Public Engagement - Best Practices
"Community engagement must be deeper and richer than one person speaking at a school board meeting. True community engagement enables board members to listen to what community residents have to say about public education, about their hopes and dreams for their schools."
- Anne L. Bryant, Executive Director, NSBA [full article]
Over the past three years, the 9-R Board has been presented with ideas for community wide conversations, ultimately rejecting both "study circles" and "sounding boards" model implemented in other districts. Skeptics of 9-R's Policy Governance implementation believe the Board needs to improve communication with parents and community.
Launching an inclusive, community wide public engagement effort takes the support of a coalition of groups across the community, but we believe the benefits make such an effort worthwhile. Many excellent models exist for engaging a broad cross-section of the public in face-to-face dialogue. We encourage the new board to revisit this issue which surfaced in last fall's campaign and adopt one of the models discussed in the past few years:
- Study Circles - used by hundreds of communities across the country
- Sounding Boards – used by the Sheridan Colorado School District have been under discussion for the past year by the 9R Board. Each Sheridan Board member was involved with one group for an entire school year. Their District used these meetings to explore new ideas and to share thoughts. On their website go to Board of Education, then to Community Forum and Sounding Boards. Sheridan, a "Policy Governance" District like 9-R, used over 30 of these small listening sessions to fulfill their obligation to meet with "the owners" of the District. - Parents, Students, Businesses and Senior Citizens
Guiding Principles for Public Engagements from CASB, The Colorado Association of School Boards which , has done extensive work in the area of public engagement:
Principle One : Community engagement is a way of coming to public judgment through deliberation. Public judgment requires that everyone have a stake in an issue, not just elected officials. It requires ongoing dialogue through sustained opportunities for discussion.
Principle Two : Dialogue generates knowledge that cannot be acquired in any other way. Information is important, but in dialogue people draw heavily on feelings and values. Entering into dialogue with the public where all participants are equal is a way of saying to people, “Your views are as good as mine. I can learn from you.”
Principle Three : Through dialogue a variety of stakeholders can tap their own potential to make a difference.
Principle Four : Community engagement can reconnect people to each other and to the institutions and leaders that affect their lives. It brings the public's voice back to public education.
Principle Five : Community engagement is two-way communication. Leaders engaged in this type of communication do not hold public hearings; they hold community conversations. They are not interested in protecting turf; they want to find common ground.
Principle Six : Community engagement is not a quick fix to a problem or issue. It is neither a research nor a promotional tool. It is not a means by which to “educate” people. It is not a one-time activity.
- PEN Public Involvement. Public Engagement. Public Benefit.
PEN works to educate the nation about the relationship between school quality and the quality of community and public life. Equal opportunity, access to quality public schools, and an informed citizenry are all critical components of a democratic society. - Creating Communities of Inclusion: Strategies for Inclusion The League of Women Voters Education Fund
Citizens Building Communities: The ABCs of Public Dialogue
As the first accessible, affordable primer on the variety of successful methods out there for engaging the public in dialogue, Citizens Building Communities is a landmark resource for the rapidly growing field of public dialogue and deliberation.
- The George Lucas Educational Fund
Community Engagements that have led to Community PartnershipsMinneapolis Public School Board –a larger, more diverse district than ours, developed a huge community-wide listening and learning process to identify issues and discover common values. As a Policy Governance board, Minneapolis could serve as a model.