ShareThisDear CC!,
Our school wants to get the community on board and involved with our CC! endeavors. Do you have any creative suggestions on how to do this?
Signed,
Looking for Support
* * *
Dear Looking for Support,
We’re always happy to hear about school-community partnerships. Recruiting the support of parents, local businesses, and public agencies is a great way to reinforce the Six Pillars off-campus. It also opens the door to a variety of fundraising opportunities. (Here are a few ideas on that score.)
“In my district our superintendent formed a CHARACTER COUNTS! community coalition,” says Mary Jo Enyeart, a longtime teacher and CC! coordinator in the Los Angeles area. “She invited key members of the community to come to a meeting to hear just what CC! was all about and to share with others what was going on in the schools. She invited the library, city council, police and fire departments, parks and recreation, youth sports and some of the business and service groups in our town to be part of this coalition.” This group now meets several times a year to share ideas and come up with new ways of working together.
Some of the most popular school-community partnership projects are art and essay contests, community clean-up events, and youth character awards programs. Typically, students and teachers take the lead and community groups offer financial or other support.
Let us know if this helps or if you need further assistance. The National Office is always available to help.
Comments
As a community resource, the Mighty Eighth is also putting together a community coalition. Time and organization seem to be the easy part of that. Locally, our biggest problem seems to be getting parents involved. They are so busy these days and often, the parents who NEED to be involved just aren’t interested. Does anyone have practical ideas for overcoming this barrier? It’s a BIG one.
Brenda, the character counts program was integrated into the curriculum at my High School and I intend to take it into my classroom when I finish college and begin teaching next year. I think perhapse having an assembly at the beginning or end of the year where each student will have a small speaking roll where they will say a character trait that their mom and/or dad, or guardian demonstrates often and why it is important to them and how it influences them. It would be a small speaking part and each kid would go one by one, but a parent knowing theat their kid will be speaking at an assembly, and about them no less, will probably bring the parents in the door. Hearing how their actions do influence their kids may help spark their interest in the program and open the door for telling them about upcoming events and programs they can help out with.
Grand idea Kim! One school I know of actually “honors” parents at their assemblies. Students nominate their parents and the parents are recognized along with the kids at Good Citizenship Assemblies as well as their pictures in the main office along side their student and the pillar they exemplify. Also, there are many teachable moments to get parents involved. We have lots of parent information materials on our website http://www.charactercounts.org and our online catalog. I have done trainings specifically for parents. I called it WHAT’S A PARENT TO DO?. offered child care and a raffle along with dessert. They came out of the woodwork. Most parents want to help their kids but lack the resources. It becomes our job as educators to help them which in turn helps all of us to make the world a better place. Don’t you agree? If you still need more ideas contact our National Office. Program Specialists are there to help.