West Side School-Community Design Circle: A Community Leadership Partnership on the West Side of Salt Lake City, Utah

Item

Title

West Side School-Community Design Circle: A Community Leadership Partnership on the West Side of Salt Lake City, Utah

Abstract/Description

In summer of 2016, a group of educators and parents from in Salt Lake City came together with university and community-based partners to think about ways to strengthen school-community partnerships in the city’s west side. The project emerged from the larger FLDC Design Collaborative, which encouraged the formation of “design circles” to inform and guide and guide the work of this partnership. In order to narrow the scope of the project, we decided to focus our conversations on strategies for strengthening the school community councils (SCC) as spaces for educator-parent-community collaboration.

In 2002, The Utah State Legislature passed a law requiring every public school in state to establish a School Community Council at every school. Since all Utah schools are required to have an SCC, and since west side schools have had difficulty in establishing strong and vibrant SCC’s at local sites, the group felt it would be a great way to “focus” our conversation and collective thinking on this one issue.

Throughout the course of 3 weeks, design circle members met once a week for 2.5 hours per week to discuss challenges and possibilities for working together in new and innovative ways. In total, there were 22 participants in the design circle team (8 school representatives, 10 parents, 4 planning team members). All design circle meetings were audio and video recorded and note takers were present to keep a running record of the design process. Translators and childcare were provided in order to maximize participation from community members. A fourth meeting is planned for September 2016, where the entire team will reconvene to “share out” lessons learned, next steps, etc.

While we fully anticipate the design process to continue and evolve, the focus of our AERA presentation will be on the major themes that emerged from the first four meetings of the design circle process. Because all discussions in our design circles were formative in nature, our thinking and actions were informed by our previous conversations, notes, and other data points. Initial findings suggest that the design circle process serves as an important tool for confronting and dislodging established/habitual ways of thinking, while providing new avenues for action and collaboration between parents and schools.

Author/creator

López, Gerardo R.

Kuttner, Paul

Date

April 19, 2017

At conference

AERA Annual Meeting

Place presented

San Antonio

Institution

See all items with this valueAmerican Educational Research Association (AERA)

Resource type

en Research/Scholarly Media

Resource status/form

en Presentation/Poster

Scholarship genre

en Empirical

IRE Approach/Concept

Community Leadership Partnership

Design Circles

School Community Partnership

Featured case/project

Family Leadership Design Collaborative (FLDC)

URL

AERA Annual Meeting Program

Paper Summary (via Online AERA Annual Meeting Program)

Is part of

Co-Designing Family and Community Wellness and Educational Justice: Findings From the Family Leadership Design Collaborative [Session 42.039]

Citation

Lopez, G. R., & Kuttner, P. (2017). West Side School-Community Design Circle: A Community Leadership Partnership on the West Side of Salt Lake City, Utah. AERA Annual Meeting, San Antonio.

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