• The school enters the partnership with a focus on classroom-based curriculum developed to meet academic goals and standards, ideally in a number of content areas.
• The school turns to the community, seeking opportunities for civic engagement, through which the student can acquire civic understanding and career-related skills.
• The community partner provides meaningful service experiences set in a "real life" context, as well as opportunities for students to interact with adults, and to be acknowledged as positive, contributing members to society.

The following diagram illustrates the service-learning partnership:

Suzan Greenwood of Tillamook County Performance Partnership sees the development of trust as the key element in the establishment of her service-learning partnership with the school. "The first barrier I had to overcome," she recalls, "was the high level of mistrust between the community and the schools. There was so much criticism within the community of the education system and of teachers. I felt that we needed to show them that we - the community - could be helpful, constructive partners in education."

Open and frequent communication is also essential. Each partner is an expert in its own sphere; each needs to teach the other, about the other. Much like the reflection component in service-learning itself, opportunities for interaction between the partner and the school need to be ongoing, so as to continually enhance and refine the partnership.

What the School Needs to Communicate to the Community Partner
What is service-learning?

• Provide a definition that can be easily understood - one that will help the organization identify its role as the community partner.
  
  
• Illustrate the definition with "best practice" examples of service-learning partnerships involving organizations or agencies with a similar mission. The prospective partner will relate best to local examples; if possible, suggest a site visit.
  
  
• Assist the partner in understanding how service-learning - by making a deliberate connection between service and learning opportunities, and by including structured reflection - differs from community service.
  
  
• Emphasize to the partner the need to keep its own mission always in focus, establishing high expectations of the student to assume and complete tasks that will advance that mission.

What are the essential elements in a service-learning program?

• Determine the level of experience that the partner has in working with youth, and build upon that experience to identify and explain the essential elements. Building upon the familiar will make service-learning seem more manageable, and not such a "new" program.
  
  
• Introduce new concepts using terminology that is easily understood; school personnel especially should try to avoid using educational jargon. Enable the community partner to view service-learning as accessible.
  
  
• Illustrate the elements by showing what they look like as components of real service-learning programs. If possible, introduce the elements by involving the partner in a brief service-learning experience.
  
  
• Help the partner to see the role of the school and the role of the agency or organization in meeting each of the elements.
  

What are the benefits to the community of service-learning?
The success of service-learning depends not only on its practice within the school, but also on the advocacy, support and involvement of the community. An understanding of the benefits of service-learning is essential to help the community-based organization justify its commitment to the partnership, and to answer the question, "How does this help us?"

• Provide the organization or agency with evidence from the research on the effects of service-learning . Select key points that demonstrate a direct impact on the way youth interact with the community. Students engaged in service-learning, for example,
  • showed an increase in their level of awareness of community needs;
  • were more likely to develop bonds with a greater number of adults;
  • developed positive work orientation attitudes and skills; and
  • were more likely to be engaged in a community organization and to vote 15 years after their participation in the program than those who did not participate.
    
    
• Help the community partner to see the value of the youth service implicit in service-learning as a resource both short term and long-term. In meeting the organization's needs, youth can:
  
  • Perform needed project-specific tasks;
  • Provide the organization with an opportunity to develop sustained volunteer assistance that will, over time and with training, become increasingly valuable;
  • Increase visibility, awareness and understanding of the organization and its mission within the community.

What are the academic or curricular standards to which teachers are held accountable?

The national movement to adopt standards-based educational reform has largely eluded the world beyond the school. Educators are trained, and paid, to understand what the state-set standards are, and how they are to be implemented. Community partners, by contrast, often first encounter standards when they are told, by the school, that teachers no longer have the time to involve students in community service because of the demands of meeting rigorous new academic benchmarks and testing.

• Introduce a discussion of the state standards, in easy-to-understand terminology that avoids educational jargon. In the 1980's, national research in education consistently showed that an alarming number of students graduating from high school lacked essential educational skills and knowledge. Even those who had been relatively successful students were often not able to apply knowledge and skills learned in the classroom to real-life situations that they would encounter.
  
  The standards movement is an attempt to "raise the bar", to set rigorous academic standards for all students to attain. As well, standards reform in a number of states has led to the inclusion of "real life" problem solving experiences, requiring students to demonstrate their ability to apply acquired classroom skills and knowledge in developing and implementing solutions.
  
  
• Invite community partners to collaborate with teachers in developing service experiences and opportunities that will increase both student and teacher understanding of civic engagement.
  
  
• Help community partners to see academic standards and learning outcomes as equivalent - for the educator - to the job performance standards that they have to meet, or to the mission of the organization.
  
  
• Recognize that the community partner is not responsible for meeting the academic standards, nor for understanding the mechanics of how the service experience can be aligned to the standards. The better the partner understands the significance of the standards, however, the easier it is to incorporate both service and learning goals into the program. Partners may, in fact, see it as a marketing benefit to prepare standards-aligned service-learning programs for opportunities at their site.

SOLV is a statewide Oregon non-profit organization with a 30-year history of recruiting and organizing thousands of community volunteers to clean up and enhance the environment. Portland Parks and Recreation recently turned to SOLV for assistance in involving Portland area schools with basic maintenance activities - picking up litter, raking leaves, clearing out fallen limbs, etc. - on a regular basis in their neighborhood parks. Portland Parks had found it very difficult of late to convince schools to become involved in its community service "Adopt-A-Park" program.

SOLV's own commitment to service-learning led them to encourage Portland Parks to consider a different approach. All the Portland Parks personnel who were to work with the program were invited to a workshop, and asked what they wanted to get out of the program. To a person, they responded that they were hoping to have students assist with basic maintenance tasks. SOLV then introduced the Parks personnel to the demands on teachers in schools today, outlining the reasons behind the standards movement, and walking the group through the terminology of Oregon's standards. "Students need to meet learning goals in all their activities," the facilitator explained. "You are all experts in your
particular parks. Think of yourself as a teacher. What could you help a student learn by working in your park?"

"We need to install a new irrigation system in my park," came the first response. "Students could help us determine the hydrology needs of the various areas and plantings around the park." Twenty-four more learning ideas followed, and from these, SOLV worked with a team of educators to develop the new "Adopt-A-Park" program. They designed a comprehensive service-learning curriculum, with hundreds of suggested activities extending across eight subject areas, and then aligned each activity to Oregon standards and benchmarks. SOLV knew, from its own prior experiences with service-learning programs, that the curricular alignments would be a magnet for teachers already overwhelmed by the tracking and testing demands of standards implementation.

Building Community through Service-Learning: The Role the Community Partner. A Promising Practices Issue Brief on Service-Learning by Susan Abravenal , National Center for Learning and Citizenship (Spring 2003):Education Commission of the States (ECS)