Barriers to Clergy Leadership in Church-Public School Partnerships

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify and weigh church leaders' perceived barriers to establishing partnerships with local high poverty public schools in a large East Coast city. The aim of this study was to establish a foundation for best practices in designing a curriculum for clergy continuing education on the subject of developing partnerships with public schools. To achieve this, data were collected through semi-structured interviews of twelve pastors representing ten churches in a large East Coast city. Data were also collected through field notes, church internet sites, and artifacts. Three main themes emerged from the data: Church Engagement in Public School Partnerships, Church-Public School Partnership Formation, and Obstacles to Church-Public School Partnerships. Further coding revealed more detailed subthemes. Axial coding as a means of making connections between the themes and subthemes that arose from the data revealed a process pastors used to overcome barriers and establish partnerships with public schools. Central to this process were the community-based professional relationships developed between the pastor and the principal, and the subsequent strategic structuring of partnership programming in alignment with the depth of these professional relationships. A continuing education curriculum for clergy on church-public school partnerships was developed based on the information learned in this study.|Keywords: Partnership, Church, Public School, Pastor, Principal, Clergy