Community Partnership and Service Learning: An Interview with Dr. Ralph Burnley, Principal of Nebinger Elementary

Posted by on December 16, 2011

Dr. Ralph Burnley has been working in Philadelphia schools for over fifteen years. He began teaching English, science, social studies and mathematics for middle grades and has been an assistant principal, assistant regional superintendent, regional superintendent and is currently the principal of Nebinger Elementary on 6th and Carpenter streets in South Philadelphia. Throughout his career as an educator Dr. Burnley has worked to promote service-learning and community partnerships in schools. He entered teaching from a career outside of the field and when he entered teaching he recognized that there were major gaps between the curriculum and “real life.” Community partnership and service-learning were two methods he used to connect his classroom with the real world.

Nebinger has numerous projects currently happening that allow students to be actively engaged in their community. One project is focused on recycling and horticulture in order to work on turning Nebinger in to a “green” school. They also have a unique partnership with Temple University journalism and engineering students to document activities and programs happening at Nebinger. Dr. Burnley emphasizes the need for active partnerships between schools, universities and community groups as a solution to not only the ‘money problems’ that the district is facing but to help students bridge the gap between elementary school, high school, higher education and working life.

Q: You have worked with many different kinds of partners. What are the challenges in working with colleges and universities?

A: At Nebinger partnerships are on our radar and we’re actively pursuing them. Often colleges and universities have conversations with each other, and sometimes central office but they aren’t always “knocking on the doors” of principals. It’s important for our students to understand the connection between elementary, high school and college and right now they don’t. So I knocked on Temple’s door. At Temple, I got connected to Rachel Howe at the Community Learning Network. And now I’m knocking at Drexel’s door to provide additional opportunities.

What challenges universities is that they don’t always know the “M.O.” of the district and how to push the right buttons. They don’t always know how to pull in key people in order to get things moving. If a particular university was having issues with partnership I would ask them what they’ve already done and how they did it. Principals also have to play a bigger role in reaching out to partners and understanding what “K-16” truly means. There’s no money, so we have to rely on the community to help support our students.

Q: I often get the complaint that schools need an “at the door” person that will help to serve as a partnership liaison, do you think we could work together to help principals identify those people and help more principals understand why that’s important?

A: Yes. At Nebinger, for example, the community outreach person is hopefully going to be a woman who is a leader at a church that has “adopted” Nebinger. It is up to each principal to find the best person for this job.

Additionally, in a first meeting with principals about partnership I would want to give them the grassroots perspective. First of all, I’d want to ask, “what does ‘K-16’ mean?”, Most principals would say that it means educating people from kindergarten through college, or having college students as tutors are mentors. These are both important pieces, but K-16 means more than that. It means really understanding what it’s going to take for your students to be successful in college and pursuing new opportunities to make that happen. Where’s the academic work that is really going to prepare students for college? How is this going to look “tracking wise”? Some students will want to go to four year schools, some may want to go to trade schools. How can we educate young people to know what they need to do to be prepared for higher education?

Q: It sounds like, then, that colleges and universities if they are serious about supporting public schools need to also provide more opportunities for teachers to be able to learn about their curricula and requirements.

A: Yes, and principals especially need to be able to give their teachers time to do professional development and enrichment. It’s so easy to say that “there isn’t time”. In science, for example, teachers need to know what further education in science looks like, how to teach their students about what a real experiment looks like and how to teach across disciplines like math and social studies in order to give students the “bigger picture” and to understand why people do scientific experiments. There is also a social and political connection.

Q: This sort of sounds like teaching students service-learning.

A: Yes, I’m a huge supporter of service learning. Last year at Nebinger we did a big project on Cancer. Students by the end of the year were able to understand what it means to raise money for research and what that would do. Between ’94 and ’98 at Roosevelt Middle School I taught service-learning. We studied the importance of water preservation. The activities were connected to work that was being done with the Clinton administration and the Philadelphia Water Department, we taught students how water systems effect people. I’ve worked with Need in Deed and Earth Force as well. Earth Force was interesting because their program teaches students how to work with cities and connect their work to policy and politics.

One of the ways our school community supports Nebinger is through a group called the “Friends of Nebinger.” I see our school’s improvement as a “service-learning project” for the community and universities.

Q: So adults can use the same process as students use to solve community problems?

A: Yes, I think that is how major issues like school change need to be addressed, on the community level with an understanding of how that work fits in to a bigger picture.