How to Align School Partners In Distance Education

Writer : Tundung Memolo

Learned from the World Cup 2028, that a football team will be successful when it has a strong defense and team solidity. The number of star players does not necessarily affect an achievement, including a prominent star player figure does not really mean anything, look like Argentina or Portugal. Likewise, big names, defending champions, FIFA rank 1, do not affect achievement. In the context of a school that wants to progress, wants to improve self-quality, wants to achieve, or wants to leave itself from adversity, then there are solutions that can be taken from the 2018 World Cup lessons, namely strong defense and solidity of a team.

A strong defense is the internal side of a school. School can be defined as a community consisting of the principal as managerial, teachers as the spearhead of learning, students as learning subjects, and administrative staff or committees as learning support capacity to work together to form harmonization that cares, understands, understands, and fills deficiencies. It is undeniable that unifying all the components of the school is not easy, but if all lines can play a role, then the robustness of the school will be read by the community.

The solidity of a team in the sense of a school can be seen from the external side, where schools cannot stand firm without strong partnerships or synergies between schools and parents and the community. A the school will run where it even collapses if it is not able to optimize the role of cooperative partnerships with them.

School-community partnerships have long been seen as a promising way to help students, families, and communities. In this advanced age, local schools are generally seen as community center institutions (Dewey, 1902). Dryfoos (1994) argues that schools cannot meet the needs of students on their own, but must coordinate with social service systems and become "full-service schools". Developmental theorists emphasize the multiple and interrelated dimensions of human development: physical, psychological, social, cognitive, ethical, and linguistic. They also discuss ecological perspectives on human development, that is, examining environmental contexts (peers, family, school, environment, etc.) that support or hinder healthy development and learning, as well as interactions between them.

Based on the context of schools, parents, and communities that form an ecology, there is a need for a mutually beneficial relationship. The partnership will create a strong selling power for a school and its own magnetism in the eyes of the wider community. This partnership will provide input strengthening, process quality so that the output of a lesson can be increased. This is not just a discourse, but facts on the ground have shown that a school that has a strong partnership will have milestones for success.

The next question is how the school builds partnerships with parents and the community. It should be noted that each school has its own character according to the vision and mission of the school, even the culture of the community. In general, schools that are still marginalized by the local community should improve, before they lose a large number of students at the admission of new students or even go out of business because no students want to register.

School partnerships with parents can be realized by forming paguyuban (school partner). This association can be at the level of one class or one school, at least forming a WA or Facebook community. A school policy before being spawned should be discussed with paguyuban members. Even though the policy has received approval from the school committee. Discussions that lead to this solid defense will provide a mutual understanding of programs originating from the school. Schools must be prepared to accept criticism, objections, and even cancellations if it turns out that many members of the association disagree.

Often a school policy is only one direction and not participatory. For example, a program A from the school, then the committee is forced to approve, and legalize it to the parents of students. Because the parents fear their children will be discriminated against, the parents give in. As a result, the program runs but is empty of the meaning of a partnership. In the end, what happened was criticism, even blasphemy at the school, so that it would weaken the school.

In fact, a partnership is a relationship that gives and takes each other. A program from the school, the school should not only run it, but it needs involvement with the parents of students. Activities like this are rare. Take a simple example, when there is a study tour program, why not involve parents' representatives in providing food or tour buses. This is what is rarely seen as if the parents who were involved in the program are seen as more of interfering in the domestic affairs of the school. In fact, schools that want to advance, this participation is expected. There are many examples of other programs.

Partnership with the community can be realized through various community formation. In some developed countries, for example, they form community legal protection for teachers, the alumni association for teacher welfare, work association communities, school finance auditors, provision of school infrastructure, tutoring, recreation, and so on. There are many that can be model schools. If a partnership between the school and the community can be realized or there is intense communication, the school will move forward, because the community will automatically promote the school to other members of the community in other places. This is not an impossibility that is difficult to realize. In this case, the principal has a heavy-duty in the managerial partnership.

Realizing the importance of partnerships between schools with parents and the community, especially in the distance education phase, the school must immediately make it happen through constructive ideas. Create many opportunities for partnership participation and promote a culture of healthy and profitable cooperation. The synergy of this partnership will color, strengthen, and progress a school in the eyes of the wider community and can even provide an example for other schools.