Wenatchee School District Developing Community Engagement Plan

Wenatchee School District staff have been hard at work developing a Community Engagement Plan draft. The plan is intended to increase communication and feedback with the community.

Communications Director Diana Haglund says staff are suggesting two pathways for the board to consider; a series of hour-long meetings with school board members, and an online survey.

"These are really meant to be building blocks." explained Haglund, "A good, solid engagement plan for our board is a long term plan. So we're really just getting started in this space. We're hopeful that these are two opportunities where our community can feel that they can engage with the board and really provide some feedback and dialogue."

The draft's major component is the series of meetings, referred to as Community Conversations. The school board has been looking for a way to have specific dialogues with the community. School board meetings, which can broach many diverse subjects, often do not provide enough time to adequately delve into an issue with the public.

The plan is to hold the Community Conversations following events where parent groups are already gathered, such as this month's Parent Night. The district intends to cut costs by leveraging resources already being used in the previous event that evening. By driving the costs of the meetings down, staff are estimating the entire Community Engagement Plan will come in below $7,000.

"We often have meetings in our buildings where we're already providing those services." Haglund added, "We're really looking to piggyback on those opportunities to keep costs low."

Not all of the Community Conversations will be held at Wenatchee schools, however. The school board indicated during their meeting Tuesday night that they would prefer the meetings happen at both district and community locations.

Topics the Community Conversations intend to cover are future facilities, social-emotional learning, and post-secondary pathways. Each subject will get two meetings for a total of six Community Conversations yearly. Two members of the school board will attend each meeting.