Fostering Community Collaboration
Equity
"differentiated support enabling all learners to achieve their potential in the face of diverse circumstances."
A complex goal: without community support, educators are "perched on an unstable stool with one leg"
Requires disrupting bias, oppression
Seen, heard, and felt by students
Framework for building equity:
Relational, inclusive, values-driven change process
Change process must include educators starting to interact and work with community stakeholders
Requires a systems thinking approach
Change the system, not just how things are run within the system
Inherently grounded in community in the real world
Sujet principal
Powerful way to help improve post-school outcomes for disabled students
Requires transition planning
Practical ways to foster collaboration
Community conversation events: structured discussion events with wide array of stakeholder groups
Facilitator
Focus question
Follow up plan
Community collaboration require:
Mutual Respect
Democratic Participation
Critical consciousness
Sustainability
Integrity
Trust
Consistent follow-through
Candor/transparency
Mutual benefit - consideration of the goals of each collaborator/collaborating group