Mansfield's Community Conversation in Review

On November 20, 2003, the Town of Mansfield sponsored a “Community Conversation” that was attended by approximately 80 residents.  The League of Women Voters of CT and the William Casper Graustein Memorial Fund awarded a grant to hold this event, with the broad objective being to heighten community awareness and involvement around the issue of early childhood care and education for families in our community. A Community Conversation utilizes a model developed by Public Agenda and the Institute for Educational Leadership to facilitate dialogue around a critical issue affecting children.  The specific goals of the event were to:

• Provide an opportunity for participants from diverse backgrounds to speak openly with each other
• Clarify personal views on critical educational issues
• Provide an opportunity to listen and reach agreement
• Find common ground among participants who view the issues from different perspectives
• Generate new ideas and approaches
• Develop options to continue to move forward to work on critical educational issues.

The Conversation was organized by a 15 member planning group, led by the Director of Social Services and the School Readiness Coordinator, and including Town Council members, the Town Manager, professional educators, parents, community leaders, and the Director of Special Education and Student Support Services.  This planning group started meeting approximately six weeks prior to the event to select a topic, choose a location, develop a publicity plan and to create a list of invitees.

The four-hour event began with a communal meal that was prepared and served by culinary arts students from E.O. Smith Regional High School.  After a brief introduction and orientation to the agenda for the evening, participants moved into pre-assigned small groups of approximately 15 residents, led by a trained moderator and a recorder.  Group members were pre-selected, with an attempt to create a diversity of membership based on age, gender, parental status and professional background.   These groups met for one hour and forty-five minutes.  Each of the groups started by viewing a short video presenting three approaches to childcare, and this video was used as a starting point to discuss underlying values and beliefs related to early care and education in Mansfield.  The groups were asked to identify areas of disagreement, common ground, and next steps to pursue these issues.  The full group then reconvened, with report-outs from the small groups around key issues and recommendations that emerged. 

We are in the process of compiling the work that was generated by the small groups, and a follow-up conversation will be held in January of 2004 to summarize this information and to initiate action planning around the key recommendations that emerged from the Conversation.  Participants were asked to complete an evaluation of the event, and the following information was gleaned from a review of these evaluations:

Meeting Format

Participants generally felt that the format provided a good starting point to get to people’s ideas and open up the discussion, with all participants starting at the same point.  Most felt that the approaches presented in the video were not mutually exclusive; all had merit and other choices evolved beyond these.   No one approach was a solution, and it was generally felt that flexibility, availability of care, and choice are most important.  It was also noted that the format encouraged exploration of the topic instead of just expression of a personal opinion.

Participants felt that the moderators kept comments on track, helped the group stay focused and respectful of all opinions and kept the conversation flowing.  The moderators also kept focused when the conversation went into other directions.   Some participants felt that it was good that the discussants were from different ethnic and educational backgrounds. 

Diversity of Attendance

Some felt that we needed more parents of young children, lower income families, more local business representation, and more University of CT representation.  Others felt that there were too many educators.  Several key groups were cited as being absent from the discussion including the CEA (CT. Assoc. of Educators) University of CT union representatives, church groups, social clubs, legislators, League of Women Voters members (they were present), the media/ reporters and newspapers for wider public access.  It was also felt by some that legislators should have been there to address ideas like tax breaks for parents who stay at home.    .

Liked Best/Least

When asked what they liked best and least about the event, some responded, “It happened!”  There was a  ‘comfortableness” around sharing and being heard.  Some expressed surprise that the four hours was a good length of time when at first they thought it would be too long.  Others liked hearing about and learning about different opinions on this topic from people with circumstances different than theirs.   They also liked the open discussion and the opportunity to hear many points of view, and felt that it was an honest and open exchange of ideas.  Other comments included: “There were many interesting people; it was good to hear other’s opinions; it was good to see many former colleagues; free, respectful sharing of perspectives, views, ideas on the full range of topics; real community atmosphere, the meal really contributed to that; it was a chance to meet new people from Town; there was a real collegiality, interest and concern.”

Recommendations for Follow-Up

There were many recommendations for follow-up from this event, and the planning group is working on responding to these.  Some of the key recommendations included the following:

• Appoint a committee to draw up an action plan.
• Institute a “school census” and visit families to determine needs. 
• Schools should “reach out” to families with information on available services.
• Send a summary of this meeting to the whole community and schools.
• Have additional conversations. 
• Better communicate about the available resources, services and programs that are offered currently in the town. 
• Have discussions of tangible next steps; perhaps sub-group committees, i.e. address legislative issues, address local business involvement. 
• Survey parents through PTO’s. 
• Clarify, focus and create specific goals and action plans. 
• Send out a letter or put out public notices about the issues we discussed.  
• After one or more discussion involving more town residents, develop a task force/action plan with short, medium, and long-term goals. 
• Initiate more dialogue with staffs of otherpreschools in town.
• Communicate tonight’s information to the schools and community.   The follow-up January meeting will be good.  
• Offer to include periodic updates of steering committees’ progress in LWV newsletter if provided by the committee.
• Have these meeting be shorter but more often. 
• Bring more demographics to the conversation, i.e. childcare needs in Mansfield.
• Maybe people could be encouraged to bring and share (in small groups) one piece of research or article pertinent to the discussion. 
• Problems need more focus.  When focus is achieved, the focus needs more study by interested individuals.

Other Educational Issues of Importance

Finally, participants were asked if there are other educational issues of importance that they would like to focus on.  The following were identified:

• Full day kindergarten and universal preschool should be discussed.  
• How is the No Child Left Behind impacting policies, budget and curriculum? 
• How can we give more support to families as the primary educators?
• What are the contingency plans to handle emergency school closings, delayed openings or other community emergencies? 
• The value of out door play and physical activity for young children, the value of imaginative play, and being sure to keep programs developmentally appropriate should be discussed.    
• Who is going to help pay for childcare?

These will be considered as potential topics for future conversations.

Summary

The Community Conversation was well received, and served as a positive community event to bring residents together to discuss an important issue related to the needs of young children.  The challenge to the planning group is to capitalize on the interest and energy created by this event to initiate change around the key recommendations that were generated by the participants, and to continue to build interest and involvement on the part of all residents.