0.6 Cunniff, d. (september 2011). university partnerships with  (Page 2/7)

Each school has its own culture. It is up to the university to identify that culture and understand the mission statement and vision for the school selected for partnership. According to Kotter and Heskett (2002), culture is most closely related to organizational performance when three criteria are met. First, the culture should be strategically relevant in that the behaviors that are emphasized and rewarded are actually the ones necessary to accomplish pressing and relevant organizational objectives or learning outcomes. Second, the culture should be strong, and people agree what is important and care. Third, a core value needs to focus, over time, on innovation, adaptation and change if the school is to reach high levels of performance such as distinguished school status (Kotter and Heskett, 2002). Emerging partnership models could benefit from partnership literature focused on use of accreditation standards to improve program implementation and record keeping and the utilization of research on professional development, policy and practice in PreK-12 schools. Occasionally, it is possible to find similar core values in both the school district and the university. One such university is National University based in La Jolla, California, whose core values include quality, access, relevance, accelerated pace and community. The community value has not only included the university community, but has reached out into the local neighborhood school districts as well. The Faculty in this institution has embarked on several formal and informal partnerships with school districts up and down the state of California and Nevada.

Additional collaborative partnerships with school districts can be found around the United States. The University of Arizona has started “The Pathways Program” in Tucson, which partners with local school districts to offer graduate programs to bachelor’s level practitioners in school and is now attempting to expand their program to include the other training programs in the state. They are considering adding graduate level slots for “grow your own” students. Arizona State University (ASU) has a partnership with the Arizona Department of Education to provide a part-time master’s degree program for speech-language pathologists working in the public schools.

An interesting program has been developed by the University of Maryland and the Montgomery County Schools. This is an example of how the county schools saved money by using students to assist with other students and well as using parents in the classroom. They have partnered to produce additional master’s students each year. Students are selected from applicants who commit themselves to working in a school setting. They can be selected for a scholarship covering all expenses in exchange for them working for the Montgomery County Schools. William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey, partners with their school district to assist with teacher shortages as does the University of Northern Colorado and the University of Colorado at Boulder. Texas Tech University and the Lubbock Independent School District partnership employ junior and senior level students as “clerks”, while they work toward a bachelor’s degree (American Speech-Language Hearing Association, 2011).