Community members are invited to make their voices heard during a series of upcoming strategic planning sessions hosted by Eden Prairie Schools.
Billed as “World Cafés,” the events will feature open forums facilitated by EP Schools students and staff. All Eden Prairie community members, including students and their families, are invited to attend and take part in the discussions which will help shape the district’s 2023-28 Strategic Plan.
There are four upcoming community World Café sessions; treats and water will be provided.
- 5.30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 7, at Eden Lake Elementary. Multilingual support will be available in Spanish and Somali.
- 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 8, at Forest Hills Elementary.
- 5 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 13, held virtually over Zoom. RSVP here.
- 5 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 23, at Central Middle School. Multilingual support will be available in Spanish and Somali. RSVP here.
“In the referendum we talked a lot about how strong schools are part of strong communities, and that doesn’t just end with finances,” said Dirk Tedmon, EP Schools’ senior director of marketing and communications.
“We want our schools to reflect the values and needs of our community, and their hopes in conjunction with what our students and staff want,” he said. “World Cafés are an opportunity for everyone to provide perspective on what we can do to really meet our mission of inspiring each student, every day.”
At the meetings, EP Schools will share the feedback they gathered from the community during the first step of its strategic planning process.
Attendees will have the chance to watch a video, which can be viewed here. The video highlights data gathered from a random sample survey the district did in October as well as the recent ThoughtExchange surveys, which ran from December until late January.
“We took the data out of ThoughtExchange to come up with some shared themes between students and adults,” Tedmon said. “At these World Cafés, we really dive into those five themes.” Tedmon said the themes include diversity, equity, inclusion, and social and emotional well-being.
Tedmon said discussions will focus on three big questions. The first: “As we think about these themes, what strategies or ideas do we have that could make them a reality for students?
“And then the second question is, as we think about these strategies we just came up with, what are the barriers stopping that from happening?
“And then the third question that we go over in the World Cafés is: if we were guaranteed success, if we knew that none of these barriers would be problems or we had a magic wand, what bold steps would we take to make these strategies a reality?”
Input wanted from all community stakeholders
The district has already held five World Cafés to collect feedback from students and staff. “We want this to be a really inclusive process,” Tedmon said.
“We started first with two elementary school World Cafés, which were super fun with the kids coming in and talking,” said Grace Becker, EP Schools’ director of marketing and communications.
“They answered the same exact questions the adults are answering, so we’re going to have perspectives from all different sides. We’ve also had staff cafes at three different schools,” she added.
In addition to the four upcoming community World Cafés, Tedmon said, “We’re going to be running them with students at every grade level [and ] at every one of our schools, so that staff have the opportunity to attend if they can’t make a community meeting.” There will also be forums at EP Schools’ transportation department, Eden Prairie Community Education, and administrative services.
Tedmon said listening to the discussions has been energizing and inspiring.
“It’s fun and exciting to hear the ideas that people come up with,” he said. “Our students are so brilliant — they had such cool ideas. It’s just been so powerful to see them engage with this. At the end, they said, ‘It’s been really exciting to be a part of this and to have our voice heard. So often we don’t get that opportunity, and it feels like this could actually make a difference.’
“I think it’s empowering for students and good for the district to have that. And its the same thing we’re hoping for from the community — for people to have a chance to make their voice heard and where we’re going,” he added.
A team of high school students is helping as table hosts to facilitate some World Café conversations, including at their former grade schools.
Becker shared insights from those conversations, including elementary school teachers’ requests for an increased focus on mental health supports for even the district’s youngest students.
“One of our student facilitators said to me that it was interesting to hear the teachers at the elementary level at the World Café she was facilitating say, ‘We really see our students having needs for support from social workers and mental health professionals,’” Becker said.
“[The student ] said, ‘That’s interesting, because when I’ve thought about mental health needs in the past, I kind of thought about it more at a middle school and high school level. This has really been eye-opening to me, to remember that it’s really foundational, and it matters in elementary school, that kids have a really strong foundation as they move forward, and have the support that they need right away.’”
Becker and Tedmon said they hope as many people as possible from the community will attend the World Cafés to share their thoughts and help shape the district’s next strategic plan.
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