{"id":13747,"date":"2019-08-29T14:30:27","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T19:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/?p=13747"},"modified":"2019-10-01T20:17:25","modified_gmt":"2019-10-02T01:17:25","slug":"creating-community-connectedness-belonging-and-academic-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/2019\/08\/29\/creating-community-connectedness-belonging-and-academic-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating Community: Connectedness, Belonging, and Academic Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"studentsSchools are busy places. Filled with energy, excitement, and activity, the dynamic ecosystem of a school creates a natural space for interaction among students, faculty, and families. But simply being together in the same place, at the same time, doesn\u2019t automatically foster an environment where students feel interconnected, welcomed, and known. Creating community is an active, deliberate process. It\u2019s a core accountability for academic institutions, and an essential element of MPA\u2019s DNA\u2014it\u2019s built into who were are and what we do, with a support system that fuels academic success and facilitates a lifetime of wellbeing for students.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a parent and a member of the administrative team, I can speak to my own personal experience about the impact of MPA\u2019s community,\u201d shares Jennifer Rogers-Petitt, director of development and community engagement. \u201cI started in my role, and my children started as MPA students, in mid-October of last year. It was definitely a big change, with my then second and seventh grader having already begun the academic year at other schools. But from the start, what they experienced in their classrooms, with their peers and from their teachers helped them feel they could make this transition, and my children never looked back. As a mom, that meant everything and put my mind at ease. And as development director, it\u2019s so inspiring to see how in this community everyone chips in\u2014not just through philanthropy, but also in the time and talents they share with our school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parent Leah Anderson also sees community as an essential part of the MPA fabric. \u201cMPA wraps a supportive, welcoming, positive community around all of it to make asking big questions and sharing ideas safe and possible,\u201d Anderson says. \u201cIt\u2019s a killer mash-up that means we have a kid who jumps out of bed in the morning excited to go to school and nearly always enthusiastically answers \u2018great!\u2019 when asked \u2018how was your day?\u2019 Really, what more could parents ask for?\u201d<\/p>\n

Community Strength, Academic Motivation<\/strong>
\nEric Schaps, founder of the Developmental Studies Center, writes<\/a> how those feelings of belonging tie directly to academic performance and personal development, \u201cwhich makes the creation of caring, inclusive, participatory communities for our students especially important.\u201d Schaps explains that \u201ca growing body of research confirms the benefits of building a sense of community in school. Students in schools with a strong sense of community are more likely to be academically motivated (Solomon, Battistich, Watson, Schaps, & Lewis, 2000); to act ethically and altruistically (Schaps, Battistich, & Solomon, 1997); to develop social and emotional competencies (Solomon et al., 2000); and to avoid a number of problem behaviors, including drug use and violence (Resnick et al., 1997).\u201d<\/p>\n

Schaps sees four specific approaches as key levers in building community and maximizing the value students and families receive from a healthy school environment:<\/p>\n