Calgary Catholic School District
in Alberta
Publicly funded Calgary Catholic
School District pulls off possibly
one of the largest stakeholder
engagements ever
.
How do you decide whose child gets to attend a school in his or her neighbourhood, and whose child has to get on a bus to get to class? With budget constraints
ultimately dictating how this balance can be struck, the reality is that no matter what decision is made, a portion of stakeholders will not be happy. And since the budgeting process is not a democratic process, the task of making the “best decision for the best number of people” becomes all the more challenging. Stakeholder input is critical but surprisingly difficult to do well. The more
stakeholders providing input in a meaningful way, the better informed budgets can become. The less money spent on meaningful engagement, the more schools can allocate to opportunities for students – something that every educator yearns for.
2
15,000 participants
15,000 participants
370,000 stars
370,000 stars
30,000 thoughts
370,000 stars
30,000 thoughts
30,000 thoughts
370,000 stars
370,000 stars
15,000 participants
Past efforts reveal the best road forward
Leading the effort on behalf of the Calgary Catholic School District (CSSD) and its board of directors, CFO and Secretary Treasurer John Deausy has a longstanding history engaging stakeholders. Applying the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) model to their Help Plan our Future initiative, the District was able to see firsthand the effectiveness of World Café meetings, facilitators, surveys, open houses, workshops, and advisory committees. While successful in several respects, these techniques were “very time consuming and taxing” and predominantly represented the “poles of an issue” says Deausy. The CSSD realized they were not hearing from stakeholders at “the middle” of the issue. Choosing the right questions to ask participants also proved challenging; while presenting stakeholders with a list of priorities to choose from was too narrow in scope – and open-end too broad. It became apparent that their process needed to evolve. What they sought was a tool that could capture “the middle”, gather input, and allow stakeholders to evaluate that feedback in terms of their own priorities. “Thoughtexchange was able to cover off these [concerns]”, says Deausy.
“CSSD is well in line with its priorities and the information
we learned from the Thoughtexchange process can help us
confidently shape our messages to stakeholders.”
JOHN DEAUSY, CFO AND SECRETARY TREASURER, CALGARY CATHOLIC SCHOOL DISTIRCT
Record participation means record involvement from the community
“There’s no way to get 15,000 people out to meetings”, says Deausy of the response the CSSD achieved using Thoughtexchange. This substantial group of individuals responded with 30,000 thoughts and ideas, and 370,000 ‘stars’ representing the group’s highest priorities for the upcoming school year’s budget. In the past, each of its four stakeholder groups presented unique challenges; while parents and students wanted to provide input, school and student advisory councils just didn’t capture enough people. Compounding this problem, 20-25% of students are English language learners, with even higher numbers among parents. And when
it came to engaging staff, as hard as the District tried, they found that difficult questions surrounding lower funding priorities and potential program cuts negatively impacted staff cooperation. The final and largest single segment – representing 70% of the CSSD’s stakeholders – are Catholic rate (tax) payers without children in school, whose engagement had traditionally been the hardest to obtain.
The Calgary Catholic School District
(CSSD) educates and empowers its
students from kindergarten to Grade 12,
through its mission of Living and
Learning in the Catholic Faith. CSSD
is the largest Catholic school district in
Alberta, serving more than 51,000
students in 105 schools located in
Calgary, Airdrie, Cochrane, Chestermere
and the Municipal District of Rocky View.
cssd.ab.ca
Using systems that people
are already comfortable with
pays off
Using an electronic solution proved to be the only way to bring such a diverse group together. Overall 106 online en-gagements were created (one for every school in the district). This brought input forward on a district level, but once disaggregated, could also show input at the school and even issue level. In total, 62,000 emails were sent out. Student information systems were used to email parents, and the District’s in-ternal network was used to email staff. Thoughtexchange was presented to students through computer labs in CTS classes which effectively maximized student participation. Connecting with their Catholic rate payers however was still a challenge and is “something we will try to crack next year” says Deausy. Overall, using the new tool proved very successful, and with the exceptional response received, the District was able to create its current budget and inform future school planning.
Reassuring responses lead to better planning and peace of mind
The results were consistent with what the District had been hearing through previous en-gagements and the priorities identified fell within their expectations. “CSSD is well in line with its priorities and the information we learned from the Thoughtexchange process can help us confidently shape our messages to stakeholders,” said Deausy. The Process allowed the CSSD to feel confident in the information received, knowing they heard from the largest group of stakeholders in their history, and whose participation helped establish the priorities set. The ability to see how respondents were segmented also helped the District feel more confident in the process. Of the 15,000 participants, 10,000 were parents, 4,000 were staff, and 1,000 were students.
Despite initial reservations about opening themselves up so extensively to their stakeholders, the CSSD felt very reassured to see that the values they hold “near and dear are what people appreciate about [them]”, says Deausy. Most importantly, by identifying an engagement tool that was able to deliver possibly one of the largest stakeholder engagements ever, the District was able to use both the collaborative and financial benefits of this process to provide the brightest possible future for their students.
Copyright © 2014 Fulcrum Management Solutions Ltd. Thoughtexchange, the Thoughtexchange logo and “The Group Insight Platform” are trademarks of Fulcrum Management Solutions Ltd. in the United States and/or all other countries.
Box 2260, Rossland, BC, Canada V0G 1Y0 | thoughtexchange.com
for each participant to
provide their input
a football field of people
packed like sardines
24 hours a day straight
running
each taking would take
