Five Power Verbs That Elevated Our Schools

My View

One of the promises I made upon becoming superintendent in Dorchester County, Md., about five years ago was that our business, local government and faith-based leaders would become a part of the fabric of our school system. I made this pledge after perceiving a wide disconnect between the local schools and the community at large.

Initially, the vehicle for this sought-after synergy was the formation of my Superintendent’s Advisory Council. I used the first meeting of this collection of prominent leaders as a wide-ranging listening session: What’s good about our public schools? How do we need to improve? How might you get involved directly with us? The positive and not-so-positive feedback they offered came with a sincerely expressed desire to “roll up their sleeves” and become involved personally.

A pair of subsequent sessions with scores of local business representatives were co-sponsored by the Dorchester Chamber of Commerce and facilitated by a local nonprofit called Mid Shore Mediation. We billed them as “Dorchester’s Future is Now, Parts I and II.” The local merchants and entrepreneurs in attendance were not reluctant to offer specific assistance to our students if we were really serious about having them involved inside our schools.

Action Oriented 

The ideas they contributed were so numerous we needed a thematic structure to capture and categorize them. This contributed to the birth of the five power verbs for community involvement and volunteerism: teach, tutor, confer, mentor and recognize.

Teach: Community and business volunteers wanted to provide direct instruction in our classrooms on topics of importance to them. Specifically, members of Character Counts, Junior Achievement and the Maryland Business Roundtable for Education asked to teach about personal ethics, financial literacy, effective interviews, resume building, dressing for success and other practical skills. Second graders learn about banks and checkbooks, while entrepreneurism is a topic addressed at all three school levels.

Tutor: Steve Rideout, the retired chief judge of the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court in Alexandria, Va., who had moved to Dorchester County, initiated the Dorchester Tutoring Consortium to link willing and capable adults with students in need of skill remediation in reading and mathematics. This gained such quick momentum that we have hired a part-time volunteer coordinator. The consortium’s members include retired teachers, parents recruited at back-to-school nights, honor roll students who tutor at the elementary schools for service-learning credit and members of the business community.

Confer: Selected business and industry volunteers provide relevant insights to the teachers of our 19 career and technology center programs, as well as to the high school counselors who assist students with decisions about individual programs of study. This Business/Guidance Counselor Advisory Committee meets periodically to advise the district’s guidance counselors on matters pertaining to the business community.

Recent attention focused on the scholarships sponsored by local businesses and civic groups. Two outcomes resulted: Facebook and Twitter promote these opportunities, and a common application for all scholarships was established. Tracy Tyler, president and CEO of Cambridge International, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of mesh metal conveyor belts, contributed leadership to this initiative, leading to a 250 percent growth in the graduating cohorts’ scholarships total over five years.

Mentor: Members of the Dorchester Chamber of Commerce sponsor the Americans for the Competitive Enterprise System program, also known as ACES, to connect teachers with local businesses. Volunteers explain career paths in their fields and assist students with resume preparation, interviewing skills and appropriate attire for the workplace. They conduct career and scholarship fairs, internships, job shadowing, apprenticeship programs and field trips to local industries.  

Recognize: Our partners suggested a recognition program for teachers, business volunteers and community leaders who perform in exemplary fashion. Known as the Starfish Awards, these annual recognitions have become meaningful acknowledgments of service to others.

Compelling Results

The ultimate impact of the five power verbs has been a renewed synergy between the school system and the community at large. We are upgrading the image of a lower-performing district to one that is on the rise.

The most compelling data to support this optimism are our upward graduation rates — from 78 percent in 2010 to 88 percent in 2014. Dorchester now surpasses the Maryland state graduation rate (86.4 percent), an outcome our dedicated partners celebrate. In a recent op-ed piece in the Dorchester Banner, Valerie Goff, our district’s community involvement liaison, wrote: “Look at some of the subgroups that have traditionally lagged behind in achieving high school diplomas and the news gets even better. … There is a revolution taking place in Dorchester County, a quiet revolution but one that has the potential to change the fortunes of our county in the years ahead.”