Adaptation and Community Schools Part 3 of 3: Social
With adaptation now fundamental to community life comes the need for a new interpretation of community schools. The last post was specific to physical adaptation; how a reinterpretation of school infrastructure and operations can assist adaptive community development.
This post is about social adaptation; how a reinterpretation of school and school district policies and systems, involving people, can assist community climate adaptation and progressive community development at large.
More than Just Buildings with Classrooms, Students and Satff
Schools can play a leading role in community adaptation by acting as conduits for communication, community awareness and services, health and wellbeing and an educated society that is connected with local development and global sustainability at large.
This interpretation is solidified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPCC) which, in SPM (Summary for Policy Makers) D.2 of its 2022 Report on the impacts, adaptation and vulnerability of climate change, states the following:
“Climate resilient development is facilitated by international cooperation and by governments at all levels working with communities, civil society, educational bodies, scientific and other institutions, media investors and businesses and by developing partnerships with traditionally marginalised groups, including women, youth, Indigenous Peoples, local communities and ethnic minorities (high confidence). These partnerships are most effective when supported by enabling political leadership, institutions, resources, including finance, as well as climate services, information and decision support tools”. IPCC Working Group II, 2022
Education vs Schools
In keeping with the Education Act of Ontario, school districts in Ontario are responsible for, among other things, “providing education programs that meet the needs of the school community, including needs for special education.” Now is the time to more actively engage in formative processes to clarify what the needs of school communities are and what/how educational programs should be provided to align with community soft adaptation.
The research informed need for educational system change to address climate change is well established. One example of many resources on the topic is the November 2021 UNESCO report Reimagining Our Futures Together: A New Social Contract for Education that states “as we face grave risks to the future of humanity and the living planet itself, we must urgently reinvent education to address common challenges.” Furthermore, a new social contract for education “must unite us around collective endeavours and provide the knowledge and innovation needed to shape sustainable and peaceful futures for all anchored in social, economic and environmental justice.” p.2
Ontario’s current educational system structures limit schools to a peripheral role in social adaptation via community access to available space per funding calculations and curriculum updates specific to climate change and related contexts.
A new interpretation of community schools will enable a more seamless connection with social adaptation whereby educators work collaboratively with community partners and students based upon their interests, learning needs and real-time data.
Climate change adaptation is an opportunity for education systems to create an equitable range of learning experiences at school, online and in the community; a shared commitment to the social infrastructure and educational approaches necessary to address a rapidly changing future.
A Path Forward
The social service professionals that assist Ontario communities through the Ministry of Children, Community, and Social Services, NGOs and charities, work interdependently with the formal structures of municipal planning departments and school districts. Integrally connected with youth and community services, they are experienced with data driven processes and change management with a view to equity. They are also burdened, as are school districts, with increasing demand for social services, particularly mental health. These demands will continue to increase with the impact of climate change.
The challenge to be addressed is largely about procedure and practice; enabling the necessary conditions for schools, community services and business to work together in response to individual student and family needs. Social service planning can assist a deeper connection with schools through innovative policy development, communication strategies, data applications, digital transformation, and the application of informed processes framed by equity and student/youth voice.
Social service professionals, empowered by the need for community adaptation, have the skill and capacity to assist school districts and schools in creating, promoting and facilitating:
a community vision for student success,
collaborative leadership,
equitable supports for historically underserved students,
a culture of innovation,
responsive funding systems, and
measurements of success.
Adapted From State Policy Framework for Personalized Learning: KnowledgeWorks, 2019
The Indigenous Connection
The opportunity for community adaptation through a stronger connection with schools is further enhanced by the value proposition of a deeper connection with Indigenous culture and peoples.
In 2007, the Ontario Ministry of Education released the Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit (FNMI) Education Policy Framework; the strategic policy context for the ministry, school boards, and schools to work together to improve the academic achievement of FNMI students in Ontario. Based upon a holistic and integrated approach to improving FNMI student outcomes, the framework includes strategic goals for Ontario school districts and schools to:
facilitate intercultural dialogue throughout school communities (strategy 3.2, p.19),
foster school-community projects with appropriate cultural components (strategy 3.2, p.19).
develop creative strategies to encourage more FNMI parents to participate more actively and directly in the education of their children (strategy 3.3, p.20), and
increase involvement of FNMI parents, Elders, and other community resources (strategy 3.3, p.20).
Prepared sixteen years ago, the FNMI Policy Framework does not offer any meaningful linkages with climate change.
The foundation exists for social service professionals to make a deeper connection between existing provincial policy, Indigenous communities and school and school district operations. This mutually beneficial opportunity is available due to the need for climate adaptation.
Communication and Measurement Matters
A reinterpretation of the role of community schools for climate adaption offers a starting point for new working relationships, framed by the tenets of effective communication and measurement.
The last post on physical adaptation identified that community organizations, leaders and school districts are currently enabled, by virtue of the Ontario Ministry of Education’s Community Planning and Partnerships Guideline, to share planning information on the availability and use of surplus school space.
This is a potentially valuable platform to initiate measurable progress on an almost endless variety of physical and social adaptation indicators.
In this context, the potential for progress reports on facility upgrades, or student transportation, or the availability of school climate shelters is matched in importance with the potential for progress reports on community school partnerships, or equity assessments, or communication campaigns, or community wellness, or student feedback etc.
The Potential Value of a Cohort Approach
When thinking about the role of schools in the immense journey ahead, it can help to view the process longitudinally. For most students, the time spent in K-12 Ontario schools is 14 years. What we can begin now, and maintain over the next 14 years with the current cohort of junior kindergarten students, can also be used to guide and support future student cohorts to follow.
Through climate adaptation, we hold the capacity to create a vibrant role for community schools.
Phil Dawes, August, 2023
This article has been updated from its original content via blog post with the Ontario Provincial Planners Institute, June, 2023.