Establishing and maintaining school-community partnerships: a challenge for school management teams

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Abstract
It is evident that schools and community organizations can no longer continue to function parallel to one another; rather, they need to work together in partnership. This article examined the challenges of establishing and maintaining school-community partnerships in township secondary schools in the Johannesburg Central District and presented qualitative findings. This research article followed a concurrent triangulation mixed method design to investigate the partnerships between 100 school management team members from 16 selected township secondary schools and their respective community partnerships. This article reported only on the qualitative findings of the study. This article drew on systems theory as a theoretical lens to understand school management team practices in establishing and maintaining school-community partnerships. While the benefits of establishing partnerships are worthwhile, this article underscored the following challenges: time constraints; interference in day-to-day school activities; heavy workloads and limited resources. Further research is needed to examine those factors that may impede on the development of partnerships. The study concluded that a considerable amount of time, adequate resources and a fair amount of workload are required for the establishment of partnerships in township secondary schools. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

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