Schools That Learn - Community

Last week I had a great conversation with Diana, Melissa and Bette about Schools That Learn. Our conversation focused in on the Community section of the book. Each of us come from vastly different schools; however, what we saw was that we each have problems in our school that could be addressed by the community.

My school is by far the worst of the three, so a great deal of the conversation focused on my school. One of the biggest problems that we pointed out was that my school doesn't have a any established community to speak of. Diana spoke about how she had an abundance of community members come to her school...that could never happen in my school. Who would they ask? The crack dealer on the corner? When we have guests in my school, unfortunately they're usually very poorly received, and they often do not return. I can't say that I blame them.

I remember back to my first year there. I had one kid that was so different than the rest. I wanted to call his parents and tell them to move to a new community, because I was afraid that this community was going to ultimately destroy their son.