Session 8: Lessons Learned from Community Schools Implementation
What is it?
The Lessons Learned session was an opportunity for community school teams to share successes and insights gained from the implementation strategies they had used during the course of becoming community schools.
Session 8’s primary objectives were to support participants to:
1. Learn about each others’ most effective community school practices and identify key challenges they face in fully implementing these practices at their sites.
2. Identify key priorities and develop next steps for moving forward.
3. Celebrate their joint success to date.
Tools Organized by Purpose
| Time |
Purpose |
Description |
Tools
|
Notes on Tools |
| 30 min |
Arrival and Breakfast |
|
 S8 Agenda.doc
S8_060316_Training_Design.doc
|
The first is a public agenda and the second provides details on carrying thie session out. |
| 15 min |
Welcome and Overview of the Day |
|
|
|
| 120 min |
Site Discussions
|
Each team will present and describe their promising practice or program for 5 minutes followed by a fishbowl discussion on their accomplishments, challenges and strategies used to overcome them. |
 S8 Presentation - Lessons Learned.ppt |
A sample presentation from one school that partners with an environmental organization. |
| 45 min |
Reflections on Lessons Learned |
As a large group, review common challenges raised by the discussion and share what research and experience tells us about building and sustaining practices |
|
|
| 60 MINUTES FOR LUNCH |
| 50 min |
Cross-Site Study Groups |
Small group discussions based on the morning - identify potential strategies |
|
|
| 25 min |
Sharing Back
|
Small groups report out to the large group |
|
|
| 5 min |
Additional Resources
|
Facilitator can introduce handouts on other strategies for continuing their collaboration beyond the session and in preparation for the team time to identify next steps. |
S8 Tool - Stages of Collaboration-CCCSP.doc
 S8 Tool - The Three Cs-CCCSP.pdf
S8 Tool - Strategic Collaboration-CCCSP.pdf
S8 Tool - Decision Making Handout-CCCSP.doc
S8 Tool - Ten Commitments of Leadership-CCCSP.doc
|
A variety of handouts on the topic of collaboration and decision-making community schools can use when they go back to their sites. |
| 10 MINUTE BREAK |
| 60 min |
Site Team Time
|
Each team has time to reflect on the strategies learned from the study groups and identify goals to incorporate into the next year's planning |
|
|
| 30 min |
Closing and Next Steps - with a Celebration after! |
|
|
|
Why is it important?
· Ongoing reflection by a community school team on their progress at various time points is critical to promoting accountability among the team and identifying areas for growth.
· Identifying “what worked” as well as “what didn’t worked” promotes a positive learning environment and a culture that values collaboration and continuous improvement.
· Highlighting and celebrating successes is an important aspect of recognizing the contributions of the team’s individual and collective efforts and for motivating and energizing a group to continue moving forward.
Why this module now?
As the final session came to a close, it was important to continue promoting the practice of reflection with the teams that we introduced throughout the initiative. It was also important for teams to reflect on and celebrate what they had accomplished over three years as well as leave the session with both new insights from colleagues at other schools as well as identifying areas for additional work. All these exercises proved useful in supporting teams in making the transition from these intensive learning sessions to planning for how they would continue this work at their community schools.
What did we do?
This session was designed to provide an opportunity for teams to learn about each other’s most effective community school practices and encourage them to identify key challenges they faced in attempting to fully implement those practices at their community school. We also encouraged them to identify key priorities and develop next steps for moving forward in their implementation. Finally, we built time in to celebrate our joint successes to date. Specifically, this process involved:
· Reflecting as a team on accomplishments and challenges to date.
· Highlighting a promising or successful practice or program they implemented.
· Sharing with their peers why it was successful, what challenges they faced, and how they overcame them as a way to identify key lessons for the entire group as they continue to grow and sustain their community school efforts.
How did we do it?
· Each team was asked in advance to come prepared with a brief 5-minute overview of their unique promising practice or program in whatever format they saw fit.
· The session began with an overall framing about the purpose of the session and the importance of constant reflection in implementing community schools as well as learning from successes and challenges we face.
· Team members participated in fishbowl discussions where they highlighted their promising practice, reflected on their successes and challenges and then took questions from the audience.
· As a large group, participants summarized common themes they had heard throughout the session about the lessons and challenges they faced in implementing a community schools approach.
· Participants divided up into various “study groups” with common challenges (identified in the morning session) and shared potential strategies with each other.
· Each group provided a brief report of their suggested strategies for each issue.
· Session presenters then reminded the participants about the stages of collaboration, shared tools for continuing their work together and provided some final handouts of things to keep in mind as they made decisions and continued their work as leaders of community schools.
· Finally, each team identified strategies they heard throughout the day that were helpful to them in taking the next steps they identified. Teams also listed areas where they were requesting continued technical assistance.
Lessons Learned
· As with all the other sessions, participants found the site team time important and valuable. However, it would have been helpful to prepare them in Session 7 for the level of planning we were expecting them to reach before the last session. This may have provided a stronger sense of “readiness” to continue implementation beyond the last session.
· Although we asked teams to suggest areas for technical assistance, we could have been clearer about what capacity existed to provide additional support as well as take suggestions. This information could have been requested at Session VII and we could have come back with a proposed plan for continued support at Session VIII. Many participants in their evaluations for example expressed the need for continued ongoing information about effective practices as well as model community schools to read about and visit.
· Participants generally found the presentations by each school useful to learn about the effective practices and challenges overcome by their colleagues. Several participants thought identifying themes as a whole group took too long and facilitators could have proposed some general groupings for the study groups in the afternoon.
· Although we promoted cross-school interaction during the study groups, several participants found it difficult to translate that information back into school team conversations and didn’t think there was enough time to address the strategies, think about their site’s next steps as well as identifying technical assistance needs in the time frame provided.
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