Creating Spaces for Collaboration

President's Corner

THE POSITIVE IMPACT of early-learning programs on children, their families and the communities in which they live is profound. Recent research confirms the critical role early-learning programs play in providing children with skills for school readiness, safe day care options and a stable learning environment to foster their development — especially children who are disadvantaged.

One of the most impactful efforts to promote early learning involves a partnership between the Office of Head Start and public schools. The Head Start-Public Schools Collaboration Demonstration Project brings together families, public school leaders and Head Start program personnel with the goal of strengthening transitions from Head Start to elementary school. The project includes 13 regional school district teams across the country.

In 2019, AASA joined with the National Association of Elementary School Principals to participate in the Collaboration Demonstration Project to improve data sharing and disseminate resources that support partnering between local elementary schools and Head Start programs. Superintendents already recognize the importance of early-learning programs. Initiatives such as this one help us better understand the logistics of connecting the community with the public schools to address the transition.

What is significant about this approach is that the teams meet with three priorities in mind: align school readiness, fuel child readiness and increase successful transitions between Head Start and elementary school. While participating in an in-person panel presentation, I observed first-hand the true collaboration between superintendents, families and agencies as they established a road map for early-learning success.

Another initiative focused on preschool education is AASA’s Early Learning cohort, which brings together education leaders from across the country to review emerging research, explore and share early-learning best practices, and plan to facilitate change in the schools.

Clearly, when problems of practice emerge, such as social and emotional learning or leading for equity, AASA responds by creating a space where educators and leaders can share, learn and strategize. Now more than ever, we need this space for cooperation, for working together toward the same end. Without it, we have myriad competing interests locked in a zero-sum game that fails to maximize potential, stifles creativity and innovation, and dissuades the next generation from seeking to participate in what they view as an unrewarding experience.

I believe that we are better than that because I know all of us strive to instill in our children the value of collaboration, starting with programs such as Head Start’s demonstration project.

Cooperating minds leveraged in healthy competition can yield incredible outcomes. Those outcomes will not be “yours” or “mine” because the true potential lies in their being “ours.” We face unprecedented challenges but also extraordinary opportunities to build well-connected communities that inform each other and thrive based on a symbiotic exchange of ideas, energy and knowledge. We must continue to foster those relationships, and we depend on all of you to help us build and sustain them.

I am incredibly excited about the future. We owe it to the children to remain optimistic, hopeful and clear-eyed about our charge. To build a better world, we need each other. Cynicism is not a friend to innovation.

Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Let’s continue to strengthen our amazing partnerships and be shining examples of the power of positive cooperation. There can be no doubt that it is the key to our best future.

KRISTI WILSON is AASA president in 2020-21
@KwilsonBESD33