Schools play important roles in the community. By raising the level of education, schools helps individuals and community to learn and work together for change. According to Başaran (2008) school principal should run school as an organisation, and school can do this by serving high quality education and training for its stakeholders and increasing the number of students every year.  There is an educational relationship between the schools and community. This relationship; (a) should meet the needs of those who establish a relationship; (b) should be regularly in a particular place and should not be randomly; (c) should be legal and approved by the community; (d) should be for the public benefit rather than public expense; (e) should be open to those wishing to be trained; (f) there should be no privileges for anybody in the society

Bursalıoğlu (1999) defined three roles for schools. These are; social, economic, and political. School as and educational institution; helps to maintain the national unity via adaptation of cultural values and social rules, solves their problems, increases the living needs of the members of the community, helps community to see the mistakes of the governance. As Handy (1998, s. 222) pointed out, it is said in educational acts and “…suggested that schools would be responsible for the development of our children…this allowed everyone else to leave the task to the school. According to Handy actual school should be given a smaller but crucial role in the education of children. The remaining roles should be fulfilled by the society.

In many countries such as USA (1999) and this is also the case for Turkey, many existing school buildings are almost between 50-60 years old and most of them have been overused and deferred maintenance. According to Davies and Ellison (1997) extra school buildings, cause an uneconomic use of capital resources. This is because, schools are generally open for pupils for 190 days out of 365 and are only open for six hours out of 24 teaching hours; in total, the school buildings are open for %13 of the possible time using a 365 day, 24 hour total possible framework. Therefore educational policy makers and planers should consider organisation of the school, nature of the curriculum and developing a learning community by taking into account to the changing needs of the students and the community (MEB, 2002). When schools are turned into a community learning centres, learning needs of the community increases, those who does not use their education rights, starts seeking for their rights.

Aim.The primary purpose of this paper is to examine how headteachers, teachers and parents view their school as effective when “school as a community learning centre” is defined. Two specific research questions will be used to develop the response to this guiding research question.

1.      What are the overall perceptions of headteachers, teachers and parents about their school?

2.     What are the overall perceptions of  headteachers, teachers and parents about the schools’ learning environment serving as a centre of the community

Başaran, İ. E. (2008). Türk Eğitim Sistemi ve Okul Yönetimi. Ankara: Ekinoks Yayınları. Bingler, S., Quinn, L., & Sullivan, K. (2003, December 01.12.2010). Schools as centres of community: A citizen’s guide for planning and design. Washington. D.C., USA. Brent Davies, L. E. (1997). Strategic Direction and Development of the School. London and New York: Routledge. Bursalıoğlu, Z. (1999). Okul Yönetiminde Yeni Yapı ve Davranış. Ankara: PegemA. Handy, C. (1998). The Hungry Spirit: Beyond Capitalism. A Quest For Pupose In The Modern World. London: Arrow.