School's Relationships With The Community: Role Of The School Leader

School`s Relationship With The Community Name Institution School`s Relationship With The Community The development of any community or nation depends on education.Schools on their own have no adequate means of preparing students for the future and neither can the community independently achieve the same purpose. For both sides to benefit mutually from the other, collaboration is necessary between the two. It is only by integrating with the community that the schools can effectively tend to the needs of the students, the staff and families. On the part of the community, schools make it easier for families and youths to access services and various aids through linking them with the relevant agencies. Therefore, the school-community relationship plays a vital role in the provision of quality education, development of the community and improving the state of families and thus should be encouraged. The importance of school and community relationship goes back to the historical times where school was charged with the responsibility of producing obedient and skilled citizens to the society. Whereas emphasis was placed on concentrating on the practical side of learning, Tozer, Violas and Senese (2012) believed in focusing on the theory. Essentially, both the theoretical and practical aspects were applied in the education system of that time. For example, apart from the normal school training the youths were also required to take part in extra curricula activities such as gymnastics and wrestling to prepare them to defend their states from external attacks. This training was also supposed to be in preparation of joining the military in order to serve the nation. Overall, this meant that schools were used as the avenues of raising the youths in such a way that they would be useful members of society. Inarguably, it is hard for the school and community to exist without the other if quality education is to be achieved. These are sentiments echoed by Gonzalez (2018) who agrees that none can operate in isolation. It is true that the organization of a society is largely dependent on the quality of education provided in school. Logically, the main idea of having schools in the first place is to help address the specific needs and problems of a community. Therefore, the life of the student`s social environment has to be reflected in the curriculum for the school to achieve its intended purpose and for the education to be considered valuable. In the end, a good education system is reflected through producing a good society where members are equipped with the necessary skills to contribute to the development of the community. On the same note, a good society contributes to providing a good school system through offering opportunities for practical experience, career opportunities or access to other facilities outside school. Therefore, even though both have a responsibility to each other, the school has the major role of aligning its curriculum in a way that can directly benefit the whole community and the nation at large. School-community relationship helps in the development of the community by making available important services. Agencies outside the school system plus other social reformers usually target to help needy children or struggling families in a bid to improve their lives (Stefanski, Valli&Jacobson, 2016).To achieve this, the school setting provides the appropriate environment to reach out to these groups. The services commonly offered are those related to public health and women empowerment programs among others. Usually the government acts through these agencies and social reform groups to reach out to the poor people in the communities and provide other necessary services. The provision of these services is done either on normal school days or on weekends and holiday time when the classrooms are not in use. Recent years have seen many schools make partnerships with organizations to provide health and social services in an effort to involve the community in a way that is beneficial to both the society and individuals. The Children`s Aids Society is one such example of an organization that has partnered with various schools. A study by Walsh et al (2014) found that indeed the academic life of students, the overall state of the school, and the conditions of families significantly improved due to these partnerships. This improvement is attributed to the fact that through working together in addressing the health issues and attending to the community`s well-being, the stakeholders get to interact more often and thus a close working relationship is established. Closely related to providing community services the school and community relationship also helps to strengthen family relations. As Stefanski, Valli and Jacobson (2016) note, struggling families and students can gain much help through the collaboration between the school and community. According to the research, the overall development of children was linked to the involvement of the family in school affairs. Parents make up the family and hence the community and pare...