TRANSCRIPT: I’m speaking tonight in relationship to your discussion of board governance norms. Among the 70 bullet points on the five pages that make up these proposed norms, I noticed one that I think is particularly beautiful and exciting in thinking about the district’s success as a student-centered organization, and worthy of the focus: About a quarter of the way down on the 3rd page, there is a bullet point that reads: The board will engage the community. Other portions of the document contain detailed proscriptions as to how that engagement should or should not occur, and it is of course appropriate that there be structure around that engagement. But as context for your later discussion, I wanted to share a few thoughts that I found helpful in framing this. What I’m going to read is excerpted from Ohio School Boards Association’s board guidance on effective community engagement. Here’s what they say: https://www.ohioschoolboards.org/community-relations-community-engagement Community engagement is an ongoing dialogue between district leadership and community members about a shared problem or opportunity. It requires a high degree of trust among the district, schools and the community. Citizens with the ability to access information and connect with it, are less likely to feel alienated and excluded from the school district. When a community feels a connection to the district, its members are more likely to feel like partners in the decision-making process and support its programs Community engagement encourages participation and develops partnerships to solve a problem. I’m going to repeat that sentence: Community engagement encourages participation and develops partnerships to solve a problem. And then it goes on to draw a distinction between providing information and engagement: Communication and information alone are not sufficient for residents to connect and engage with the district. In studies of districts that made significant progress in raising student achievement, researchers found that boards of education not only involved the community, but believed in them as part of the larger team I know this is not new to any of you. But in the process of refining these governance norms, I thought it might be helpful to focus on the great potential and opportunities that are presented when we find opportunities to structure genuine two-way interactive dialogue between the district and its full community. Our district has challenges, but our community also brings terrifically valuable diverse perspectives, expertise, and creativity. Our community can help us solve these challenges together if we believe in them as part of our larger team. As you refine the board’s governance norms, I hope you build in a broad number of paths encourage participation and develop trust and partnerships to solve our common problems. To do so requires a structure that facilitates open dialogue and enables the board to be ambassadors from the community to the schools, not just from the school to the community.