The Lakota Board of Education approved a $40,000 contract Monday with Citizens for Civic Renewal for a program called “Community Conversation” that will focus on community engagement.
The subject of community engagement was also brought up when the school board decided not to place a tax levy on the ballot this year during a meeting in June.
“We need more direction from our community on where it thinks our school district should be heading and what level of service it’s willing to fund,” board president Ben Dibble said in a statement during the June meeting when the tax levy was discussed.
At Monday’s school board meeting, Citizens for Civic Renewal’s executive director Jeffrey Stec made a presentation to the school board.
“Ultimately, after building the structure and creating a sense of partnership between the community and the district, we are looking at finding some common ground about the direction of education in this community and how the community supports that direction,” Stec said during the presentation.
“We are going to go to the community, so there won’t be meetings that will always be called to the school district or to the schools. It is going to be community members and community networks hosting conversations with each other where the school district is part of that conversation like any other attendee.”
Stec and his organization will be working with Lakota Superintendent Karen Mantia on the structure of the “Community Conversation.” Mantia, however, was not in attendance at Monday’s school board meeting due to a death in the family.
The board approved the program despite not having two of its five members in attendance. The contract begins July 17, 2012 and ends July 31, 2013.
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