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Most of our work centers around improving and strengthening the effectiveness and useful role of each of these five elements. They are present in every organizational arena, group setting, and individual exchange. More than twenty years of study went into defining and understanding their impact on community engagement.
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Hope
Hope is too frequently overlooked, but it is the core foundation of every parent engagement reason, effort, and lasting result. We all have hope for the successes of the students. Teachers work every day based on the promise of that hope. Parents send their children to school based on hope. Parents meet with teachers and attend school meeting, events, and functions because of hope - hoping their presence will make a difference. Hope is the one thing everybody can agree on and unify around. We all have the same hope for the education process. |
Collective Vision
When leaders are truly serving the group, they will wrestle through the many issues and wants that surround the group and arrive at a purpose for the group to fulfill. This is the "vision" of the group and gives everyone involved a central reason to contribute. There will always be many lesser visions and wants within the group, but when consensus is needed, it is the central vision that holds everyone together. But, it must also be collective. It must draw new members to it and keep them involved. This is not easy. But it is essential. |
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Leadership As a Service
Leadership is about unifying others around a common hope and then influencing the group's relational momentum. Getting others, who we are in some form of relationship with, to move in a certain direction creates momentum - a force that seeks to continue in that direction. Well, things change. New wants arise, friction slows things down, and energy wanes. Leaders must serve the group - doing whatever is needed to provide the group its better momentum. Strengthen a good direction, nudge things forward, or throw things in reverse. The essence of great leadership comes down to providing the right and selfless influences to create a "best" outcome for the sake of the group. When these motives are strongly in place, people flock to participate, and momentum grows. |
A Learning Culture
A learning culture embraces the invitation of "I don't know..." and creates an encouraging trend of discovery. What can be done? Who is in charge? What does this mean for next year's students? What works? What doesn't? What's been tried before? Thriving parent engagement groups constantly explore new ideas, new ways to reach across language barriers, new concerns, new curriculum, new funding sources for new programs, and new legislation. Learning cultures defeat ignorance. People who humbly seek new knowledge end up open-minded, listening, and creative. Learning provides improvement on a perpetual basis. Learning provides relevance, accuracy, responsiveness, innovation, rationale, and consensus. People love to participate where these attributes are strong. |
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Inclusive Communications
When everything else is working properly, the element of communication can make or break it all. Clarity of message, full information, full distribution, and providing enough time to respond, are all crucial factors that must be managed successfully. Good intentions and good ideas are great, but then we trust an eight-year old to get the flyer home and many parents never get the message. In many schools, translation into alternative languages needs to be provided. This doesn't mean thirty-one different versions of the same flyer in every backpack, but it may mean sending an email to a volunteer translator and asking them to create a new version for those parents who want it. This takes more "lead time" and complicates things, but to ignore those parents is grossly irresponsible to the future of their children. This is why we teach ways to create fast-flowing communication distribution processes, strategic use of various media and technologies, and a closed-loop assessment practice to confirm excellent message conveyance. After all, if parents are not receiving AND understanding the message, they are not being engaged. |