Abstract:
The aims of this research were: 1) to study the state of relationship between school and community in Special Education Centre Region 7, 2) to compare the opinions of administrators and teachers about relationship between school and community in Special Education Centre Region 7, 3) to propose a guidelines for relationship between school and community based on the Saṅgahavatthu IV in Special Education Centre Region 7, according to the personal factors of the respondents, This research design employed a mixed method of quantitative and qualitative data collection. The quantitative research collected data from the sample of 226 people. The research tools were a questionnaire with its reliability value of .97. The obtained quantitative data were analyzed by using the following statistics: Frequency, Percentage, Standard Deviation, Mean, t-test and F-test. The qualitative research used an analytical interview method and collected data from 9 key informants and analyzed the data by content analysis.
The results of the research showed that:
1. The state of relationship between school and community in Special Education Centre Region 7 classified by aspects was at the high level overall (x̅ = 4.20, S.D. = 0.40) when considering from most to least: 1) Public Relations 2) Community Services 3) Promoting of Relationship with Community and Other Agencies and the least 4) Community Assistance.
2. The results of the comparison of the opinions of administrators and teachers about relationship between school and community in Special Education Centre Region 7 according to personal factors classified by gender, age, education, position and work experience, it was found that school administrators and teachers with different gender, age, education, position, and work experience had not significantly differences at the level .05 thus rejected the research hypothesis set.
3. The Guidelines for relationship between school and community based on the Saṅgahavatthu IV in Special Education Centre Region 7 showed that 1) Community Services, administrators should encourage teacher to share money, knowledge, physical strength, and spirit in order to serve the community and should be continually visiting the area to meet with community. 2) Public Relations, administrators should create a basic knowledge of communication for parents and suggest the objectives of the activities by Two-way communication : provide and receive information. 3) Promoting of Relationship with Community and Other Agencies, administrators should provide guidelines for teachers to work with the community and provide opportunities for communities to participate in various activities with Special Education Centre by creating a network of operations. 4) Community Assistances, administrators should have a clear action plan teachers plan for the community to be informed and to participate in the planning and improve operations. Including administrators should report on performance of activities that have received financial supported for transparency and public awareness.