Ask
your local school board, mayor, city council, state representative, or governor to issue a proclamation
celebrating your back-to-school event and highlighting one or more of the five key areas (building good citizens, helping all children master the basics; helping students "think college early;" modernizing and strengthening our public schools; growing our own teachers and principals).
Begin the day with breakfast for families, community members, school leaders, teachers, and students. Food is a big draw! Host a series of breakfast forums on aspects of the five key education areas for families and the community, such as volunteering opportunities, higher standards, the school's curriculum, conflict resolution, dealing with peer pressure, linking community art, museum, and cultural resources with the schools and applying to college.
Contact local arts and cultural organizations to help with your partnership. Museums, galleries, arts organizations, community theater groups, and other cultural and music groups can be valuable partners to help work with students. Look to local colleges and universities for connections with, their arts groups and cultural programs.
Distribute a school calendar for students, families, and the community at large with dates of events, ideas for how to get involved, and learning activities families can do at home and in the community. Make your calendar a countdown to the new century and the millennium with anecdotes and activities that reflect on the past and imagine the future.
Enlist young people to play an important leadership role in family and community involvement in education They may be your best salespeople and invaluable leaders in the effort to keep public attention and increase public engagement. For more ideas on how young people can get involved in America Goes Back to School, see the section on activities for young people.
Find ways to make reading a fun part of everyday life. Community literacy and meeting the America Reads Challenge might be a focus of your America Goes Back to School event(s). I hold storytelling nights, guest author and poetry readings, read-aloud programs, dramatic readings, book fairs and book drives, a read-a-thon or a book report festival, family literacy nights, or other literacy activities for the whole community. Work with local colleges and universities to help get work-study students and other college students into the schools as reading tutors. Older students, such as Girl Scouts, can also work as reading tutors for younger students.
Give presentations on how community members can get involved in education at meetings of local organizations, such as the Kiwanis, Rotary Club, League of Women Voters, or Urban League, at meetings of religious groups, or at bring-your-lunch sessions with employees of area businesses. Use the five key education themes as a starting point.
Host an open house at the school for parents and community members. Hold it in the evening or on the weekend so that more people can attend. At the back-to-school picnic in Macomb, Michigan, the organizers--a teacher and a principal--asked every family to bring a member of the community to the picnic who did not have kids in the school so they could see the school and learning community firsthand and feel more comfortable with the idea of getting involved.
Initiate a parent involvement policy. Develop a compact or a student-parent-teacher pledge addressing shared responsibilities for learning. America Goes Back to School provides a great opportunity to convey a school's commitment to involving families and the community. Set up a parent resource center where families can come to get more information on topics of interest and where families can meet and talk with one another and with school staff.
Join together for jobs. Invite community members to come to school to talk about their careers and how what they learned in school prepared them. As a follow-up, arrange job-shadowing opportunities for students. Organize a resource information fair on career opportunities for students, parents, and the entire community. Hold a college fair so everyone can explore their options for lifelong learning and so students will begin to "think college early," early in their lives and early in the school year. Advertise your fair with the question, "What will you be doing in the next century--the next millennium?"
Kick off the new year with a special welcome for new students and families in the community. In Bennington, Vermont, local businessman Terry Ehrich worked with the local school district to hold a first-day-of-school celebration. Local businesses gave their employees time off, and hundreds of parents went back to school with their children. Everyone involved agreed that the day was a great success!
Launch a community mentoring program where adult volunteers and college students mentor high school and middle school students who, in turn, can mentor elementary school students. Mentoring can involve learning math and science--key gateopening courses for college--going to a museum, community service activities, recreational activities such as a mentor basketball league, tutoring and homework help.
Make sure you involve all members of your community in your America Goes Back to School efforts, including families and students who are limited English proficient and who have disabilities.
Name a day or a week as your local America Goes Back to School time. Personalize it. In Memphis, Tennessee, the superintendent organized "Memphis Goes Back to School Week."
Organize a rally and/or a parade. Often, communities with large events have a steering committee of various interested community and school leaders, such as the school superintendent, the mayor, school board members, city council members, local business people, and representatives from organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce, the YMACA/YWCA, the United Way, the Boys and Girls Club, Kiwanis and Rotary Clubs, and the Urban League.
Present an honorary award to a local government official or local leader in recognition of his or her contribution to education in your community. Awards could be based on excellence in one of the five key education areas. Celebrate with recognition ceremonies for teachers, students, parents, and community and religious organization volunteers who have made a long-term commitment to children's learning to inspire more people to jump in and get involved.
Quiz potential volunteers about the talents, skills, and time they are willing to share. Potential volunteers can be individual community members or local businesses and organizations with specialized services, such as technology know-how. Set up a skills bank to help match volunteers to school needs. Showcase volunteers in your America Goes Back to School event.
Raise awareness of the importance of family and community involvement and the opportunities to get involved in education through a community wide public relations campaign. Ask businesses to post fliers or to sponsor a billboard. Enlist local celebrities to help carry the message. Conduct a poll or survey of your community about one of the five critical areas in education and publicize the results. Hold an essay or poster contest for students.
Submit an article or guest column or write a letter to your local newspaper describing your event and explaining why building good citizens, mastering the basics, "thinking college early," revitalizing the schools, and growing teachers and principals are so essential to improving education. Give a speech, or enlist local celebrities to speak, about community involvement. This site contains talking points that you can use for speeches.
Train volunteers and teachers. Whether a 2nd-grade reading tutor or an 8th-grade "algebra mentor," volunteers need training in their specific assignments. Teachers, in turn, need training in how to get families and community members involved and how to use volunteers in the classroom. Make family and community involvement a focus for professional and personal development for schools, community groups, and businesses throughout the back-to-school period.
Use the resources you have. If your community has a lot of retired persons, start a senior school volunteer corps. Get your students to tutor the seniors on how to use computers. If your community has a lot of high-tech businesses, invite them to help your school with their technology plans. If your community has a college or university, enlist federal work-study students as reading tutors. If your community has businesses, organizations, faith communities and individuals interested in supporting schools financially, offer special community-sponsored grants to provide innovative programs and services that meet your school community's needs.
Visualize the start of the new century--the new millennium. Where will your school be in mastering each of the five key education areas? How do you picture your community in 5 years? 10 years? 50? 100? How do you picture your schools? Your children? Your future? Create a plan to make it happen, and start with America Goes Back School. Whatever the challenges, think big!
Work with local businesses to encourage them to allow their employees time off to come to school-to volunteer, to attend a parent-teacher conference, to find out what's going on in the schools.
X-ray your efforts to see how they're going. It's important to evaluate what you're doing to find out if you are achieving your goals and how you can improve your efforts. An evaluation can be as simple as asking people what they think or conducting a short survey. Don't let problems go unattended. If something is not working, get a group together to problem-solve and figure out a better way. Taking the time to reflect on what's happening will be worth it in the long run when you see sustained success and true collaboration in place!
Yell it from the rooftops! Make sure your entire community knows about your America Goes Back to School event(s). Contact your local news media outlets (newspapers, radio and television stations) to ask for their assistance in promoting your event and your partnership. Often they will write editorials, air public service announcements, or give coverage to your event. See the section "Make It Public" for more information on how to work with the news media.
Zero in on children. As everyone gets busy planning, meeting, and working hard, don't lose sight of your ultimate goal--helping all children learn to high academic standards!
