Orange County NC Website
DRAFT <br />Collaboration offers opportunities to share services that may be too expensive to <br />replicate, while also helping officials and citizens understand why it may be <br />important to replicate some services. <br />This effort should result in real partnerships that benefit all students and jurisdictions <br />in terms of efficient use of resources and cost effectiveness, equitable educational <br />opportunities, and a sense of "being in this together." <br />Next Steps (March -August 2003) <br />1. Identify Participants and Schedule Initial Working Session <br />• Participants must include board chairs and executives. Key folks will need to <br />commit to participate. It's important that they be a part of conversations and <br />discussions about values, beliefs, and goals. <br />• We may want to consider including a second board member (e.g., vice chairs, <br />past chairs, or an interested member) and some assistant or associate managers <br />and superintendents. In addition to building a greater sense of shared purpose, <br />the working group will benefit from having additional perspectives. <br />• Timing is a factor. Board chairs and executives need to be in place. <br />2. Identify Interests, Barriers, Values, and Goals <br />• Given the issues and interests identified above, the working group's first set of <br />tasks should be to discuss their individual interests, define criteria for what <br />successful collaboration looks like, describe what has worked well or not so well <br />in previous collaborative efforts, and identify barriers to successful collaboration. <br />• The working group can then identify the key values that reflect their interests in <br />public education, and create shared goals for this initiative. <br />3. Develop Recommendations and Evaluation Criteria <br />• Once this has been accomplished, the working group can use its goals and <br />values to identify the outcomes they agree to work together to achieve. These <br />will most likely be broad value-based goals. <br />• The next steps involve identifying, or engaging additional staff in identifying, a set <br />of specific recommendations that satisfy the values and goals agreed to by the <br />working group. <br />• The working group will also develop criteria or measures for evaluating the <br />success or outcomes of these recommendations. <br />4. Engage Governing Boards and Administrative Officials <br />• The respective governing bodies should be kept informed about the efforts and <br />progress of the working group. <br />• The working group should also coordinate with school administrators who are <br />proceeding with the charge from their boards to move forward on collaboration. <br />• Using its goals, values, and criteria for successful collaboration as a guide, the <br />working group should jointly select specific recommendations and present these <br />recommendations at a joint meeting of the respective boards. <br />