Collaborative Action Teams for school improvement and community engagement

Organizational Development

Strategy recommended

The position of the school is such that it requires complete collaboration between the family members, school personnel, community representatives and the students of the school through the formation of a Collaborative Action Team. Any progress in the development of the school requires the direct assistance from all these groups and the assistance from the group has to continue for a period of years for the school to really get into a better situation. The collaboration required from them is continuous adherence to the CAT process and attending the majority of the meetings and agree to continue the collaboration in the future. (Collaborative Action Team Process: Bringing home, school, community, and students together to improve results for children and families)

In earlier cases this process has been taken up in 23 project sites in the Southwestern Region and in those experiments, a number of specific targets were reached for both the students and their families. Improvements have taken place in the performance of students in terms of scores achieved, attendance recorded, and improvements in graduation and dropout rates. The full targets have not been realized and may take more time for achievement. Apart from time, the requirement is for attention and support for these schools but the structure of the existing system has to continue as also the collaboration between all the parties involved. (Collaborative Action Team Process: Bringing home, school, community, and students together to improve results for children and families)

In the beginning

The difficulties that the students and the employees of the school face is one of lack of self-esteem and one of the best methods for solving it would be to involve the students with activities of the society directly. This will bring them directly in touch with the outside, real world and instill changes in them with their learning through experiences. The society outside will also experience benefits through the work done by the students and thus the society will start valuing the school more. The entire process of service learning will help the individuals in the area where the students will serve, but, apart from that it will improve the self-esteem of the students, develop higher order thinking skills in them, make better use of their different capabilities, and give the students genuine learning experiences. These are also the general principles of education today. (Characteristics of Service Learning)

The projects for service learning can be viewed from different angles, but the general aim is to address them from the angle of helping the needs of the community which arise due to health, poverty, social issues or even the environment. An area which is suited to the locality can be chosen. There may also be community based activities in which the students do not have to come in direct touch with the others in society and this may be projects to document local history or culture through interviews, archival research, photography or any other methods. None of these activities provide any direct assistance to students or even any individuals outside, but help the community as a whole and build in them a sense of pride and develop a sense of identity.

In certain cases, even teaching other students, or even tutoring students of lower grades are viewed as service learning, as there is one group of students helping others. This may be required in this school as there is a shortage of teachers, and this causes difficulty in teaching some classes. The location of the service activity depends on the nature of the activity, and if it is student mentoring or peer tutoring, it can take place in the classes themselves. In other cases, the work involves going outside the school. Some activities may be occasional activities like a neighborhood cleanup. Other activities may be repeated. Here the activity chosen should bring the students in touch with the outside society, so that the value of the school is known to the locals. (Characteristics of Service Learning)

Major changes in activities recommended

It has been mentioned that there will be a CAT to guide all action that is taken, and it would be their responsibility to decide on what action is taken. The type of action to be taken has been recommended to be a process of service learning, but the nature of service that is to be taken up will have to be decided by the CAT, and no recommendation will be made from outside. The improvement to education of students is enormous and the students can get many types of authentic learning through service learning and these may be hands on, interdisciplinary, shift to an attitude of problem solving and critical thinking. These are directly grounded in the experience of students and relevant to their daily life and work. This is what the experts have been asking for and has been pointed out by the Carnegie Council on adolescent development as "Youth service can teach young people values for citizenship, including compassion, regard for human worth and dignity, tolerance and appreciation of human diversity, and a desire for social justice. Youth service also teaches students skills for work such as collaboration, problem solving, and conflict resolution." (Cautions and Concerns: Benefits of service learning)

Many organizations like the School at the Center project at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln has been helping students through some projects. One is for students in two school districts who are studying methods for the residents of rural areas in the locality to save energy through the use of wind power and energy efficient buildings. Projects like this will help the school and the students become popular with the residents of the area.

Period required for implementation

The question of time that has to be looked at is not for the formation of the CAT. That can be done in an important meeting called for all the individuals involved, but the members of the CAT have to become comfortable in working with each other. What one has to look at is the entire system to reach the collaborative partnership to start taking effect and for it to start improving the students and their families in a way that can become visible. It requires a certain amount of collaboration and that does not happen immediately. When time will pass, it will be seen that collaboration will improve. In the entire process, it took roughly one school year for the team members to realize that significant progress had been made in the implementation of the CAT process and for short-term goals to be realized. (Collaborative Action Team Process: Bringing home, school, community, and students together to improve results for children and families)

The fundamental need for time is to let the different individuals establish the required relationships, build the trust and networks among themselves as also the outside sources. These are required for the collaboration to exists and continue. In an effort of this nature, there is always an element of conflict between the different parties, as they all feel that the other party is responsible for the unhappy situation. These are the biggest challenges for them to work together, but in the cases earlier, they have shown that these challenges could be overcome. One of the main supporting factors for this was the growth that occurred to the individual members of the team at individual levels. This was helped by those members who were trained as Action Team facilitators.

The students and parents felt the change and the increase in power as members of the team, and thus worked as equal decision makers in the process. This increase and development was one of the main reasons why the process succeeds in making changes. Over a period of time, they also took over the leadership roles that were earlier being handled by the leaders of the school or community. The administrators in the school were also able to see the changes that occurred in the school after sometime, and this led to a situation where they also begin to support the changes that are being tried for. However time alone cannot lead to success, the other important factors are consistency in team structure, good leadership, shared responsibility, cohesion among the members, support from the members for the joint effort, and representative nature of the members. They also have to take action. (Collaborative Action Team Process: Bringing home, school, community, and students together to improve results for children and families)

When will the changes be seen?

It is difficult to say which change will come first, but the changes will start coming after one year as stated earlier. The nature of changes is expected to be positive.