Week 7: Reading Blog - Valerie

Building Mutually –Beneficial Relationships Between Schools and Communities: The Role of a Connector by Dacia Chrzanowski, Susan Rans, and Raymond Thompson.

The article started off with how many neighborhood schools that are not magnet schools, charter schools, contract schools, or small schools end up with a negative reputation. The neighborhood schools have higher dropout and lower graduation rates. There are many reasons that contribute to cause of the higher dropout rate and lower graduation rates. One of the causes is the poor relationship/distrust between the school and the residents living in the same community. The article indicated that there was research that showed that a positive relationship in between the school and community is needed for a higher success rate in academics. The positive relationship builds up trust and cooperation among students, parents, teachers, school administrators, and community residents. With a positive relationship in between the school and the community, a holistic environment can be provided to the students and they will have a sense of safety while living or commuting to the neighborhood school. At the same time, the positive relationship will allow the students to be exposed in the community and learn something through school and community collaborations. One would ask how someone can bridge the gap between a neighborhood school and community.
That was the case for a town, Auburn Gresham in the South Side of Chicago and a neighborhood school, Calumet High School. The school was in need of a tremendous turnaround due to its high dropout rate and violence. While the story of a failing school is not uncommon, Chicago was facing the worst case scenario when then Secretary of Education, William Bennett declared its schools to be the "worst in the nation" in 1988. Evidently, changes needed to be made. From that time on to early 1990s, reforms were implemented to allow local communities and schools to have the power to make decisions that will allow students to increase student performance. Those reforms did not work out until No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 started to hold public school distracts accountable for the schools' performance. With the increased accountability, Chicago Public Schools administrators have to bring in the bigger gun to overturn the operations. They summoned Perspectives, a successful Charter School operator to take over Calumet High. That was perceived to be an issue because Perspectives was an outsider and they had no connections with the residents in Auburn Gresham community. That was where the community connector, Ray Thompson, came in to build relationships between the school and the community based on the resources that were available within the community, not outside it.
What it takes to build a stable foundation "in neighborhoods are asset-based, internally-focused, and relationship-driven." A community connector or connector can assist with all of that. A connector is the network person, the facilitator, the supporter for everyone, the listener, and retains a capability to bring two worlds together in a community. In this case, Calumet High School and Auburn Gresham needed help bridging the gap to allow the school to become successful and excel from an academic perspective. Ray worked hard to build up the relationship in Auburn Gresham and after a long period of networking, the community was slowly but surely giving back by providing internships or volunteer opportunities with local businesses and safety measures were implemented by the residents in the community. Calumet High School gave back by providing their building as a central location for meetings with community residents and developed a recycling program within the community to name some.
Four criteria a connector should have are the following:
·         The ability to listen for possibilities
·         The ability to see where the connections are
·         The talent to make these connections
·         The trust of the community
In addition to those four criteria, Ray recommended that a connector should have a "natural curiosity about people, values relationship above and beyond what a relationship can produce, and rely on residents for information and learn how residents use information to benefit themselves."
I found this article really interesting. I now am wondering if I will ever consider a social work career on a macro level because I like the idea of being a connector and working with everyone because everything could be a lot easier if everyone works together. I can see how much investment it will take to build up relationships with everyone in the community and that will make a big difference in a community. I respect Ray Thompson for having the skills to build relationships and successfully build connections between Auburn Gresham and Calumet High School and have a successful outcome in the end. It is evident by the work from Ray with Auburn Gresham and Calumet High School, Bethel New Life in Chicago, and Dudley Street in Boston that outsiders taking over a task within a community do not work. While Bethel New Life and Dudley Street did not have connectors, they have proven that outsiders invading in a community do not work well for anyone. They show that hard work within the community will allow the community to grow and become successful.
If you could be a connector, what are the two areas you want to close the gap on and why is that important to you? How do you think you will really feel if an outsider comes in and invade your community? What will your approach be with the outsider, whether a connector or not?