Guest Blog: It Takes a Village

This post comes from Ryan Colbert, Principal at Colleen & Gordie Howe Middle School.
~ Kevin Godden

When I first arrived at C&G Howe Middle School two years ago, I quickly noticed the amount of people who were involved with students at our school who weren’t a part of our ‘school staff’. We welcome on a yearly basis into our school and into the lives of our students a number of: community agencies, adult volunteers, high school volunteers, university volunteers, community school staff, volunteer organizations, Abbotsford Youth Commission staff, and police and fire service liaison personnel. In fact, the number of people who are involved in our students’ lives outside of the classroom shouldn’t go unnoticed as they could have as profound an impact on our children as we do in the school and classroom.

However, as a new school principal, I also found it, on occasion, very time consuming working and coordinating with these partners. I found I was bogged down with emails, promotional flyers, resource advertisements, program opportunities, and requests from organizations to talk with our kids during class time. All of these opportunities undoubtedly would benefit one or all of our students. I had to ask myself: Which groups do I allow to speak with our students? Which programs are actually beneficial? How much instructional time do I give for ‘quick’ informational assemblies? How do I know what students or parents want? Which resources are of high quality?

The answers to these questions were within our district strategic plan, where three goals of the Parental and Community engagement pillar state the district strives to:

• Improve communication for parents regarding access to community programs and services
• Improve engagement and communication with diverse community groups/sectors
• Strengthen collaboration with community partners

The solution? Let the kids and parents themselves decide what they are interested in by giving them and the community organizations an opportunity to connect and collaborate.

I believe we addressed these goals successfully last October when we hosted the first annual 'Middle School Community Fair.' The goal of the fair was to give parents and students an opportunity at the beginning of the school year to ‘one-stop shop’ a wide range of services, sports programs, clubs and community partners in one day and/or evening. (For parents to inquire about all the programs offered in Abbotsford, they would have to surf the internet for hours, or drive around the community for specific registration days.) Bringing the programs to the parents undoubtedly brings the programs to the families and a chance for students to see what is available to them outside the norm. Over 40 organizations took advantage of the fair which included:

All middle school parents and students in the district were invited to the event and many took advantage throughout the day and evening. Many schools were represented and it was clear that in the future, more events like this across the district would be beneficial to our community. All C & G Howe Middle school students walked through the fair during the day; grade 5’s at our feeder schools were invited and some took the opportunity to see all the programs offered.

In terms of feedback, it was obvious the organizations found it beneficial to have access to the students, meet their parents, and sign them up for some of their programs. The leaders of the organizations also said they enjoyed and benefited from the opportunity to collaborate with each other. They were able to see all of the choices available to families in Abbotsford and in some instances discussed how they could work together to provide more to our community.

We embrace the parental and community engagement initiative as part of our district’s strategic plan because we believe it does “Take a village to raise a child.” Schools are not the only institution which provides students a chance to learn, improve, and grow into productive citizens in our community. Working together with these organizations and finding ways to make it easier for all involved (including administrators) will allow for the greatest chance of student success.

It should also be noted that the Middle School Community Fair could not have happened without the teamwork of many school, district, community, and school personnel. Thank you to: Andrea Senft and David Stephen from the Abbotsford School District, Denise Thandi (Children First Coordinator, Abbotsford Early Childhood Committee), Ten-Broeck Elementary, all community partners who attended, and all C & G Howe Middle staff, students, and parents.

~ Ryan Colbert, Principal of Colleen & Gordie Howe Middle