LM Oct.2018

Engagement ... cont’d.

Prairie Board desired to create interactive performance tasks and an open forum for focused dialogue filled with facts about the district and exchanged between members of the community. The goal was for the community to talk with each other and learn about the diverse opinions present in the community. The strategic planning involved creating a setting of civility. The goal of the planning was to create a safe place where young parents could engage in dialogue with the senior citizen, a setting where the farmer engaged in conversations with the business manager and a setting where board members could get back in touch with the community. As a relatively new school district (consolidation occurred in 2003), members of the West Prairie School District Board recognized several reoccurring themes and patterns within current and future decisions. The board acknowledged a potential disconnect between the storyline in the community and the state of current issues. Many aspects of the district had changed in 15 years and the board believed it was time to move from the status of “newly organized” to the status of “established.”

The new elements to the story included: ● Decreasing enrollment. ● Declining infrastructure (aging facilities with empty classrooms). ● Deferred maintenance. ● Financial limitations (instability of the state budget). ● Over-extended transportation department (aging fleet, limited driver pool, retention of a mechanic, extensive daily routes, 244 miles of rural terrain etc.). While present and past board members had done an excellent job of bringing two communities together through consolidation, the board realized the next chapter needed to be written by the main characters in the story. Community members needed to be re-introduced to the story line. This meant engaging with the community through a series of public meetings. The goal of each meeting included: ● Completing and extending the oral history with current facts, figures and demographics of the district. ● Modeling for the community, parents, staff and students a model for civil dialogue. ● Outlining the complex nature of education overall.

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