Craftsbury School Community Collaborative
Informational Meeting
August 29, 2009
Questions and Answers
(Note: Several Q&A’s have been added to respond to
related or implicit questions.)
1. Can the Stakeholder Group report directly to the School Board?
Yes. The role of the Steering Committee is to support and coordinate the process. Recommendations and advice from the Stakeholder Group will go directly to the School Board.
2. Why is the Steering Committee a sub-committee of the School Board?
For two reasons. First, in order to apply for foundation grants, the Steering Committee needed an official legal status that a connection with the School Board provided. Second, the Steering Committee felt it needed to have a close working relationship with the School Board and Supervisory Union in order to have access to regulations, technical information, old studies and reports, etc.
3. Is the Stakeholder Group obligated in any way to take a position advocated by the School Board?
No. The CSCC is a fully independent process. The Stakeholder Group can make whatever recommendations it chooses. There is no obligation to pursue a particular course of action or reflect a particular point of view. The School Board is fully aware of this and is completely supportive.
4. Why are School Board members on the Steering Committee?
School Board members serve on the Committee in order to provide access to information and the history of prior work and to maintain full and open communication with the School Board.
5. Will members of the Steering Committee be members of the Stakeholder Group?
No. The job of the Steering Committee is to support the collaborative process and provide the help the Stakeholder Group will need to move toward agreement on what needs to be done. The Steering Committee does not have a position on these issues and will remain non-commital throughout the process.
6. Is the School Board supportive of the process and with the proposed time frame?
The School Board is completely supportive of the process and has pledged full cooperation. The Steering Committee has discussed the tentative time frame with the Board.
7. How are the Stakeholders selected?
First and most importantly, participation as a Stakeholder is voluntary and therefore self selecting.
However, the key to effective collaboration is to make sure that all groups and all points of view are represented. This is an important role for the Steering Committee to perform. For this reason the Steering Committee may reach out to individuals and ask if they would be willing to participate order to ensure full representation.
8. Can students and younger people participate?
Absolutely! This is a key group and there voice needs to be heard.
9. How would the process work?
There are several books and web sites that describe the collaborative process. We are currently searching for an advisor that can help us take these approaches and apply them to our special situation here in Craftsbury. In very broad terms once established the Stakeholder Group will first define the problem (or the “scope of work”), establish guiding principles, identify alternatives, gather information, evaluate pros and cons and develop a proposal to move forward.
In practice, of course, the process is more complex and less linear.
