Community Engagement is goal #2 in the School Annual Action Plan (SAAP): so it must be important. In practice it falls far short systemically.

The concept is to a large extent at the individual level, parent, teacher, student level, not at the community level.

There are “outreach” programs which seek to provide individual child academic performance to their parent.

There are parent teacher conferences and open houses that put teachers and parents together periodically.

While individual parent-teacher- student engagement is necessary there must also be a community-administration-Board level engagement which is currently missing.

Why? Because there are very few parent organizations (PTA, PTO, neighborhood association) in existence and the District is not inclined to change that situation.

The result is no real community representation or viable venue for public forums which the District has yet to conduct.

The District’s response to a request for PTA points of contact was: “Parent Teacher Association (PTA) is an organization separate from the Clover Park School District. Because it is a separate organization, the District does not maintain its communications, including newsletters, and does not have the PTA’s internally produced records. Furthermore, it is not the District’s practice to maintain lists of PTA members.”

This statement explains a lot about the District’s commitment to community engagement.