Joint rural school-community projects are most effectively sustained when they are developed by a collaborative group. Older students, like these Fabens, TX students, can be important members of collaborative action groups.

or a diverse collection of individuals to develop into a cohesive, working group requires activities along two basic dimensions: team building and team planning. Team building is the process through which group members find ways of shaping an unwieldy bundle of individual ideas, interests, and needs into a well-focused purpose and plan of action that all group members can support. Team planning involves carefully assessing local needs and resources, identifying priorities, and finding manageable ways of addressing those needs.

Neither of these tasks can be hurried or skipped over if a group is to succeed in making a difference within the community. What’s more, they need to happen – almost – at one and the same time. In the beginning, team building should dominate the group’s attention; in later stages, planning will take precedence. But team building without planning is an empty process, while planning without team building is like asking a random set of strangers to suit up for the Super Bowl.

Most effective guides to collaboration include activities that are designed to help groups develop skills and cohesiveness as a team while they go about the business of planning and implementing school-community projects. (See sidebar below for a description of the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory’s collaborative process and supporting materials.) As you consider the following "critical elements" of collaboration, keep in mind that each one requires skills and support not only in planning and development, but also in building an effective collaborative team.

Community readiness. Joint school-community projects, while they can be of great benefit, also place demands on all those involved. It is important to consider whether your local environment can support a collaborative effort. Readiness issues include leadership, commitment, management capacity, access to resources, and the capacity to take risks and to cope with controversy.

Most collaborative guides recommend, as does the Annie E. Casey Foundation (n.d.), a careful assessment of community readiness; such an assessment involves "looking hard at local leadership and collaborative experience, the complexity and risks of the initiative, the maturity of the organization[s] expected to carry it out, . . .and the availability of a sufficient resolve and patience to build effective. . . communication" among the individuals and agencies that need to be involved (p. 12). Resource materials developed by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory include an assessment questionnaire you can use in helping to determine your community’s readiness.