Preparing School Leaders to Build and Sustain Engagement with Families and Communities 155
Leaders need to set a tone of inclusion not just for the child in the system, but the
family as well. Future leaders should be guided in how to recognize the individuality
of these families, yet at the same time, their desires to live a typical life like anyone
else...Ultimately, this process will teach leaders to empower families, resulting in
the most successful education of the children (Alonzo et al., pp 134-135).Involvement in more diverse community-based and family contexts, new leaders
experience some of the formidable challenges that children and their families face. Other
environments such as homeless shelters, migrant-worker camps, social service agencies, and
correctional facilities—allow future leaders to examine the identities of diverse students and
families and to sustain a respect and sensitivity for the challenges and resources students and
families bring to the schools. We also believe that such intensive field experiences with a
greater focus on students and the issues that face them and their families may help aspiring
school leaders develop both the communication skills to enhance school-family-community
interactions, but will also become more aware of the multitude of resources available for
student and family support. In the words of Pounder and colleagues (2002), “well-integrated
educational and support services to children and families have much greater promise for
effective problem solving and intervention than uncoordinated efforts” (p. 279). Intensive and
diverse internships give new leaders the opportunity to engage in a long-term project to test
out ideas and practices that have the potential to bring about a “change to an educational or
social practice in a school” (p. 283) related to family and community engagement. Thus,
leaders begin to value their own influence and to plan meaningful actions they might take to
change the “paradigm” of family and community engagement.
CONCLUSION
The purpose of this chapter was to bring new understanding about how principals and
other school leaders can enact a paradigm shift away from traditional approaches to parent
involvement toward an inclusive, culturally responsive and engaging approach to connecting
with families and communities. The new vision replaces the focus on parents with a focus on
families, recognizes the role of diversity in school and family interactions, and views the
resulting partnerships among families and schools as mutual, culturally defined, and located
in communities as well as in the school. New roles and skills for school leaders are paramount
to achieving purposeful and meaningful partnerships with families that support learning for
all students. One great challenge for school leaders is to adopt the new “paradigm” for family
engagement that is grounded in the context of a social-justice framework. A second challenge
is how administrator preparation programs can bring about the kinds of changes that will help
leaders understand issues facing diverse learners and their families and the value of new
forms of school and family engagement. Through exposure to and experiences with families,
human- service agencies, and other community-based institutions, future education leaders
will gain increased knowledge, skills, and commitments to make schools more friendly and
purposeful for students and their families. Positive and sustained connections with families
are a necessary and important component of leadership development programs.