Appendix II: Input

1. Community Engagement Report

Early County School System

Community Engagement Session

Community Forum – October 25, 2011

Online Survey – October-December, 2011

Prepared by: Laura D. Reilly, Georgia School Boards Association

     To assist the Strategic Planning Team with their work, the Early County School System engaged its community in a process to gauge the thoughts, feelings and perceptions that stakeholders hold regarding the district – before the plan was developed. The engagement initiative, designed and implemented by the Georgia School Boards Association, included a community conversation and an online survey. A genuine effort was made to make the process as inclusive and transparent as possible.

     Participants of the community engagement initiative responded to the following questions:

1. To be the best it can be, what should the Early County School System preserve/keep?

1. To be the best it can be, what should the Early County School System change/do differently?

1. What do you think are the top challenges faced by the Early County School System?

1. What do you think are the top challenges faced by the students in the Early County School System?

1. As a community, what do we want our public schools to provide for students?

The intention of this report is to provide a collection of the best thinking of school and community members regarding the five questions presented. The information gathered is qualitative and seeks to focus attention on those areas that generated the most energy. Members of the strategic planning team will use the input of the community to assist them in developing a plan to move the district forward.

The Format

Community Forum

     During August, September and October, the district worked to recruit participants to attend the community engagement session. A great deal of effort went into inviting all segments of the community. Notices were advertised in the paper, on the district’s website, through school announcements and at meetings throughout the district.

     At the community forum on October 25, 2011, at the Early County High School about 50 participants heard a presentation on the Georgia School Boards Association (GSBA) strategic planning process, educational issues, school district achievement data and the process for small group discussion. Participants were randomly divided into smaller groups and assigned classrooms in which to hold their conversation. Volunteer facilitators, who are not affiliated with the school district, agreed to help keep each group focused, make sure every person had an opportunity to be heard, and ensure that what was said was properly recorded.

     Facilitators did not ascribe any individual’s name to comments written in the notes of the small group discussions. At the conclusion of the discussion, facilitators asked participants to prioritize their lists of comments by marking the ideas or comments they thought were most important for each question asked.

     GSBA staff transcribed all of the notes. Laura Reilly, GSBA’s director of communications, compiled the report by sorting the comments and using the results of each group’s prioritizing activity.

Online Survey

     An online survey using the same questions offered additional input opportunities. When the survey was closed, 118 people had filled out the survey. If they desired to do so, participants could provide additional comments on all questions and on the survey as a whole. The choices listed for questions were used only to add structure to the survey and avoid ending up with lists of comments in no order or context. Zoomerang was used as the online survey tool. Open-ended comments were sorted through a manual process.

The Response

     About 50 community members, teachers, students and staff participated in the community forum. There were 118 full responses to the online survey. The largest percentage of respondents to the online survey identified themselves as teachers (34%). The next group with the largest number of participants was the parent group (30%).  Attendees of the community forum were not asked to identify themselves, but facilitators indicated that for most of the groups, there was a good mix of parents, teachers, staff and community members.

Reasons to be Proud and Assets to Build Upon

When asked, “To be the best it can be, what should the Early County School System preserve/keep?” the following represents the areas of greatest agreement among survey respondents and community conversation participants:

1) Regarding teachers – Participants noted that they would like to preserve the professional learning opportunities in place for educators; continue funding low teacher/student ratios; and to preserve and improve on teacher/parent communications in the form of conferences and other methods in a continual fashion and not just when a child is in trouble. On the online survey, participants said they wanted to keep “quality teachers in the classroom.” However, it was also noted that the measure of a quality teacher shouldn’t rest solely on test scores. 

3) Programs – The ROTC program was mentioned frequently as one respondents hope to preserve. Extracurricular programs and art and music programs were mentioned frequently, too.

4) Student learning – Participants of the community meeting and respondents of the survey felt that preserving a focus on student achievement is important, as well as providing a safe learning environment. (Discipline was mentioned as being an important component to preserving safety.)