Bellingham School District Strategic Plan includes the following:
Goal 3: Engage families and community in student learning.
Vision of Success: The Bellingham School District collaborates with community members and all families to build mutually supportive home and school cultures that enhance each student’s achievement.
Target Objective 1: Develop strategies for authentic family engagement and joint accountability that result in successful and complementary learning at home and at school.
Target Objective 2: Keep parents/guardians continuously engaged so each student experiences a successful transition from elementary to middle to high school and beyond.
Target Objective 3: Create structures to support families and students whose primary language is not English.
Target Objective 4: Provide a variety of opportunities for every family to access and use current and accurate student data.
Target Objective 5: Build community partnerships to raise adequate resources to support high achievement of all students.
Target Objective 6: Create partnerships with community members to support students in meeting the graduation requirement of completing a culminating project
http://www.bham.wednet.edu/district/strategic-engage.htm
It is interesting to look at the terms and phrases embedded in this BSD charge: Engage parents and community, provide opportunities for parental and community involvement, provide access, build/create partnerships with community members and families, to name but a few.
Considering the fact that the current BSD [Bellingham School District] strategic plan names and actively publishes this key charge [1 of only 3] as a mechanism to guide all decision-making, the Bellingham community really must ask the question: Why are there not parents or community members at the decision-making table for the future of Whatcom Middle School—and to represent the potential impact of the WMS situation on every other school system within the BSD? The 2-year WMS plan and decision-making meeting(s) are to be held in the week of January 4th-8th at the Roeder Bldg. Who determined the stake-holders—and why are the families and the community not at the table when our district website clearly articulates the value and importance of parental and community input?
In other words: Despite repeated requests, WHO is deliberately shutting/shooing the parents and community members out of the dialogue—and importantly, WHY?
When is the Bellingham School Board and the District office going to stand up for the vital premises they claim to uphold and promote? When are we going to bring ALL stake-holders to the table, even if it requires greater and potentially longer dialogue and engagement? If the BSD were to use their own “Vision of Success” as a guiding principal, who knows what we might collectively create?
Vision of Success: The Bellingham School District collaborates with community members and ALL [emphasis added] families to build mutually supportive home and school cultures that enhance each student’s achievement.
Lets hope that this is not another case of “do what I say…and not as I do.” Its time for the BSD community to sync their words AND their actions.