 romoting Responsibility
The Learning Community
Strong relationships among school personnel, parents, students, and the community coupled with equitable schools create positive learning environments for students and provide them with a sense of safety and inclusiveness. A fundamental step toward achieving equitable education is for educators and stakeholders to begin the difficult process of changing themselves. Meaningful, sustained change and the assurance of educational equity will not happen without adequate support for and by the teachers and school personnel who are key to educational improvement.
Increasing the awareness and understanding of individual and collective responsibilities helps provide an equitable learning experience for every student, strengthen improved school-home relations, and foster an effective learning community. School staff exemplify responsibility in action by modeling competence and civility to students, parents, and the community. School staff members enhance relationships with the learning community by:
 Being accessible to parents, students, and community members
- Returning telephone calls in a timely fashion
- Resolving problems at an informal level whenever possible
- Keeping parents informed about students' progress
- Communicating to parents how important their support is for their children's learning
The classroom as a learning community affirms the value of shared efforts, supports experimentation, and respects individual differences as benefiting the whole group's learning. A learning community is one in which students feel cared about and respected by teachers and are supported and included by each other.
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