The Power of Listening: MSAD 11 & St. George MSU

IMAGINE a Maine where all voices are heard.

Photo from MSAD 11, courtesy of MSAD 11 website. See our writeup on MSAD 11 below.

The Power of Listening

When was the last time you took the time to really listen deeply? The world moves fast these days, and taking the time to listen to each other with openness and empathy often falls off of our to-do lists. But it shouldn't, especially not in schools, where young people rely on adults to create environments that promote their long term success in an atmosphere of health and wellbeing. Too many times though, we design our schools for convenience or out of tradition not for what students, and many educators, say they need to thrive. Changing that starts with listening.

Ed Forum highlights schools and districts doing this work — not perfect schools, but those engaging with the challenge. Ed Forum also provides support to schools and districts who want to engage in deeper listening that leads to action. We share two examples below: St. George Municipal School District and MSAD 11. We hope they inspire you to consider how your school or district can listen more deeply and take action based on what you learn.

Maine Education 2050, in collaboration with Maine Resilience Building Network and many other community organizations, is listening statewide to youth, educators, community members, and industry professionals. Over 200 Mainers have participated so far. Parents of children with special needs, farmers from York County, pre-service teachers in Aroostook County, youth in Washington County, educators in Kennebec County, and many, many others have discussed what makes a good community member, professional, employee...person, and how does school support that? 90 minutes never went so fast! When we slow down and listen to each other, and to ourselves, we deepen our connections, develop understanding, and build the will to take action together.

Listening Should Lead to Action

The St. George Municipal School Unit (MSU) has found creative ways to support teachers’ innovative ideas, meet the needs of all students, and connect the community to their school.

How are they doing it? Here are some of their keys to success:

Building relationships with students and listening closely to what they want and need,
Being open to teachers’ innovative ideas for meeting students’ needs,
Reaching out to community contacts for support in implementing new ideas—and continuing to reach out until the right connection is made, and
Giving back to the community in ways that are meaningful to local residents.

Check out our super short video above to hear Dr. Jessica Berry, assistant superintendent and special education director at St. George MSU, talk about how dreaming big and building relationships allows St. George to meet the individual needs of all students.

You can read our writeup about all the ways St. George is dreaming big to meet student and community needs here.

Aerial photo of Gardiner Area High School, part of MSAD 11, courtesy of GAHS Facebook page. S

Strategic Listening in MSAD 11

Ed Forum is helping MSAD 11 to start a long term strategic planning process with an in-depth, large scale community listening project. We are so excited to be working closely on this project with school board chair Becky Fles, superintendent Pat Hopkins, and director of curriculum and instruction Angela Hardy.

240 students, school staff, community members, and parents will participate in 90-minute recorded focus group conversations based on the Maine ED 2050 project. Over a few weeks, with minimal time invested by participants, the school board and the district administrative team will learn what is important to the major stakeholders and why. This project will more than double the number of people who can bring their voice to the planning for the future of the district. Community members, students, and educators will also help us analyze the data and make sense of it in a series of fun, brief workshops before the district leadership digs into a deeper interpretive report by Ed Forum.

By dramatically expanding the circle of participation, district leaders are showing that inclusive listening to all stakeholders is a crucial component of their planning for the future. How can an effective strategy for meeting the needs of the community not include deep, inclusive listening to the community itself — including equal numbers of students?

The conversations also help participants develop closer ties with their fellow community members; questions focus on lived experiences, visions, and imaginations, not positions on issues. In these polarized times, opportunities to come together are needed more than ever. Ed Forum's focus group facilitators hold space for differences of opinion to exist in a respectful and empathetic space.

Technology from Cortico allows us to scale up the number of voices included while keeping conversations small, short, and sweet. It also gives us the ability to quickly and collaboratively analyze focus group data with community members using the support of artificial intelligence. And, importantly, the technology provides transparency — all focus group data is publicly available on a user-friendly platform, ensuring that outcomes can be checked against the voices of the community.

Does your school or district want to listen more deeply to your community? Be in touch and we can design an experience just for you.

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