Report on International Conference for Community Schools

Omsk, Russia, October 9-13, 2000

Dear Colleagues,

The Krasnoyarsk center for Community Partnerships (KCCP) wanted to pass along to you a short report about the International conference for Community Schools that was held in Omsk, Russia, from October 9-13.

Over 130 people from 12 countries and 23 regions of Russia participated. The goal of the conference was to establish understanding and partnership between government education departments and the community school movement. We were excited that participants included the widest possible range of those responsible for the future of education from the Federal Ministry level to village school directors. The potential for such social  partnerships was demonstrated by the organizing committee itself which  brought together members of the Omsk Oblast and City Education Departments and four local schools active in the movement. Those of you who know about  Omsk, where there is a big war going on between the City and Oblast, can  appreciate what an achievement it was to get them to the table together. Community school activists were invited to serve as session facilitators and  to give first hand accounts of their work and the positive results.

The opening day plenary session was one of those rare days in the civil society development business when you can sit back and know that we have, indeed, moved the process forward. Who could have imagined four years ago that  the Russian Federation Duma Deputy who serves as Vice Director for the  Committee on Education and Science, O. N. Smolin, would be opening our conference? The recognition of a grassroots initiative by such a man who brought greetings from the President of the RF State Duma, Gennadi Seleznov, is an epiphany moment. We have translated Smolin's remarks into English or we can send them to you in Russian if you are interested. Smolin demonstrated himself to be not only a supporter but an expert on community-oriented education. He spoke of the four external conditions required for it to develop:

1. A sufficient level of financing and freedom for schools to distribute these financial resources
2. A considerable degree of political and academic freedom
3. A civil society political culture which encourages people not to be managed but to manage themselves, that which aspires towards self-government.
4. A legislative base

While he acknowledged concerns about backslides in political freedom he feels the current conditions are sufficient to support community oriented  education. He said his committee is ready to work closely with us so that  norms, if we do not feel they are sufficient, are included in Russian  legislation.

A. G. Kapycnyak, Head Specialist Department of General and Middle Education,  Ministry of Education Russian Federation brought greetings from the Vice  Minister of Education, Kisilov. Kapycnyak took an active part in sessions and before departing said he would welcome a proposal from KCCP to make a presentation of the Russian community school model in Moscow.

"Grajdanivedini" ("Civic Education"), a part of the national newspaper Uchitelskaya Gazeta ("Teachers Gazette"), has already published several articles about the movement and sent a correspondent to cover the event. Local news coverage, especially TV, was extensive. The highlight of this coverage was the opening day signing of an agreement between the Omsk Oblast and City governments with KCCP to conduct a year long Oblast wide community school development program with the government financing 50% of the costs. In fact, the Oblast government paid for 31 village school directors to participate in the conference. We hope this will be a model that can be replicated by other regions in Russia as they hope to establish a resource center. On the basis of the KCCP/ECHO program the city has already created a City Education Foundation. We will be providing consultations on conducting their first grant competition this week.

Of course the government interest and support the community school movement has received in Omsk, plus the endorsement from government plenary speakers made it more comfortable for government representatives from other regions to feel comfortable with the idea. Still, as we expected, they arrived openly skeptical. The key questions were "why do we need this?", "how is this different from what we had in the past or from the activities that any active school operating today engages in?" and the feeling that we were promoting the American education system. By the end of the conference skepticism had turned to enthusiastic support for the idea and great interest in the training program and the developing community school association. Concrete suggestions for after the conference included the Minister of Education Altai Republic will prepare a proposal for cooperation, a Professor from a St. Petersburg University wants to develop a pilot program in St. Petersburg, various cities in Southern Russia have already been in touch for follow-up information and/or training, Armenia is planning to include KCCP as trainers in their program and all CIS countries that were new to the movement want will approach their local Soros office for possible support. In addition, 6 projects were developed targeted at seeking ways to establish a CS network in Eastern Europe (the positive value of having a KCCP as a coordinating organization was recognized), developing the movement in CIS countries, strengthening international cooperation and information exchange and calling for March 1st to be international community school day, maintaining academic excellence in community schools, methods for attracting additional financial resources to schools, schools as resource centers for stimulating volunteerism and the inclusion of community schools into regional education policy in Russia. Copies of all of these projects will be available from KCCP as part of the post-conference booklet.

