Small towns, schools need to join forces to meet the challenges ahead
"Public education and rural communities both can suffer from what he called "the victim syndrome," Kyte said
MORRIS-- Small schools and small towns are facing the same challenges and they ought to embrace each other to create an upward spiral.
That's the opinion Charles Kyte delivered in his keynote address Tuesday at the 5th annual Symposium on Small Towns, held at the University of Minnesota Morris.
Kyte is Executive Director Minnesota Association of School Administrators. His speech was titled, "Communities and schools ... Linked to the past, challenged by the future. Strategies to thrive."
Public education and rural communities both can suffer from what he called the "victim syndrome," Kyte said
"For the past 20 years, we have heard ongoing criticism of education," he said. "Then we began to believe it and we tell the world how impossible our job is. Now, the rest of the world is turned off by our whining."
That amounts to negative marketing, he said.
"And who wants to hear that?"Â Kyte said. "Parents only want to hear that we will do incredible things to educate their children."
Small towns do the same thing, and Kyte said that the community and the schools need to work together to either create growth or enjoy what they have.
"The question is, can we provide both high enough quality and aspiration for [students] in our community schools?"Â he said.
That's where the community is key, according to Kyte. "Communities have to help create aspirations for their children."
If the community is filled with folks who have higher aspirations for the community's children, the school will respond, he said.
Kyte pointed to the Wayzata school district, which requires students to take science and math courses in every grade.
"They are concerned that their students will need to compete with China."
Kyte said that schools are doing a good job of creating a higher level of knowledge. In fact, he wished that changing how students are educated was a school-only challenge, because we could fix it."
However, change is difficult in a community, Kyte said.
"There is more resistance to change in a community than there is in a school."
So, Kyte said school leaders have to be community leaders.
"The superintendent has to hold all of the kids of the community in the palm of his hand and care about them, whether they are enrolled in public or charter schools,"Â he said.
Kyte admitted that this is a more perilous approach to school governing. There is such a shortage of superintendents that many communities are hiring retired superintendents on a temporary basis.
"This means they aren't building a long-term relationship with the community, Kyte said. Superintendents need to lend their skill set to the community, to see themselves as having a role in the community."
Kyte offered some suggestions that would be for both schools and communities, but noted that anyone of these are profound.Â
First, he stressed that schools and communities need to embrace each other and develop a helping partnership.
"Often we just don't ask for help,"Â Kyte said.
Kyte also stressed that access and technology are important and it's vital to make technology widely available.
"If I were the superintendent at Morris today, he said, I would round up every laptop in the school and check it out to kids to keep them working over the summer."
Kyte also urged schools to build partnerships, both with area colleges and with regional partners to build higher education aspirations early. This would help establish and encourage a rigorous skills set for students.
Kyte stressed the importance of civility and a sense of striving as well as creating a work ethic and sense of service among students.
Schools and communities also need to consider new delivery methods, such as shared management and incentives to empower staff. Schools and communities should create pride -- something that makes them special.
