Community Links

The school had been involved for a number of years prior to the pilot with various community groups and programs. The SA was a part of the BSD community garden program that was featured in the local news. Service learning work had already taken place, taking the students out into their communities at least once a year as part of the curriculum and their partnership with SF. There were community dinners and harvest parties that were hosted at the school. There was a community pancake breakfast at the school in the mornings so that parents could eat with the principal. These efforts

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continued throughout the pilot year of the SA and were envisioned to continue in the future.

Toward the end of the first year of the pilot, the TT began to look at how to define partnerships with the community. There were long-term partnerships with the SA, such with Shelburne Farms. This type of partnership resulted in providing strategic direction for the school. Then there were more project-based partners, such as the Ecological Institute, which partner with the school to achieve specific tasks or service learning projects. At the time of the pilot year there were over 20 partners and sponsors that could be easily identified as being involved with the school. Local paint companies, farms, and community groups were acknowledged for their support in fliers at the school during a day of service. Shelburne Farms also worked to foster relationships with the SA and the community in the pilot year. SF brought forward new partnership possibilities or

individuals who wanted to volunteer to the front steps of the SA. One particular area in which community links were vitally important in the pilot year was community service projects and helping them grow in strength. One teacher commented, “the curriculum is filled with community service units as well as opportunities to visit community areas and learn about community processes and how students are influenced by and can influence them”. However, community links were sometimes difficult to achieve at the SA. Many teachers at staff meetings brought issues such as this comment made by a teacher: “how can we focus on teaching sustainability in service learning activities when we are worried to take out children into the community because the behavioral issues we are

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External to the SA community there was a lot of parent support from other school communities as well as the Burlington community at large. I was interviewing someone in a coffee shop and overheard a random parent saying, “I wish that my daughter’s school was more like the SA. There, they actually care what parents think and want them to be involved. At Edmond’s [another elementary school in the district] parents are kind of encouraged not to participate”. In contrast, there was also some community resistance being felt from people not involved with the magnets, obtaining an ‘outsider’ perspective that was not aligned with the reality of what was actually taking place. One coordinator mentioned that the local paper had written an article saying “why would I want to send my child to a school where they learn how to compost?”. Other individuals noted that at district meetings tension was felt between the teachers from other schools and the faculty from the SA. A lot of work was being done to find solutions to providing more

understanding to the community about what the SA actually stood for and how it served the community as a whole. For example, one consideration was how many resources could be saved by the SA that impacted the greater community— such as water consumption from Lake Champlain or natural gas resources.

There were also place-based educational components in the curriculum that got students out into the local neighborhood. The ONE has a rich historical context for student learning. Students were able to walk their neighborhood in an educational context and share personal experiences with their peers about the ONE. Indirectly, the place- based aspect of the curriculum places emphasis on the revitalization of the ONE. This dovetailed the impact that the city had on the SA because it was located in the ONE, due

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to Burlington’s housing policy programs. There was a lot of discussion and

acknowledgement of the need for the Community Economic Development Office of Burlington to look at their housing policies for the city so that it could better serve the goals at the SA and the school district in general by allowing a more socioeconomically diverse housing strategies that would naturally achieve socio-economic integration within districts, rather than relying on schools to bus and move students around to achieve the desired demographic mix.

Many parents sat on community boards or were members of community

organizations, ran or worked in local businesses, or volunteered for various community needs. This provided a diverse and deep pocket of community connections that were incorporated into planning or discussions for the SA. For example, one parent worked at the University of Vermont in the maintenance department and had direct knowledge of facility improvements at UVM that contributed to the districts facility plans for the SA. The SA was also geographically in a position to welcome the local community because it was conveniently located on the edge of downtown Burlington. Therefore many

community members who did not have children at the SA were seen at the community events. The SA location also encourages more parent participation because of its

‘walkabilty’. According to the district coordinator, more parents were involved at the SA than any other school in the district, with the exception of H.O. Wheeler. The

geographical convenience of the SA allows the potential to expand and grow the SA as a community hub, which is one of the visions for the school.

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