and students. Therefore, it is invaluable to those attempting to collaborate with these individuals to meet with them and share the vision of the school and its learning process for students with all of these groups.

The author explicates the fact that the most efficacious way of meeting with constituents is to adopt a facilitative approach in which school representatives express their genuine concern for students and their learning process. Moreover, those representatives should also acknowledge the fact that constituents can significantly enhance such a process due to their respective roles that they play in interacting with students. For teachers, that role is to actively implement the various values that the school has regarding its pedagogy and process for learning. Parents have an innate pulse on their children's strengths and weaknesses and can be utilized to optimize the former and minimize the latter. The students, of course, can provide direct feedback into their own unique issues with the school and its processes.

Once school representatives connect with these various members, they can begin collaborating with them by first denoting the goal of such a collaboration -- which is a reciprocal arrangement that is mutually beneficial to both parties. Collaboration involves listening to all parties and being receptive to providing unusual situations which may fit the particular circumstances. Another crucial aspect of collaboration that Baron stressed is that the constituents (as well as the school representatives) will be held accountable to a specific form of behavior during collaboration. This helps to give the relationships and collaborations a form of structure that will enable t to proceed within set boundaries that are advantageous to the students. However, it is important to recall that of all the advice Baron disseminates in Facilitative leadership: from connecting to collaborating" the most important to heed is "articulating the shared vision, beliefs, and goals that the community holds dear" (p. 58) and framing them in a way that is relevant to each of the individual groups of constituents.

The principle way that I can personally apply Baron's advice to my internship is to first of all be totally cognizant of the goals of the particular learning center in which I will be working. Doing so will require not only seeking out literature regarding the institution's objectives and discussing them with various faculty members, but also ascertaining them from the surrounding community as well. These community members include parents, students, and others in the neighborhood that regularly interact with the students. Once I have ascertained the particular ends that need to be met, I can then apply Baron's advice by practicing facilitative leadership.