The New York State Board of Regents and the State Task Force on School-Community Collaboration held a Nassau County/Judicial District Regional Meeting at Adelphi University on Thursday, Jan. 29. The meeting was one of a series of statewide meetings on school-community collaboration required in Chapter 402 of the Laws of 1997.

The meetings are intended to inform local communities and to invite their participation in new school-community partnerships. The forums were designed to bring together schools, county and municipal governments, families, community-based organizations, businesses and others to strengthen existing partnerships and to consider new collaborations to address priority needs of children and families in the local community.

Four goals were established to guide the planning and implementation of the regional meetings:

• to increase the awareness and knowledge of individuals about the state's initiatives to expand school-community collaboration;

• to provide information, guidance and support to assist communities in organizing, implementing and maintaining local partnerships;

• to support existing partnerships and to encourage new local partnerships to develop strategies to address the objectives stated in the legislation; and

• to promote ways to document progress and assess the impact of school-community collaborations in improving outcomes for children and families.

School districts were invited to send teams of from three to five members to represent the district. The teams were to include a district administrator, a parent representative, a community agency or service organization representative and a local business or private sector representative. The team on which I served included the superintendent of schools, two school board members, the president of the parents organization and myself.

The agenda included the opening session which was addressed by Dr. Charles Fowler, district superintendent of Nassau County/Nassau BOCES; Dr. James Norton, president of Adelphi University; Robert M. Johnson, regent for Judicial District 10 which includes Nassau and Suffolk, and Ann Irvin and Kenneth Jenkins of the Nassau County Youth Board.

We will discuss the meeting in greater detail in future columns.