Power of Family and School Partnerships

Aloha Island School ‘Ohana,

Welcome to Spring Break! Welcome back home I hope you and your whole family have wonderful ways to experience this break from our regular school routines. Welcome home 5th Grade from your study-tour to O'ahu. I hope the shift next week gives your children a chance to dive long and deep into a great book (or books!); to have time connected to nature, enjoying the splash of water, the smells of the mountains, the tickle of green grass blades; or to have extra time to sit and be in connection with family members, and elders in particular, while completing chores or making a meal, while learning/experiencing an important family tradition or simply talking story. The workshop I was in yesterday and am finishing up today, that I was so glad to attend as a leadership team with Stephanie Achuara, Upper School Division Director, and Cristy Peeren, Elementary Division Director, put a frame in a new way around school and family partnership, and I hope you don’t mind if I share a bit of that with you here.

As educators, we value lifelong learning. We ask this of our students. Therefore, we know this means we must model having open minds to new learning and new perspectives and experiences as the adults in their lives. Our goal for our students is to instill the importance of curiosity in how we learn about and engage in solving challenges…engage in maximizing opportunities for good…in our world, our community, our school, our family, and that we ourselves face. And so when attending this event, made possible by Center for Spiritual and Ethical Education, it gave Stephanie, Cristy, and me the opportunity to learn together from a 50-year veteran educator from the Park School in Baltimore, Debbie Roffman. During these past two days it has been a pleasure to be on the receiving end of the lessons from a master educator. While there is a lot to think about, Debbie Roffman’s work regarding school and family partnership is sparking the most synapses to fire in my brain and inspiring engaging conversations between Stephanie, Cristy, and me.

It’s not that her ideas are new to us, they are not. It is Debbie Rothram’s frame around this partnership that provided new thinking for us…especially as we look at complicated issues such as personal “smart-devices,” the changing landscape of college and career in the futures of our children, the emerging polarization of our world and the seeming loss of one built on compassion and openness…one built on aloha.

And so, her frame gave me hope, gave us hope. It is built on her articulation that all children need foundational nurturing in order to develop independence. Ok, that’s not new…we all know that babies cannot take care of themselves without a nurturing parent to take care of all their needs. But what does that look like as they grow older? We all have lots of opinions about what nurturing looks like; many, many books have been written on this topic. And what we appreciate is that Debbie Roffman’s frame is a clear, straightforward one. She begins with the notion that school and family are de facto partners, that children NEED both school and family to work together, across shared values. And in order for children to grow to independence, she teaches that families have an essential role in nurturing their children that is DIFFERENT from that of schools, and that schools have an essential role in nurturing children that is DIFFERENT from that of families, and BOTH forms of nurturing are ESSENTIAL for young people. And while the roles are different in expression, the SKILLS the adults need to express for nurturing are the same: 

Affirmation: unconditional love for who the child is 

Information: providing factual responses to their questions 

Clarity about Values: communicating why values such as respect, empathy, honesty, integrity, etc. inform our actions 

Limit Setting:  Understanding the critical importance of providing clear, reasonable developmentally appropriate boundaries for behaviors that are firmly in place in children’s lives 

Anticipatory Guidance: framing questions and thinking about what could happen and helping children anticipate what positive actions could be. 

I could go on and on about this idea, but instead I’ll say, please anticipate that we can look towards future conversations across our community about our partnership in this important work with your children, our students. How do you affirm your children at home and how do we do that at school? How do you set limits at home and how do we do that at school? Etc.

And on that note, I’ll just say a week is a FAST way to descend into a deep hole regarding sleep patterns and entertainment strategies that are HARD to climb out of once Sunday, March 23 rolls around and the next morning is school. I highly recommend that we use this time to not go too far into late nights /  “all-nighters” or hours and hours of screen time because your children think they can. Try to maintain reasonable limits, routines, and expectations for your children for the week, that can still feel like a break from the regular routine. And just as I hope students are using this time to read, read, read (or listen, listen, listen to books), I will again share my invitation… 

If you haven’t already, consider reading or listening to The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. This is the leading source on critical research regarding how phones and smart-personal devices are impacting our children. If you prefer, you can check out either this video (50 min or so) or this article from The Atlantic. (Please note the article has some supporting links that require a subscription to The Atlantic. There is a free-trial option or you can just ignore those links.)

And as we continue to move forward together, I look forward to thinking about and strengthening our “de facto partnership" and how we support our students, your children at school, how you support them at home, how we support them with their peers – all while they develop essential human skills and grow to be healthy, independent young people who lead lives of significance. 

I wish you and yours a great spring break, and I hope you truly know how grateful we are that you have chosen Island School as your partner for these critical years of your children’s lives.

Together,

Nancy Naramada P’29

Head of School

n.nagramada@ischool.org