Community School Partnership
Gill-Montague Community School Partnership
Puts on "Raising Our Children" Series
The Gill-Montague Community School Partnership, of which The Brick House is a long-standing member, is sponsoring a series for youth and their parents appropriately titled "Raising Our Children". In today's time, with its multiplicity of distractions and attractions, bringing up children well is a hugely complex and challenging task. While the schools, through their teachers and other staff, have many contact hours and much impact on the lives of the students, and the enveloping community can reinforce a healthy set of values, neither can replace the role of the parents. It is to everyone's benefit - parents, schools, community and most especially the youth themselves - to find ways to partner with and support parents.
The Community School Partnership was formed over two years ago to address issues of bullying in the schools. The very name of the partnership indicates that challenges like this are a community issue and not ones that the schools can effectively solve by themselves. The partnership has been a strong one. Along with the schools, other participants have included the Montague Police, The Mediation and Training Collaborative, Montague Catholic Social Ministries, Montague Parks and Recreation, the Housing and Redevelopment Authority, and other local and regional agencies. The Brick House has been a participant since the beginning.
This school year the partnership elected to work more directly with as many parents in the community as possible. The now well-known African saying that “it takes a village to raise a child” is the goal of such an effort. The challenge for the Community School Partnership is how to attract more parents to the table. Appropriately enough, bringing them to the table to partake in a meal was the first step, as the partnership hosted a community meal on Monday, December 13, 2004. The intent of this event was to be a get-to-know-you effort. Fifty parents and their kids attended the meal with food and preparation supplied by the Montague Elks Lodge.
The next step was bringing in Dr. Bill Cosby to talk about parenting issues in January. He spoke to a capacity crowd in the new auditorium at the high school/middle school and, while a number of youth shared the stage with him, his talk was directed toward parents, strongly urging them to get involved and stay involved with their kids.
The five-part Raising Our Children series is due to continue with two more evening events, "Girls Night Out" for girls and their mothers (or other chief guardian) and "Boys Night Out". Then, toward the end of the school year, the series will come full circle when all will be invited to come together in a community celebration and meal. |
