Improving Schools Through Community Engagement

How can educators harness public interest in education to bring families and communities to action? This invaluable resource addresses initiatives to engage constituent involvement.

Kathy Gardner Chadwick, Ph.D. in marketing from Northwestern University, is the Husby-Johnson Chair of Business and Economics at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Prior to joining the faculty at St. Olaf, Kathy taught marketing at the University of Minnesota and worked as a marketing research analyst at 3M Company in St. Paul, Minnesota. For the past 20 years, she has served as a marketing consultant to a wide variety of organi-zations in both the private and the not-for-profit sectors. Her interest in community engagement stems from her back-ground in marketing and her passion for education, combined with her opportunity to serve as a faculty member in a leadership development program for Minnesota educators, funded by the Bush Foundation. Conversations with K-12 educators over a period of several years convinced her that community engagement can address many of the challenges facing today's educators as they work to help students achieve at a higher level. Believing that "actions speak louder than words," she has been actively involved in her commu-nity's public schools, serving as co-chair of the local elemen-tary school site council, volunteering for district-level task forces, and regularly attending school conferences. She lives in Bloomington, Minnesota, with her two teenaged children, Claire and Jim.

"Our democracy depends on an informed, involved public, and our schools do as well. Kathy Chadwick provides deliberate, reasonable ways to seek public input, share data and information, and build community."