Student and Community voices in High schools Reviews...

Today I went to a Board of Trustees and Principals meeting hosted by ERO (Education Review Office) evaluators. Hard to believe that some 5 years ago I had been shortlisted to a second interview to work there but decided to withdraw my application after I found out that 16:30 days one would be on the road evaluating schools up or down the country. At the time we only had 2 children, the job would have been a stepping stone for my career but I felt the strong impression (God factor) that this was not for me even though I had the support of my dearest.


And I have never looked back. I now have the added addition of our lil' one now 4 years old and the benefit of watching over our children at home and close by. I also have moved away from research which I had at one time considered as being an area that I would be interested in moving into and I have no regrets. My thoughts on research are another story but for me writing stories is now a way of life.


What I did find interesting about the meeting was in arriving late, there were principals and Board of Trustees chairpersons present and they looked at me with no one saying a word until I asked if there were any chairs available ('cos I couldn't see any). I was directed into a chair in the middle and sat next to an old battle axe (i.e. we're both Samoan, working on PhD's and have been around education circles in South Auckland for some 25+ years each) and we shook hands and the presentation continued.


Well of course he has to ask questions as no one else ventured to say anything i.e. not wanting to stand out of the crowd. And I thought about what I wanted to comment on as the presentation continued and found my opportunity. I asked about how important the voices of students and the community are to the internal and external evaluations? Then it got really interesting with ERO representatives echoing my thoughts in that they are very important and proceeded to show a graph which would showed that the better performing schools with self review being well implemented showed that they were ones that had much evidence on community and student input into the decisions being made which would relate to student achievement.


I also referred to a point made by another Pasifika Chairperson and what the ERO representative alluded to in that often schools make the assumptions that they already know what parents think (i.e. in parents not often engaging with South Auckland schools when there are parent/teachers meetings etc. I made the reference that often schools predetermine what communities will do and then will continue to do the same things (with parents not being engaged and then blaming it on the community). Hello!


And that was the point that I wanted to make but the interesting part was when another principal later on said that ERO should tell them how to better engage with the community and then the question was fired back to him as to how he should tell ERO how to better engage with the community. And to me that spoke volumes about some of the problems that we have in our education system/society in that often the dominant voices in schools (often principals who don't engage often with the community on a personal level) will predetermine that they know what is best when in fact they don't and the vicious cycle of failure continues.


I didn't walk in wearing a power suit or any false pretense that I am a principal or a Board chairperson (those power relationships of which I have been previously). I walked in as a Vice chair (sitting in for our chair) willing to stir the tide as an educational observer, ex-high school teacher and now tertiary educator in an indigenous education institute, a concerned parent and ex-pupil of South Auckland schools who's cracked the code on personal educational achievement and wanting many more to achieve and I walked out with the knowledge that now all those sitting on the Boards are accountable and have to make the voices of their student and community heard - no excuses!