Hicks remembers from her classroom days when her school received a set of materials or software that either didn’t align with curriculum needs or they weren’t provided proper training to use effectively, all of which can add to that feeling of overwhelm. On the contrary, she has witnessed in both Putnam City and Deer Creek school districts what can happen when community members, nonprofit partners and corporate sponsors band together to fulfill needs or support initiatives schools are already engaged in. “Those big ideas can have a really profound impact,” said Hicks, recalling the success of a grant for a school to build a greenhouse and community garden. In Deer Creek, a parent legislative action committee, launched while Hicks taught in the district, recently worked with district leaders to secure monies from pandemic relief funds as well as ongoing investment for the district to provide dyslexia specialists and curriculum at every level in the district, a testament to the power of parents banding together to achieve a major initiative. The Putnam City Schools Foundation launched a community engagement program called Community And Schools Together in 2021, thanks to a grant from the Kirkpatrick Foundation. The funds allowed the foundation to hire three community liaisons, who assess needs in their school sites by interviewing teachers and administrators and then work with community partners to fulfill those needs. “In every school building in Oklahoma, there are kids and families who need hope and there are principals and teachers not trained or who don’t have the time to be social workers, community liaisons, pastors and all the different roles they try to fill,” said Jennifer Seal, president
of the Putnam City Schools Foundation. “We want to alleviate some of that burden so they can focus on teaching and loving kids.” Seal recalls a teacher spending 30 minutes of her day trying to find a place one of her students’ families could wash their laundry, and similar scenarios are on repeat for most teachers throughout the state every day. When teachers are focused on helping kids and families meet those basic needs, which must be attended to before a child can generally feel safe and ready to learn, notes Kirk, their ability to focus on instruction is hampered. So far, CAST has secured donations of water bottles, a refrigerator, supplies for grounds beautification, a little free library for an elementary school, meals for band students and more. As the program continues to develop, Seal says the liaisons are proactively meeting with community partners, religious organizations, nonprofits and businesses to create a resource pool so when they have requests from schools, they have organizations ready and willing to meet the needs. Seal is not aware of another similar program in the state or the country. “In 10 years, I’d love to have a community liaison in every building; that’s 27 schools and that would be a considerable investment,” said Seal. “It’s going to take time to build this out, but I see no end in sight to the growth of this program.” Thanks to an award from the Oklahoma School Foundations Network recognizing CAST, Seal also has the opportunity to share information about the program with other foundations across Oklahoma in the hopes they will be inspired to start something similar in their districts.
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