When looking at large, urban school districts across America, one may observe many common issues that act as limitations for students. However, when taking a closer look at the data, each district and school has unique barriers that impact students and families. This study focuses on Buffalo City School District (BCSD), the second largest school…

School communities have been shut out of many of the more critical decision-making processes impacting local public schools. Decisions are mostly made as top-down actions from federal mandates, general assemblies, state departments, districts, and school level administration teams, isolating the school communities they are tasked to serve.…

Myriad academic, situational, and organizational factors play an important role in parental decision-making for school choice. We propose a framework for how hot knowledge is processed through the lens of parents' own sociopolitical values (i.e., constraints) to inform preferences. This study employs 8 months of ethnographic case study data from…

Family and community engagement are proven strategies for strengthening schools. Across the United States, parents and community members have pressed school boards and district leadership for more transparency and broader participation in decisions about school turnaround. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to understand the…

Community engagement in higher education has been promoted as critical to fulfilling higher education's responsibility to the public good through teaching, learning, and knowledge generation. Reciprocity and mutual benefit are key principles of community engagement that connote a two-way exchange of knowledge and shared power and decision making.…

Democratic or equal participation in decision making is an ideal that community and academic stakeholders engaged in participatory research strive to achieve. This ideal, however, may compete with indigenous peoples' right to self-determination. Study objectives were to assess the perceived influence of multiple community (indigenous) and academic…

This paper points out three data systems built and monitored by a school system in an effort to increase the frequency of correct decisions. The first was the traditional student demographic data system on attendance, dropouts, vandalism, and other information, filed by sex, age, grade, race, and school. In addition, data were collected on failure…

Several explanations are proposed for community attitudes about the school system. The author claims that the most important factor affecting these attitudes may be the school's failure to develop effective ways of carrying on continuous dialogue with its community. The author specifies that an educator should subject his community to a regular…

This handbook is organized by action areas that a school principal needs to consider in creating, maintaining, and utilizing successful involvement with the neighboring communities. Each area discusses the range of options available to the principal. Building principals are thus able to select features to fit their particular communities. The…

School community relations in big cities are marked by apathy and distrust and, often, by hostility. Yet, many Federal programs and many pressing urban problems require that administrators and communities work together more closely than ever before. This project analyzes evidence from recent empirical research and from field evaluations to…

A CONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR STUDYING THE OPERATION OF SOCIAL POWER IN SCHOOL SYSTEMS WAS DEVELOPED ON THE ASSUMPTION THAT A SCHOOL SYSTEM MUST BE UNDERSTOOD IN TERMS OF ITS SUPPORTING ENVIRONMENT. TWELVE DIRECTIONAL HYPOTHESES WERE TESTED TO DETERMINE CORRELATIONS BETWEEN FOUR TYPES OF COMMUNITY POWER STRUCTURES (DOMINATED, FACTIONAL, PLURALISTIC, AND…

Discusses a recent Wisconsin "school choice" initiative, under which parents may choose public, private, nonsectarian, or religious schools for their children and have state funding directed to the appropriate institutions. Argues that school choice programs empower parents to provide the best education available to their children. (MAB)

This paper examines the difficulties facing educational researchers in communicating with other professionals and with the public. Public knowledge of the schools and attitudes toward them, community relations problems, and general communications problems are discussed. A program for school researchers is recommended. (DG)

This guide is the last of four intended to help persons involved in planning new schools, new programs, or other comprehensive change projects. The materials consist of readings to be done individually and exercises to be done individually and/or with a group. Guide 4 focuses on the linkage between the plan and the actual implementation of the new…

This case study considers why community members of two rural New York School districts reacted so strongly against a referendum for school district reorganization in February 1983. State and local school officials introduced into this reorganization effort a unique plan designed to achieve community support for the merger. Rather than have the…