Another special evening . . .

This evening we brought together 100 people to assist us in a review of our outcomes and indicators.  We had representatives from parents, city counselors, local and regional business, higher education, staff, board members, and students spend almost four hours in conversation and feedback to support our work.  We want to ensure that the Outcomes and Indicators capture what young people need to know and be able to do for success in post high school learning and work.  We did a cafe style process where each participant engaged at three different table groupings with a focusing question at each table.

The following questions were used to initiate each conversation.

• In what ways do the district Outcomes and Indicators, as currently written, propel students to future success?
• As we think about the essence of "future ready", what, if anything, is missing from the district Outcomes and Indicators as currently written?
• In what ways might we enhance the district Outcomes and Indicators to capture the realities of a global community?

We ended with the following question that was posed to job alike groups.

• What is one bold step our job alike group could take to support the future ready vision becoming our reality?

I'm excited about the answers to this question and to the recommendations for possible revisions to our document.  I'll share the results once we have an opportunity to process the information, but will share one from the students that particularly resonate with me.

• Rewrite them using kid friendly language.  By the time we get to high school they are over used and begin to lose their importance.

This is why we need to ensure that we have student voice in ALL major decisions impacting their learning in our system.

I want to thank Connie Hoffman and Dawn Wakeley for the quality lesson design and facilitation of an effective and efficient meeting.