Benefits2 is a series of papers addressing ways that rural schools and communities can work together so that both will thrive. Previous issues described the great variety among school-community projects, and the changes and commitments needed to assure their effectiveness. This issue and the following one will focus on strategies for using a formal school-community collaborative to help plan and implement successful projects.

tudent-operated shops, newspapers, construction companies. Health clinics and day care centers staffed by students. Students organizing community clean-ups, monitoring water quality, recording and reporting local history. These are some of the many projects mentioned in previous issues of Benefits², activities that pump new resources and energy into rural communities while providing students with real-world learning experiences. These are the kinds of initiatives that can help restore community cohesiveness to rural America and strengthen academic achievement in rural schools.

Integrated school-community projects benefit the community in many ways. They can stimulate the local economy through entrepreneurial activities that generate income and encourage residents to shop "at home." They can help make the community a more appealing place to live, by providing needed services, improving the local environment, and offering quality education. And they can strengthen the bonds of community, encouraging residents to take part, and take pride, in local culture.

	By working in a collaborative group, you can help assure that your initiative will weather changes in personnel or politics.

Schools benefit in equal measure. Rural schools gain resources, directly through community contributions of time, expertise, or funds, and indirectly, through a strengthened local economy and broader support for educational initiatives. Schools develop an academic program that is rooted in principles of effective teaching and learning. And, perhaps most importantly, schools develop ways of coping effectively with "the single most important problem that American society faces in its effort to educate children," the fact that:

young people [have] become segregated from the structure of responsibilities and rewards of the productive adult society. As a result, children and adolescents face historically unprecedented challenges in finding a sense of purpose in their schooling tasks and a sense of connection with adult roles of authority and responsibility. (Hoffer and Coleman, 1990, pp. 129-130)

There are many ways of setting up and carrying out integrated school-community projects. One important strategy for success is to establish a formal collaborative group and process.

What's this?