COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT PLANNING GUIDE

Your Name: Ben Burns

Level of
Involvement

Developing the
Team

Framing the
Issue

For your community, how will you determine the

current level of public involvement in improving
student achievement?
Self-assessment of current community partnerships
Brief survey of community members and
businesses/organizations their perceptions/commitments to
education
Locate specific numbers related to volunteers, PTO,
attendance at school board meetings, etc.

How will you determine which constituencies to

include in your engagement process? What other
factors will you consider?
Use Constituency Analysis Grid from Improving Schools
through Community Engagement (p. 46) match constituents
and their interests with your interests/vision

Provide examples of how you will determine what

issue(s) make the most sense as the initial focus for
your schools community engagement process.
What is our schools vision and mission? What issues align
most with that? Which issues might we be able to find the
most community support (common ground) for?

Understanding
Perceptions

List any specific strategies or ideas that you would like

to keep in mind as you consider different
constituencys attitudes and perceptions.
Use the Affinity activity (or something similar) to identify
overlapping attitudes and perceptions

Strategies

List strategies for getting more parents and

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community members into your school.
Reach out through more methods use technology link it to
children performing and food
Invite community members to tours work to identify
overlapping interests work to create collaborative
partnerships around common interests

Decision-Making
Process

Community
Agenda

Evaluate

How will parents and community members play a role

in your schools decision-making process?
Invite parents and community members to take part in the
hiring process
Invite parents and community members to take part in other
important decision making processes
This may be focus groups, surveys, sitting on interview
teams, sitting on committees, etc.

Provide a sample two-hour large group community

agenda that focuses on Student Achievement.
Introduction/Welcome/Purpose/What to expect/Team-building
15 minutes
Framing the problem 10 minutes
Listing our assets/strengths 10 minutes
Identifying research-based strategies 20 minutes
Break 10 minutes
Hot Dot activity to identify top strategies 10 minutes
What do we need to implement our top strategies 30
minutes
Wrap-up/who is responsible for what/action items/next steps
15 minutes

How will you evaluate the strengths and areas in need

of improvement in your community engagement plan?
What methods will you use to gather and analyze
evaluation data to make modifications in the future?
Through large group activities hot dot surveys focus
groups see above agenda

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Resources

What resources might you want to list here so as to

support future community engagement opportunities?
The Chadwick text EDUL 637 course notes and resources
other educational leaders, your network

List any additional strategies or ideas that you would

like to keep in mind as you consider how you will
foster and maintain an engaged community.
Additional