The Ohio Community Collaboration Model
Now more than ever, schools must recognize that they are not autonomous. Rather we are collaborative partners with families, business, churches, and community agencies on the collective mission to educate our children. It should be our goal, all of us in this room, to work together to help prepare the children of our community to meet the challenges they will face in their post-secondary employment, school, or military careers. We must help them be ready to tackle the issues that not only our community, but our nation, and our country are going to be facing in this next generation and beyond. The Ohio Community Collaboration Model has so aptly discovered that essentially, no longer may we, the school alone, be responsible for the academic
success and the healthy development of our youth. The responsibility for these achievements must be owned by all community stakeholders, not just be educators. As they discovered in Ohio, and elsewhere, the vitality of the community depends on the academic success of our children (The Ohio Community Collaboration Model for School Improvement, 2010). These students are our future leaders, business owners, policemen, politicians, and yes, teachers. It is such an amazing first step that we are gathered here today to learn about each other's expectations, investment, and availability. It is time for each of to learn that we are interdependent, and that we must work together if we want to see improved results. As an educator, I am chagrined to admit that I have been entrenched in the school world for so long, that I have forgotten that you- the local leaders, employers and service agency personnel, in my community- are not outsiders. Jamie Vollmer, a leader in this collaborative movement has also fallen prey to this missed opportunity. Mr. Vollmer discovered and stated when he first tried to bulldoze into the process of fixing schools without input from the community that, “The problem, of course, is that the people of the community are not outsiders. [That he] was not dealing with a privately held corporation. When it comes to public education, everyone is a shareholder. [You] pay taxes. [You] have opinions. And [you] are all eligible to express [your] opinions at the ballot box” (Vollmer, 2010, p. 101). We all have a vested interest in the future of our children. According Rutgers Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Project, there is a four step process to actively start the collaboration process (Rutgers, 2009)
success and the healthy development of our youth. The responsibility for these achievements must be owned by all community stakeholders, not just be educators. As they discovered in Ohio, and elsewhere, the vitality of the community depends on the academic success of our children (The Ohio Community Collaboration Model for School Improvement, 2010). These students are our future leaders, business owners, policemen, politicians, and yes, teachers. It is such an amazing first step that we are gathered here today to learn about each other's expectations, investment, and availability. It is time for each of to learn that we are interdependent, and that we must work together if we want to see improved results. As an educator, I am chagrined to admit that I have been entrenched in the school world for so long, that I have forgotten that you- the local leaders, employers and service agency personnel, in my community- are not outsiders. Jamie Vollmer, a leader in this collaborative movement has also fallen prey to this missed opportunity. Mr. Vollmer discovered and stated when he first tried to bulldoze into the process of fixing schools without input from the community that, “The problem, of course, is that the people of the community are not outsiders. [That he] was not dealing with a privately held corporation. When it comes to public education, everyone is a shareholder. [You] pay taxes. [You] have opinions. And [you] are all eligible to express [your] opinions at the ballot box” (Vollmer, 2010, p. 101). We all have a vested interest in the future of our children. According Rutgers Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Project, there is a four step process to actively start the collaboration process (Rutgers, 2009)