Great question! In a healthy and growing organization, people care for one another. The feel a sense of belonging and having a vested interest in what is going on. So, as I care for the students and their families and am concerned how they are doing so to the parents and students (well not quite all of them) are interested and concerned about what I am doing because it has an impact on their children. An example; in Saskatchewan we just amalgamated our school division. In the process, we eliminated Local School Boards and replaced them with School Community Councils, one for each school. I’ve been principal in this school for 2 and a half years and I’ve worked hard on building trust, openness and a sense of ownership with the parents. Out of our 42 school division, our school was the only one that had to have an election as we had 12 people running for 9 seats. We have about 40 people at the meeting which was one of the largest turnouts. Why? I think it’s because we extend ourselves, ask people to join us, want their input and want them to help us build our school. So, when I as for money for an electronic sign for the inside of the school, the SCC knows that there is a good reason for this. So, parents should care because we are the people who are with their children every day. We are the ones who are passing on information and, to some extent, molding their characters. There should be good, honest dialogue about what we are doing in the school and why we are doing it. Its sound cliche but we have to have a strong partnership in order to address the multitude of issue students face.
Kelly

This post launched me over to Seth Godin’s blog and got me reading. He’s got some great stuff on his blog and quite a few books. Can you recommend a book of Seth’s to start with?

Thanks!