1. Determining Local Teaching and Learning Priorities
Raise Your Voice!
Determining Local Teaching and Learning Priorities
Slide 1: Title Slide
This can be done at a building rep meeting, at an executive board meeting, a Uniserv Council meeting or retreat, or other local meetings. Local leaders could also do this at a staff meeting, PTA/PTO meeting, or other community event to engage parents/families.
For the facilitator, familiarize yourself with the general components of the Every Student Succeeds Act by reading through the one-page explainers available at

2. Welcome!
We believe ALL students, regardless of zip code, deserve the support, tools, and time to learn
Federal law offers new opportunities to partner with families and the community to support schools
What is most important for our schools?
Slide 2: Welcome slide. Approximately 3-5 minutes.
Suggested Script: We are here today because we all believe that all children deserve a high quality public education. The reauthorization of the Every Student Succeeds Act replaces No Child Left Behind. It requires school and district leaders to gather broad stakeholder input on school improvement issues. So how can we raise our voices to let our leaders know what we believe are important priorities for our schools and students?

3. Brainstorm Activity
What is something you think should stop happening at school?
2. What is something at your school you are really proud of?
3. If you could add a program, a resource, or make a change to improve your school, what would it be?
Slides 3-4: Brainstorming Activity. Approximately minutes depending on groups size and length and depth of conversations. This is an animated slide. Materials: Post-it notes; large pieces of paper or chart paper; pens, pencils and markers.
This activity is intended to help people think about their schools and what is they like and don’t like, and then concretely sort those into broader categories like testing, access to arts, class size, professional development, teacher retention, etc. Introduce the activity and then proceed through the questions one at a time, giving participants a minute or two to think about each question and write their ideas down. If you want to keep track of the ideas for each question, designate one color of post-it note for each question.
Suggested Script: This activity will help us start thinking about what is important to us and our schools. You have several post-its on your table. I’m going to pose a series of three questions. For each question, write one idea down on a post-it note. You can write as many ideas as possible, but put one idea on one post-it. You may end up with several post-its for one question.

4. Brainstorm Sort Look through all the ideas generated
Sort individual ideas into categories
Put all the post-its in one category on the blank paper
Name your category
Slides 3-4: Brainstorming Activity. Approximately minutes depending on groups size and length and depth of conversations. This is an animated slide. Materials: Post-it notes; large pieces of paper or chart paper; pens, pencils and markers.
Give instructions for this portion of the activity, and provide time for participants to discuss and sort their ideas. Once groups have finished, ask them to share out their categories (not the individual post-it notes, just the big categories). To deter groups from sharing each post-it, prepare one group to model just sharing the big categories they identified.
Suggested Script: In your groups, begin to share your ideas. As you share your ideas, group them into similar ideas. For example, if one idea to improve a school is to add a full-time librarian and another idea is to include more art or music instruction, those are both examples of providing a well-rounded education. Group your post-its on your chart paper and use the markers to label your big categories. (Activity time) Great! Now let’s share out the categories your groups came up with.

5. New Opportunities for Your Voice
The Every Student Succeeds Act is the reauthorization of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act
It replaces No Child Left Behind
The new law guarantees family, community and educator voice in district and school decisions especially on:
How to use U.S. Department of Education funds
Making school improvement plans
Supporting educator quality
Well-rounded education opportunities
Slide 5: Basic ESSA information. Approximately 3-5 minutes. Optional Materials: You can print informational materials to hand out from the or that seem relevant for your group.
Suggested Script: We have the opportunity to influence all those categories you all just identified through the Every Student Succeeds Act, which was passed in December 2015 and went into full effect in the school year. These categories are what we believe are important for our schools and students. And most importantly, we have the opportunity to influence these decisions!

6. My School My Voice Checklist
Characteristics of Strong Public Schools
Community
Healthy Students in Modern Schools
Well-Rounded Curriculum
School Climate
Quality Educators
Slide 6: Introduce My School My Voice checklist. Approximately 2 minutes.
Suggested Script: As you can see from all the categories we brainstormed, we have a lot of great ideas for improving and supporting our schools and our students. NEA has worked with the Harvard and Columbia schools of education to define more than 300 indicators of a great public school. They have narrowed that down to an easy checklist local communities can use to prioritize their efforts. Those indicators fall under these broad characteristics of strong public schools: community, healthy students in modern schools, well-rounded curriculum, school climate and quality educators. (Note: Point out where there are overlaps with the categories your group identified.)

7. myschoolmyvoice.nea.org
Slide 7: Complete the Checklist. Approximately 10 minutes.
Materials: The website is dynamic and will work on laptops, mobile devices, or tablets. If you have outside guests, be sure they have access to a wireless network. Also encourage participants to bring their own devices in the promotional materials. If your school/local has access to technology you can make available to participants.
Suggested Script: So we are going to complete the checklist today. It only takes a few minutes. We will then request our information from NEA. analyze the results, and share that information back with you.

8. Next Steps Analyze information
Request collaborative discussion with school leaders on school improvement based on the data from the checklist
How will you update participants?
Slide 8: Next Steps. Approximately 5-10 minutes. Note: You will want to add in your local next steps.
Suggested next steps: Request local information from NEA. Analyze the information in your data (OEA Center for Great Public Schools staff members can help with this process). Communicate that data back to participants. Request meetings with school and/or district leaders to discuss the data, and to discuss how to engage community in school improvement discussions. OEA Center for Great Public Schools staff have additional tools and/or can offer personalized support for those meetings.
Suggested Script: Thank you so much for completing the checklist. We believe this data will help inform how we best support our students and schools. Our next steps are to analyze the information from the checklists and determine some top priorities for our (school, local, district). We will share that information back to you as well. Then, we’ll request a collaborative discussion with school/district leaders to discuss this data and assert our right to be deeply engaged in school improvement decisions.

9. Slide 9: Thank you.
Thank your participants for coming. Add contact information to this slide or take questions at this time.