Blog 4: Businesses + Schools = Partnerships

Blog 4:   School -Business Relationships are beneficial  Chapter 5 & 6
Creative Connector and Rigorous Researcher by Melissa Rife


Creative Connector
pg. 73 "principals generally assigned a coordinator to serve as the key communicator with their business partners to ensure that agreed upon goals and expectations are realized, reciprocity is maintained , and communication is continuous."
I picked this passage from chapter five because it reminds me of our Community Coordinator  at our school. She works with small local businesses, schools, local colleges, and The Jewish Confederation. She works diligently to create and keep these partnerships which help foster a great relationship between them and our students. For example, we have a partnership with Harley School in creating school gardens at both schools. Our students work with Harley student's to create and maintain gardens that cultivate food. 

pg. 77"As trite as it may sound, it does "take a village," but you may need to put the village together yourself."
This quote at the end of the chapter was really speaking to principals at schools who are the glue that keeps schools together.  But I particularly liked this quote because these words were just spoken to me at our Professional Development this past Friday. My principal was reminding us that we all need to come together and work together to raise these children for their future.


pg. 80"They recognized  that treating support personnel as fellow professionals and personally communicate their appreciation goes a long was toward ensuring consistent, positive responsiveness and performance." 
This passage is so true. It is very important that you take care of and respect the office staff and the maintenance staff in your school.  We need to take time to say thank you for cleaning up the throw-up, taking out the garbage, cleaning the bathrooms, typing a memo, printing off a paper, and talking to a parent for us.  The people behind the scenes do more in preparing our school for students then we do in preparing our rooms. Its important to extend an extra thank you to all that do the stuff we don't.


Rigorous Researcher

This was a difficult task this week because the chapters were short and there were not many new terms that needed rigorous researching. I chose a couple of words that are familiar to most. 

No Child Left Behind (NCLB):To close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind.
 http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/states/index.html

Networking: 

–noun 1.a supportive system of sharing information and services among individuals and groups having a common interest: Working mothers in the community use networking to help themselves manage successfully.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Networking

I chose this word "Networking" because the chapters focused on how as a school and as a Principal it is so important to network within your school district and outside your district. Contacting local businesses and big corporations can help your school tremendously.