School Board Meetings: How do we help heal differences, and address why this is happening?

A needed next step is to listen and learn what is going on in schools and their communities, and then assist with the systemic and structural issues to are revealed. Community mediation centers excel at this task. To do otherwise will permit the continued facilitation by those who wish to amplify underlying divides and past disagreements among school board members, parents and others who live within the community to continue to disrupt decision making that impacts the education of our community’s children.

We will have that conversation on how to begin, continue or strengthen your current connections with school boards. We will explore how to:

Define “safe and inclusive communities” and then to create opportunities that remind people of their common values so that they can work together to restore a sense of community and belonging.
Help school boards work with communities to create better procedures and policies for public engagement in schools – including transparency issues
Provide space to discuss how to facilitate conversations about hot button issues such as history education, which will gain trust, and does not facilitate distrust.

When you register, you be asked to complete a brief survey that will help us understand the scope of issues school boards and CMCs are facing. We also will close the session with a survey of CMC needs, so that we may begin the process of co-creating a tool kit/pathway for good trouble: leaning into the acupuncture points for enhancing education.