Neighbor News
School District 15 Community Engagement Committee Seeks Feedback
A 45-person committee now exists to define an engagement process and gather input from all stakeholders in D15.
Community Engagement Planning Committee convened January 19 for its first meeting.
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Comprised of current, future, and past parents from many parts of the District, as well as D15 community members and business owners, District 15’s Community Engagement Planning Committee held its first meeting on Thursday, January 19.
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The more than 45 members of the Committee are residents who completed and submitted applications to be a part of the Committee. All applicants except current Board members and candidates for Board membership
were invited to participate.
“The group could be characterized as passionate and committed to achieving its goal,” said Lavanya Swaminathan and Matt Bickel, the Committee’s co-chairs. “There was also a diversity of opinions expressed, and constructive dialogue that should lead to a robust process.”
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During its first meeting, the Committee worked to define its purpose and its goals, determining that it will design a process to engage community members to ascertain their values, priorities, and desires for District 15, and decided that it will facilitate the engagement process, collect feedback, and report its findings to the Board of Education in the fall. To that end, it brainstormed ideas for engagement topics and processes—the “whats” and the “hows” of the effort—as well as the “so whats,” which is what the Committee dubbed the summary of community sentiments it hopes to produce for the Board.
The Committee is committed to reaching out to all the members of the District 15 community: parents, retirees, business owners, long-time residents, and new families. It is also interested in including students, especially D15 graduates who are in high school and college.
The Committee also hopes its work will establish long-term engagement systems that will be used for years to come, and it wants to encourage all community members to participate in this effort by lending their
voices to the engagement process.
Look for more information about the Committee and its work in the near future, as it plans to share regular updates with the D15 community. The Committee’s next meeting is Thursday, February 9.
