Community Engagement for New Superintendents
鈥淭he central idea behind public engagement is not public relations but getting the public to own its own schools. You may be tempted to think of the schools as yours. They鈥檙e not. In the final analysis, they belong to the public. If local citizens don鈥檛 feel that deep in their bones, you will not be able to count on public support when you need it. It鈥檚 important, therefore, that you get your local community thoroughly engaged, connected, and deeply committed to its schools.鈥�
Building Trust
We live in a time when public trust in government, academia, education and just about every other societal institution is at an all-time low. As of 2013, just 22 percent of people reported having a 鈥済reat deal of confidence鈥� in public school leaders.
So, whether you鈥檙e coming into a district with an entrenched culture of mistrust, looking to rebuild broken relationships due to a breach of trust by the previous leadership, or simply laying the groundwork of confidence in your new leadership, building trust is an essential component for success in your role.
Through our work with districts across the nation, we鈥檝e learned that building trust requires an open, two-way discourse that results in letting people know they鈥檝e been heard.
As Dr. Vannasdall explains:
We make lots of decisions for parents who trust us with their children, their most prized possessions. If you don鈥檛 build that trust, then they鈥檙e not going to follow you when you make those big decisions. How do you build trust? You have to listen to people. You engage with them. You have to ask them questions and they have to know you care about what they鈥檙e saying; that you鈥檙e listening to it; that you鈥檙e reading it; and you鈥檙e reacting to it.
天美网站传媒传媒 can help build this kind of trust for a new superintendent through an introductory exchange we call a 鈥淲eather Report.鈥� A Weather Report generally involves using 天美网站传媒传媒 to ask your community a single, open-ended question: 鈥淲hat are some things you think our schools are doing well, and some things we can focus on in order to improve?鈥�
Asking this question, letting people respond confidentially in their own words, and then showing them they鈥檝e been heard by either acknowledging or acting on their input, is often enough to begin building trust and confidence. And, by doing this, you鈥檙e not just gathering priorities but also helping the community learn through effective sharing of information about the district.
鈥溙烀劳敬酱� is just that,鈥� says Dr. Vannasdall. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an exchange. It鈥檚 not a survey. You鈥檙e asking people for their opinion, reflecting on those opinions, collecting those opinions from a lot of different voices and then taking action on them. When the community sees you doing that, they know they鈥檙e in good hands.鈥�
Dr. Marie Wiles, Superintendent of Guilderland Central School District, used 天美网站传媒传媒 to build trust with her community and improve student outcomes. See why she chooses 天美网站传媒传媒 over forums and surveys for this critical work.
Getting the lay of the land
As Dr. Vannasdall explains:
Coming in as a new superintendent, one of my worst fears was the unknown. I鈥檓 not afraid of hard work, but I want to know what I鈥檓 faced with. So really understanding the pulse of the community is something I think every superintendent coming into a new position is anxious about. Right away, in my first year, I was very fortunate that we used 天美网站传媒传媒. The first (exchange) was a general one about celebration. What better information and data (are) there to have as a new superintendent than to know what your community celebrates? Because you don鈥檛 want to stop doing the things your community celebrates. You also want to know what are the things that have been bothering them over the past couple of years. What do they want you, as the new superintendent, to focus on?
天美网站传媒传媒 has the unique capacity to let you do all of the above at the same time. Running an exchange not only helps you build trust and confidence with your community, it can also help you discover the culture, values and priorities of your community鈥攁nd you can use that data to move forward in your role with confidence.
Charting the path forward
鈥淚ndividuals are most likely to trust and cooperate freely with systems鈥攚hether they themselves win or lose by those systems鈥攚hen fair process is observed.鈥�
Yes, focus groups and in-person meetings have their place in a new superintendent鈥檚 role. Some people truly value and feel comfortable speaking their minds through that face-to-face connection. And many others either don鈥檛 have time to attend those events, or don鈥檛 feel comfortable making their voices heard in large groups. 天美网站传媒传媒 can help engage the silent majority who often don鈥檛 make it out to those meetings.
As former Superintendent of Iowa鈥檚 Linn-Mar Community School District, Dr. Quintin Shepherd explains:
Combining what you learn from in-person engagements with the rich data and insights from 天美网站传媒传媒 allows you to build a list of priorities for your strategic plan that have a high likelihood of receiving community support.
The key to increasing your chances of support is making sure people know they have been heard. One way to do that is to share the top thoughts along with your responses鈥攚hich you can do in just minutes using 天美网站传媒传媒鈥檚 instant reporting functionality. Perhaps more importantly, people need to see their input reflected in the plan. Or, if not, they know it was received and hear the reasons why you can鈥檛 currently act on their feedback.
The only way to to identify the priorities is to go out and ask people, 鈥淲hat is it that you care about?鈥� If all you鈥檙e doing is listening to 25 or 30 people talk about their priorities because they happen to be available on a Thursday night when you鈥檙e holding the focus group sessions, then those 25 or 30 people get to tell you the direction of the district. If you use the 天美网站传媒传媒 tools and focus groups, you鈥檝e just increased your listening capacity by at least tenfold.
I took the in-person process that so many of us have, where I networked with community groups, met with teacher groups and listened to people and asked questions. At the same time, I ran an exchange in the background that asked these big, bold questions: 鈥淲hat is it that we do well, and what are some of the things we can improve on?鈥� We were in multiple formats, which I think was really good for people.