The skeptics were won over by a number of things such as workshops presenting three different community school models (Russian, Hungarian and  Czech), visits to local Omsk community schools, talking with civil society activists, and just the experience of participating in an interactive, results-oriented conference.

We were also blessed with the talents of a local teacher/journalist who with a team of young volunteers went sleepless to publish a daily conference newspaper (the first I have ever seen) covering the previous days events, interviews with interesting participants and other announcements (three birthdays were celebrated). It is also important to mention the tremendous technical support (access to Internet, three computers and xerox's) thanks to loans from local community schools so that participants could copy materials. Also, the Omsk Soros Internet Center covered the event and posted articles from the daily newspaper on their site during the conference.

Comments during the closing summary session indicated that as much as anything during the week people had the experience of being in the kind of dynamic, democratic environment that we want to bring to schools and communities. Of course there were heated moments as it is not the usual situation for government bureaucrats to be sitting as equals with school teachers and directors discussing ways to solve the problems they share. However, by the end of the conference the dynamics had shifted to such a degree that you could no longer identify the bureaucrats from the teachers. 

As important as anything was the chance for people to exchange experiences  so everyone left inspired with ideas and energy. Perhaps it was expressed best by a participant from Uzbekistan who said, "Most of the last years have been concentrated on separating people, now we have an idea around which we can start to unite."

The primary criticism was that a specific theoretical base for community schools and community-oriented education was not put forward. This was not a surprise since people who were educated during the Soviet period are very theory driven so we appreciated their level of discomfort. What they got instead was a philosophy and a set of principles which guide all community school development allowing for various models that suit the particular cultural and historical backgrounds of countries as well as the existing social, economic and political situation. It was agreed that academic work on the subject is welcome and should be a fertile field now that there is practical experience which can be studied and evaluated.

Also at the closing session conference participants confirmed that all conference objectives had been met and passed the following set of recommendations:

1. Continue to attract local education officials to help the development of the community school movement.

2. Increase relations between regions of Russia, CIS and Eastern Europe through exchanging information, experiences and specialists.

3. Initiate on all levels the training of community school experts through seminars and conferences.

4. Support the development of a community school network by creating regional resource and coordinating centers in Russia, CIS and Eastern Europe as well as creating a community school association (the founding conference is scheduled for December after a year-long development program). 

5. Conduct a scientific/practical conference to establish a better understanding of community-oriented education and community schools.

6. Create a legislative base that supports the idea of community-oriented education.

7. Continue contacts initiated at the conference by organizing follow-up meetings, common projects and conducting regional, inter-regional and international conferences.

8. Increase general knowledge, understanding and support for community schools and community-oriented education through the media and an organized public relations campaign.

Finally, we would like to thank Soros Open Society East East program and the  Mott, Ford and Eurasia Foundations for making not only this conference but our community school movement possible.

Best regards,

Tatiana Buinovskaya
Program Coordinator

About the Krasnoyarsk Center for Community Partnerships...  

KCCP is a registered Krasnoyarsk krai non-commercial organization and a school-based community resource center in Siberia. It is dedicated to the growth of grassroots civic activism through the development of community schools. The center was founded on the belief that democracy and civil society reforms are sustainable only if accompanied by vigorous grassroots citizen education and engagement and was created to be a model for school-based community development and a resource center for democratic schools. KCCP opened its doors in October 1996 as a result of an initiative of the US non-profit ECHO, Inc. and local educators and NGO activists. KCCP focuses its community school development work on the following three areas: formation of active mutually beneficial school-community partnerships; development of volunteerism; and democratization of schools and classrooms. Currently, KCCP's projects are supported by the C. S. Mott Foundation, the Eurasia Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Open Society Institute's East East Program and through volunteer activities by scores of Krasnoyarsk youth and adults.

If you would like to receive more information about the KCCP or Russian community schools or the Russian community school model, please contact us at:

P.O. Box 27027, Krasnoyarsk, Russia 660077
Telephone/Fax: 7-3912-55-33-73

E-mail: [email protected] 
Web: www.kccp.krsk.infotel.ru

Last updated:    November 2000