Mrs. Hamel’s Blog

“Schools, families and communities all contribute to student success, and the best results come when all three work together.”
Connecticut State Board of Education, Position Statement on School-Family-Community Partnerships

The school-family-community partnerships component is defined by collaborative programs involving school personnel, families, community members and organizations to support student success. Partners work together in planning, coordinating and implementing activities at home, at school and in the community to support the academic, emotional, and social success of students. Using the term partnership rather than involvement is important because it helps to capture the concept that home, school, and community share responsibility for children—schools, families, and communities as overlapping spheres of influence in children’s lives (Epstein,1995). Students also play an important role in these partnerships and must take responsibility for their own learning. Each partner is viewed as an equally contributing member, maintaining a certain independence while acknowledging shared responsibility. To succeed, the partnership must be flexible and based on mutual trust and respect. (US Department of Education)

A healthy school environment affects the well-being of students. This includes the emotional and social conditions. The term “school climate” is often used to refer to these conditions. A measure of the quality of school climate is the students’ feeling of safety and connectedness to their school. In a positive and healthy school climate, students feel close to the people there, they are happy to be there, feel a part of their school, believe teachers treat them fairly, and feel personally safe while at school. Intellectual safety is a subset of emotional safety and refers to students’ comfort when they take intellectual risks such as asking questions, making comments, joining groups, and choosing to study difficult topics. Students who attend schools with a positive, respectful climate are able to focus on learning and realize their academic and interpersonal potential (U.S. Department of Education, 1999).