Community Engagement Workshops
An Executive Summary
From April 3-6, Singapore American School hosted a series of community workshops focused on the possible campus upgrade project being discussed. 110 community members participated in the series and offered meaningful feedback across a number of areas. The workshops were facilitated by The Civic Canopy, a non-profit organization based out of the United States who focus primarily on facilitating discussions about important topics to ensure that large communities come together as one to work together for the good of all.
To view the complete slide deck used during the workshop, please click here.
Primary Objectives
There were four main objectives of the workshops:
Create understanding regarding the factors driving the need to upgrade the campus.
Offer an opportunity to provide feedback on the work that has been accomplished.
Review the options for upgrading the campus and provide feedback on how to frame them.
Give community members an opportunity to feel heard and create excitement about the engagement process.
According to the workshop participants, this is how well the school delivered on these four objectives.
The evaluations suggest the workshops were generally successful at reaching the objectives, and a large number of respondents expressed deep gratitude to the school for providing such thorough information and a chance to offer meaningful feedback. A more careful review of the data suggest an additional insight, however. First, respondents who expressed concerns about the plan for upgrades would frequently score the achievement of the content outcomes (1-3) lower on the 1-5 scale, but not necessarily process outcome (4). That suggests that even people who might feel “cool” to the idea of the upgrades still express appreciation for the engagement process. Second, the evaluations were introduced slightly differently on Saturday, making it more explicit that the evaluation was meant to be a review of the meeting itself, not one’s feelings about the upgrades. Since Saturday’s scores are notably higher, it suggests previous respondents might have been conflating their feelings about the upgrades with their reflections about the meeting itself, suggesting that the school’s efforts to educate parents about the work to date and offer a chance to provide feedback were even more successful than the face value averages suggest.
The workshops were generally successful at reaching the objectives
Wows and Worries
After listening to a presentation about some of the foundational work completed and after completing a gallery walk highlighting an outline of that work each participant was asked to share the items that impressed them about the work completed (wows) and that concerned them (worries). These were collated into themes shared below:
The main takeaways from the feedback provided include:
Parents are excited to see how the possible project would substantially improve the use of space for our students.
Parents expressed appreciation for how thoughtful the school has been in the level of foundational research that has been conducted to lead to this point.
The most common concern centered on the disruption of students and the flow of school operations.
Parents expressed significant interest in receiving more detailed information regarding the financing of the project.
Parents are most excited to see improved use of space and most worried about the disruption to learning
Temperature Check
One of the exercises participants engaged in was a personal temperature check. They were asked to mark on a continuum how they felt about the possibility of a campus upgrade project. The “cool” end was presented as expressing hesitation or concerns about the upgrades, the “warm” end suggested enthusiasm and support. This represents one of several data points collected during the workshops but offers a great baseline to begin measuring community sentiment toward the project.
