Sara Schwabacher Community and Parent Engagement Cornerstone
	Pamela Thompson Coach Muscogee County, Georgia

When you walk through the door of Rigdon Road Elementary School in Columbus, GA, you become part of the community. The principal, school secretary and teachers greet you -- and each other -- like family. Parents and staff take time to catch up on what's new in families, the neighborhood and school. This spirit of mutual respect and concern is contagious. Children easily catch hold of the idea that any adult in the school building will be looking out for their health and well being. No wonder this first-year Cornerstone school is being featured in author Clifton Taulbert's new book, which like his popular Eight Habits of the Heart, explores the values that build strong families and communities.

Connecting home and school seems to come naturally to Principal Phyllis Jones and her staff. It is a "habit of the heart" for them. But this habit is not magic. It is composed of daily activities and specific programs, and most importantly, the point of view that everyone in the community matters.

What are some of the activities and programs that go into building a healthy community among staff, students and parents at Rigdon Road? For one, there is the annual bus trip around Columbus, GA for the entire student body. Kindergarteners, many of whom have never been out of their neighborhood, enjoy the bus ride with the older kids. Year by year, students deepen their knowledge of the city in which they live. What a metaphor for education, all students together -- a small community -- taking a trip to learn about their larger community.

Then there is the third grade teacher who calls each household every weekend to update parents on their child's progress; the weekly Family Days classroom celebration where parents are invited to come and share; the Teacher's Night Out where the class is invited to the teacher's house for an evening of fun-filled adventures; the Parents Nights Out where parents who respond to a notice in the school newsletter have the opportunity to attend the theatre or opera or a lecture while their children enjoy a movie and popcorn at the school; and those regular and special occasions where the community is invited into the school such as the upcoming event where students and faculty will honor family and community members in the military at nearby Fort Benning.

How does the school convey that everybody matters? Ms. Jones brings enough ribs back from her favorite restaurant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama to share with the entire faculty. The school secretary uses her second job at a private club to network and bring resources into the school. And everybody knows that good ideas are welcome from all members of the community. For example, the school counselor's idea for reaching out to and involving Dads was to initiate the FBI (Fathers Being Involved) program. The FBI is now actively engaged in the life of the school. Fathers purchase and cook a pancake breakfast to raise funds for their projects. They put together a float for the Annual Christmas Parade and even ride along with the students. They supervise student community service projects such as interviewing, singing and dancing with Nursing Home residents and the 5th grade neighborhood clean-up doing yard work for local widows. This is a school where taking responsibility for the well-being of the community is everybody's job.

Why does this sense of community make such a difference in school? Community creates fertile ground for literacy learning. Students who see their families and home life valued are more likely to be successful at school and eager to contribute to their wider community.

I asked Rigdon Road Coach Pamela Thompson to share some of the ways that her school connects home and school. Several of the activities she described to me are common among many different schools, such as parents signing off on completed homework or serving as chaperones on field trips, attending student performances and talent shows. Others are more unique to this Columbus, Georgia school. But what we can learn from this school is the attitude that they will keep trying things until they reach every child and every family. This is the attitude celebrated by Clifton Taulbert, the attitude of taking responsibility for making the community work for everyone in it. Getting involved with Cornerstone is described by the Leadership Team (which includes parent representatives as well as business partners) at this school as a way to ensure that students are provided with every opportunity available for academic success.

The activities Ms. Thompson described can be used to illustrate Cornerstone's two Parent/Community Engagement principles:

Principle #1:
Parents and community have important roles to play in children attaining high levels of literacy by grade three.

• Every teacher in the school had a parent from each household sign a Cornerstone pledge to read aloud to their children 15-20 minutes each night.
• The school sends a weekly newsletter to each household with information on upcoming events.
• Individual teachers also send information home weekly – class newsletters to inform parents of classroom activities and graded papers to inform them about their own child's performance.
• Hands-on workshops constantly give parents the opportunity to experience the type of lessons and activities that their children are being exposed to.
• Numerous literacy focused parent events are scheduled including a pajama reading night with the parents in October and a family poetry night in May.
• A reading log goes home daily with the expectation that children and parents will read the assignment together and both the student and the parent will respond to their favorite part by drawing or writing in the log.

Principle #2:
Schools are more effective at ensuring high levels of literacy when they draw on the resources, knowledge and expertise of parents and the community.

• A "Getting to Know You" survey was completed at the beginning of the year by each of the families so that activities and lessons could be arranged around student interests and teachers could better understand personalities and schematic backgrounds of the students in their class.
• Family members and friends bring their pets to school when needed to enhance a lesson or project.
• The school has a connection to the local public library where classes often attend storytelling and other programs, bringing family members along as chaperones.
• Classroom assignments are geared toward families working together to complete family-based assignments; i.e., Family portraits were collected for a Social Studies lesson on growing up and each child used these portraits to make a portfolio of the growth occurring in the family. The book was sent home at its completion.
• Family members are important resources in the classroom invited to share cultures, stories, visuals and other family and cultural artifacts with the class.

What's next for Rigdon Road? The Leadership Team at Rigdon Road recognized the clear strengths of their Home/School Connections, but they have no intention of stopping there. The team selected two focus areas for growth in the next period:

• Training and supporting parent and community classroom volunteers and grade level leaders in effective literacy practices.
• Incorporating family and community culture into the curriculum through use of interviews, field trips, family homework assignments and community research studies.

As Clifton Taulbert wrote in a note about this school: "When your vision is that of community, you automatically broaden your horizons."