Row 1:Jessica Wallace (NNPS Key Contact),
Liz Flynn (Executive Director of Student Achievement), Lorraine Landon (NNPS Key Contact).
Row 2:Dr. Dennis Maguire (Associate Superintendent), Bill Leggett (School Board President), Saul Martinez (School Board Member), Sergio Jara (School Board Student Representative), Sherry Lancon (School Board Member), Saundra Hill (Superintendent), John Hergert (School Board Member), Pete Felsted (School Board Member).
District-Level Leadership for Partnerships
Pasco School District, a diverse and growing system, is a two-year Partnership District Award winner, with all 16 schools linked together in a local network and with NNPS. The district serves many minority (73%) and low-income students (71%), but leaders are making family and community involvement part of the district culture. One of many district leadership activities in 2008 was enriching Community Guest Speakers at Quarterly ATP Chair Cluster Meetings. Members of ATPs from all of the schools attend these professional development sessions to improve partnership programs three times a year and at a summer retreat. They discuss their progress, challenges, gather new ideas and information, and write their next One-Year Action Plan for Partnerships.
Last summer, leaders of the Boys and Girls Club asked if they could make a presentation on services and opportunities for local families. District leaders decided to include this kind of helpful and collaborative arrangement in other ATP cluster meetings by dedicating the final 30 minutes of the meetings to presentations from outside speakers. This year, that included the Mid-Columbia Public Library, LIGO Hanford Observatory, Pasco Police Department, Pasco Vision Clinic, among others. The presentations led to active partnerships with area schools, including field trips and other academic and wellness programs.
Facilitation of Schools’ ATPs
The district leaders organized a summer retreat for ATP chairpersons, including new and experienced leaders who had chaired their teams for up to 3 years. The half-day session featured breakfast and a series of brief presentations from the district leaders and from veteran ATP chairs about how to lead a team, using the “ABCs of Leadership” from the NNPS Handbook as a guide. The whole group discussed the challenges involved with delegating responsibilities to different ATP members – a task that veteran chairs agreed is a difficult but important leadership skill. The ATP members contributed ideas for delegating positions for a team scribe, publicity chair, time keeper, host, and subcommittee chair.
Every school now has co-chairs of the ATP to strengthen leadership. They discussed the challenges and best practices for sharing leadership effectively. The district leaders created a list of ATP Chair Tasks, outlining monthly responsibilities of team leaders. Invited community speakers also participated at the summer retreat. The five-hour workshop for ATP co-chairs helped identify many ways to strengthen leadership for partnerships in all schools in the district.
See Pasco’s Partnership District Award in 2007 and examples of Promising Partnership Practices on the website, www.partnershipschools.org, in the section Success Stories. To learn more about this district’s work on school, family, and community partnerships, visit http://www.psd1.org.