Akutan teacher Karen Ravencroft hosted two community meetings with families and students this year. Akutan currently has fourteen students and is part of the Aleutians East Borough School District, which has four school sites accessible by plane. Karen shared writes about the conversation held in April:
We centered the meeting around our school district’s value of Accountability. Superintendent Michael Franklin was able to attend. First, we opened the meeting by centering on our strengths with the question: “What is one thing you think went well this year?” Parents shared that they liked:
- the 9:00 am start time because that is when they go to work;
- that we had cultural activities because it sparked interest in their kids who didn’t show much interest before; and
- that they’ve seen changes in their kids that show they honor their time in school and want to show up on time.
Then we broke into two groups to discuss challenges with the question: “Where do we lack accountability in our promotion of student growth?” We came back together as a whole group and shared needs for:
- parents and teachers working together to solve issues;
- teaching social and life skills;
- having more career fair opportunities throughout the year;
- travel funding; and
- sports inclusion.
Then we broke out into the two groups again to come up with some solutions by asking: “What are some ways we can hold each other accountable to promote student growth?” We ended by sharing our solutions with the whole group:
- more community involvement from parents and entities;
- have teachers send out notifications to parents and the community well in advance if we need volunteers for activities;
- conduct bi-weekly social skills practice, which can include students interviewing local community members;
- conducting projects and presenting them;
- teaching students about different forms of communication and when that form of communication is best;
- teaching real-world financial literacy; and
- cooking classes.
The whole group talked about how each of us in our roles could help directly with the solutions. We came up with a few things that we can do here at the school such as have a timeline checklist for activities and fundraisers that can be in place for anyone new that comes to work at Akutan School for continuity, and parents agreed that a way that they can help is to volunteer for a minimum of two events, and to lead cooking classes.
If you are interested in training on how to host a community conversation, contact Claudia Plesa. And to see how community conversations have happened in other Alaskan communities, check out this video from St. Mary’s School.