Participants were asked to comment on the process and overall rate the process on a 5 star scale. The average of these responses was over 4 stars.
-Everyone at the table respected each other’s opinions and thoughts – too many negative comments, instead of looking at positives
-Tasks for each meeting were clear prior to the start of the meetings. A broad range of community members & students. Claire kept us on task and the meetings went smoothly. So much good discussion. – A lot of varying opinions makes it challenging to make everyone happy. Turn out at the first meeting was great, but by the last night we lost a lot of participants. – It was a good way to get all types of community members, school/district staff involved.
-I think it is very helpful to bridge people, thoughts, and solutions together. - Extremely helpful bringing community together to realize we are more in agreement than not in the community.
-Discussions were mostly positive, asked well. – Positive way to promote community.
-Our community is very opinionated.
-Valuable conversations amongst school and community. - Initial request for help was vague – didn’t explain what was going to be required. – Great insight and transparency for community to see into the school.
-We all got to voice our concerns & opinions. – Not all the opinions made it in. – Promotes everyone’s thoughts.
-The flow of the meeting was effective. – Not easy to absorb and respond to it all in the same night. A few more meetings.
-Group participation and leadership was great. Broad goals narrowing down to results. – Continued meetings – Plans are always good.
-Splitting up into groups, having a moderator keep control of the meeting night. – Having someone with experience to help guide the ship.
-There is a well-planned process. – too tech driven – Get back to basics of SMART planning principles. – it was helpful.
-It was great to get community involvement in something as big as the future of the school. – Separating the what we need now, from the what we want in the future. – Have more time for discussion or more nights to cover all topics in depth. Felt like (while doing their job) moderator was trying to rush the process. - Seemed generic and cookie cutter, referring to amount of similarities between vastly different districts.
-Good variety of people at tables, it was nice seeing the same people at each meeting. – Nexus was too concerned in keeping their process timing, limiting discussion, using AI to “validate” results. – Less district staff included. EAT team should include community members who are willing to give more time commitment. Only district staff is skewing results and gives the impression of things being “hidden.” - Too many district staff included – skews results.
-The discussions generated by the questions during the process were very insightful. Giving community members an opportunity to learn more and have a voice in shaping the plan was critical and will hopefully lead to continued and growing support for our district.
-Was able to talk, share, and hear the perspectives of various community members as well as staff and school administrators. Made me feel that the school wants to consider perspectives outside of its own. And that the administration is trying to be wise and purposeful in how to allocate its time and resources in the coming years.
-I believe it was important to get our feedback as a community. I think the process did this.
-No obstacles or true challenges in the process for me.
-It was difficult to think on the fly - being given 1 minute to think and then have to share perspectives leads to shallow and incomplete thinking. I thought of better answers to those questions AFTER the session was over, and it was too late. The second session was structured to ask if the themes included the feedback we had from the 1st session, not to reconsider or add additional feedback. Also, I noticed that the AI summaries and the "themes" discarded the more nuanced feedback and tried to encapsulate it in very broad categories. While it was true those things "fit" in the themes/categories, they are also easily dismissed and forgotten by only considering the broader theme, which could be interpreted in many different ways. Time will tell how effective and useful these sessions really were. I was also concerned by the relatively high number of staff participating. Although not high in number, it was high in comparison to the proportion they make up of the total population of our school district. While staff views and perspectives need to be considered, they shouldn't overwhelm the perspective of the overall community. This was blaringly obvious when voting on the themes - the top theme chosen with 44 votes was "Staff Support & Retention". The next highest was "Financial Health" with 23 votes, and a tie between "Student-Centered Learning" and "Facilities and Modernization" with 21 votes. In fact, most of the themes that focused on the children scored relatively low. Schools exist to teach students, not to employ staff. Of course, staff are necessary for that, and support and retention are important. But to have double the votes for supporting the staff as for improving the academics of our school, which have a very poor reputation in our community, is missing the mark if we want to convince the community to invest in supporting and growing the school. They need to believe that it's a good investment. Perhaps academics is better than what the community believes, but if that's the case, we need to work on changing that reputation. Having so many staff in the room made it difficult to talk about these things, and I believe led to a slanted perspective of what needs to be focused on. If teachers/staff made up a quarter of our population, that would be one thing, but since they don't, they were overrepresented, and the final votes reflect that, which hinders the effectiveness of the final plan in appealing to the broader community.
-I wish we had more time. It also felt like a few community members tried to monopolize the discussions.
-The only thing I heard that I would like to share was from two people at my table. While they said they enjoyed having a board member participating with them, and appreciated learning more from my perspective, they thought it was surprising that the other board members were there as well. They thought it seemed odd now that there’s going to be a presentation for the board when most of the board was there for most of the process.
-Although some would not take advantage, it would have been helpful to me to have the questions in advance of the first session to have time to consider them more in depth. As someone who does not think about the school much on a daily basis, I didn't have answers to those questions off the top of my head. Also, add another layer to the themes of specific/nuanced feedback that should be considered/addressed (perhaps as bullet points or sub-headers under the themes). Less teacher/staff involvement relative to the district population to get a more balanced conversation and themes relative to what the broader community thinks (the people who would be footing the majority of the referendum).
-Do it again in a few years.
-Absolutely. The steps in the process made it go very smoothly. Again, an absolute wonderful process to involve the community in, allowing everyone’s ideas to be shared and voices to be heard in shaping the next five years for our district!
-Yes, it was good to see the community coming together in this way, and for the school to seek input. I think this should be done again in a few years, with a broader group of stakeholders.
-Yes, I believe it is important for all schools to get input from their communities.
-Everyone at the table respected each other’s opinions and thoughts – too many negative comments, instead of looking at positives
-Tasks for each meeting were clear prior to the start of the meetings. A broad range of community members & students. Claire kept us on task and the meetings went smoothly. So much good discussion. – A lot of varying opinions makes it challenging to make everyone happy. Turn out at the first meeting was great, but by the last night we lost a lot of participants. – It was a good way to get all types of community members, school/district staff involved.
-I think it is very helpful to bridge people, thoughts, and solutions together. - Extremely helpful bringing community together to realize we are more in agreement than not in the community.
-Discussions were mostly positive, asked well. – Positive way to promote community.
-Our community is very opinionated.
-Valuable conversations amongst school and community. - Initial request for help was vague – didn’t explain what was going to be required. – Great insight and transparency for community to see into the school.
-We all got to voice our concerns & opinions. – Not all the opinions made it in. – Promotes everyone’s thoughts.
-The flow of the meeting was effective. – Not easy to absorb and respond to it all in the same night. A few more meetings.
-Group participation and leadership was great. Broad goals narrowing down to results. – Continued meetings – Plans are always good.
-Splitting up into groups, having a moderator keep control of the meeting night. – Having someone with experience to help guide the ship.
-There is a well-planned process. – too tech driven – Get back to basics of SMART planning principles. – it was helpful.
-It was great to get community involvement in something as big as the future of the school. – Separating the what we need now, from the what we want in the future. – Have more time for discussion or more nights to cover all topics in depth. Felt like (while doing their job) moderator was trying to rush the process. - Seemed generic and cookie cutter, referring to amount of similarities between vastly different districts.
-Good variety of people at tables, it was nice seeing the same people at each meeting. – Nexus was too concerned in keeping their process timing, limiting discussion, using AI to “validate” results. – Less district staff included. EAT team should include community members who are willing to give more time commitment. Only district staff is skewing results and gives the impression of things being “hidden.” - Too many district staff included – skews results.