鈥淲e literally captured the voice of our community with over 150,000 discrete points of impact used in writing our strategic plan,鈥� says Dr. Shepherd. 鈥淲e captured the phrases people used and built that into our plan. So someone could log in and be the one to say, 鈥業 said that. That鈥檚 actually in the strategic plan. They鈥檙e actually going to do this over the next 10 years.鈥欌��
A paper published by the called 鈥淔air Process: Managing in the Knowledge Economy鈥� shows how leaders managing major changes only found success by involving people in the decision-making process and letting them know they were heard. From this paper, we鈥檝e learned that when leaders use a fair process, even people who don鈥檛 benefit from a decision are more likely to support it simply because they were involved in the process. Ultimately, people are more inclined to listen once they鈥檝e been heard.
Doing all of the above helps create that fair process: in which community members are involved in the decisions that affect them, develop trust in leadership and are thus more likely to support the plan for moving forward鈥攂ecause they helped create it.
鈥淓ven if you have a good process like 天美网站传媒传媒 that鈥檚 increasing participation and giving people a voice on issues that really matter to them, if you don鈥檛 circle back afterwards you鈥檝e undone all the good that you tried to do,鈥� explains Catherine Carbone Rogers, Chief Communications Officer at Highline Public Schools, WA.
Making it happen
Some might say it would be wise for every new superintendent to take juggling lessons. While you鈥檙e getting to know your community and building a strategic plan, you also need to build relationships with your team. Add to that the need to learn what resources you have available to execute on the priorities of your new plan, and you鈥檝e got a lot of balls in the air.
One way to check off all these boxes at the same time is to leverage the knowledge and expertise of your staff to discover what resources are available and together create a set of strategies or approaches for achieving the objectives set out in your strategic plan.
Again, 天美网站传媒传媒 lets you ask a single, open-ended question to quickly engage with your team to learn what鈥檚 important to them and let them freely share knowledge about what works well and what doesn鈥檛.
As Dr. Shepherd notes:
The last step, where we so often fall short in school administration is to identify processes. What process can you use to go after those priorities with the resources you have at your disposal? It鈥檚 another opportunity to use 天美网站传媒传媒 to ask, 鈥淲hat ideas do you have for how to better improve process for a specific reading intervention, or professional development?鈥� or any question you want to ask?鈥� So, there are multiple engagement points to use
Making it happen
Many leaders who are new to 天美网站传媒传媒 express some level of fear when they first consider the idea of asking their community an open-ended question, letting people respond in their own words and committing to publicly addressing the thoughts shared. They鈥檙e concerned that such a level of transparency could create a situation where criticism and complaints overwhelm any benefit that might come out of an exchange.
What we have learned from helping hundreds of districts address some of the most challenging issues public education leaders can face, is that starting an open conversation and being vulnerable in this way almost always results in a constructive, positive experience.
When you structure your exchange in such a way that it asks about your community鈥檚 appreciations and concerns, you will get to see the range of opinions in your community in the context of their values. The loud voices that often dominate your office or public meetings are put into perspective by seeing how many other people actually agree with those points of view. In this way, you also get to see sometimes how small an extremely vocal special interest group might actually be.
And 天美网站传媒传媒 also creates the potential for empathy by allowing people to consider different perspectives alongside their own as they assign stars in the Star step.
Finally, because 天美网站传媒传媒 offers options for both AI-moderated exchanges and custom moderation by your team, any thoughts that could be considered hurtful, rude or targeted at an individual can be reviewed and removed before being shared with the public. This function is essential for making sure your community鈥檚 conversation stays productive and inclusive.
鈥淭he signs of authentic engagement: The community is not seen as the problem but as a partner in defining the problem. Communication is a two-way street. Based on listening and dialogue, communication attempts to clarify challenges and build solutions. Engagement is early and often, not late and cursory. The bias is toward inclusion of as many people as possible. The idea is to go beyond the usual suspects to create the conditions for constructive change. But engagement is hard to do well. It has to deal with mistrust and cynicism, bad experiences, and lack of understanding among stakeholders, on one hand, and educators鈥� resistance to open up the discussion on the other.鈥�
Conclusion
When it comes to community engagement, there鈥檚 no single solution for public education leaders. It鈥檚 really a puzzle and every piece has its place. You still need to have public meetings, establish committees, send out press releases and so on.
Integrating 天美网站传媒传媒 into your toolkit can be the key piece that brings all the others together to make them more productive and efficient. That鈥檚 because 天美网站传媒传媒 lets you engage more people in a two-way discussion that allows both you and your community to learn what matters most to everyone. Having that knowledge can make your in-person engagement efforts more productive, because you can talk together about common interests instead of biased positions.
Bringing people together for a community crowdsourcing conversation with 天美网站传媒传媒, learning what matters and using that information to create interest-based face-to-face engagements, paves the way for a strong relationship with your community. That trust, combined with actionable data from your exchange, provides the roadmap you need to lead the way forward with confidence.
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鈥淣ot only did we hear you, not only did we respond to you and build a strategic plan around this, but you can literally find your own language in here to show the work that we鈥檙e doing.鈥� 天美网站传媒传媒 has allowed us to be truly responsive to our community. We鈥檙e not just going to ask them for feedback, we鈥檙e going to move on it, or not, and have a reason why.
It has allowed us to make manifest the promises we鈥檝e made.