Principals’ perspectives on school–community engagement in hard-to-staff schools

Principals of marginalized schools confront a variety of equity challenges that impact students’ academic outcomes and wellbeing. There is growing consensus that the way principals and schools engage with the community can contribute to addressing equity challenges. This study examined the experiences of six principals of marginalized schools with school–community engagement in Victoria, Australia. Drawing on data from semi-structured interviews, public-facing annual school reports and school and community profiles using publicly available data, narrative analysis was used to seek answers to the research questions: how do principals of hard-to-staff schools describe their schools’ engagement with the local community? and what factors seem to impact this school–community engagement? Analysis suggested that school-community engagement fell into three forms: Integrated, Transactional, and Unconnected. Factors contributing to the type of school-community engagement experienced by these marginalized schools seem to be associated with the relative resourcing of the school and its local community, the principal’s understanding of the local community, and how the principal views the role of school–community engagement. The findings have implications for policy and school leadership development, suggesting the need to be attentive to context, to support principals to capitalize on local opportunities, and overcome barriers to establish sustainable, reciprocal school–community partnerships.