Site Based School Management and Team Communication

By: Amy Chapman
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:26:41
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Good communication skills are important to the success of a school site-based management council. Decision making is another key component. In order for a school site council to move forward, decisions must be made. This can only be done through communication.

Site-based management team members need to understand their role. Team members are representatives for their particular group. As a representative, team members must keep their constituents (stakeholders) informed throughout the meeting process. Communication is an essential ingredient to success. There are five popular methods of communicating that can be used in site-based management team meetings. These methods will be discussed further.

The first method is sending newsletters to teachers and parents informing them about the site-based management activities. Those stakeholders, outside the site-based management committee, need to know what is taking place during the meetings. Newsletters are an easy way to keep others informed. Many times meeting agendas and/or minutes can be adapted into a simple newsletter format for those who did not attend the meeting to read.

A more straightforward, second method of communication is posting minutes and reports. These postings can be displayed on bulletin boards in various areas around the school. The documents keep others informed and at the same time validate the work being done.

A third method of communicating takes time to implement, however it can give the committee additional information. At the end of each site based management meeting, several minutes are given to review what was accomplished. Members hold a short discussion and select topics that they want to present back to their representative groups. At the same time, team members share feedback given by constituents from the previous meeting. This is great technique to make sure there is “buy in” from all stakeholders throughout the process.

Discussing site based management topics at regularly scheduled meetings is the fourth method of communicating. This can be done as an added agenda item at faculty meetings. It can be the best place to present topics and get feedback at the same time. However, this form of communication is primarily presented to staff only. It is important that additional methods are used to inform the other stakeholders, who might not attend faculty meetings.

The last method is surveys. Parents, teachers, and community members are polled by completing a survey. This survey provides a sample of their thoughts and opinions. It is a simple way keep a pulse of how a variety of groups feel about a topic.

All five of these methods are valid means of communicating with individuals, who aren’t actively participating in the site-based management meetings. When time and hard work have been expended by a team, yet things still fall apart. It is very disappointing. Site-based management teams need to communicate along the way, not wait until it is time to gain consensus. Without informing stakeholders throughout the process, it can and usually does back fire. Communication is crucial.

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