:: College of Education Newsletter ::

Collaborating for Comprehensive Change

Date Published: 2007-08-14

Early collaboration with CORAS school districts to create an agile, aligned, regional P-20 education system

Athens-Meigs ESC Superintendent John Costanzo and his group compose implications.

Ginger Weade and Bill Smith discuss implications with Ohio Board of Education Vice President Jennifer Stewart.

Have you heard the I-Wheel buzz? It’s a regional strategic planning movement that’s gathering steam. This is just the first step; it’s a baby step. Phase I: Planning to make a plan.

Our collaboration with the region’s P-12 public educators started back in mid-December. At the request of Dean Middleton, the Coalition of Rural and Appalachian Schools (CORAS) Executive Director Dick Fisher facilitated a meeting between the dean, a handful of COE faculty and staff, and superintendent representatives from each of the 7 CORAS districts.

The general consensus was that, relative to the amount of change America has seen in the last 100 years, its public education system has remained fairly stagnant. Now is the time to try something drastically different. We brainstormed ways to improve P-20 education and vowed to continue the conversation.

In our next meeting, the superintendent of Muskingum Valley ESC Dick Murray presented us with Joel Barker’s Implications Wheel. This strategic exploration tool is being used by public policy makers, universities and nonprofits to anticipate the long-term implications of organizational change. Citizens of Louisiana gathered to use the I-Wheel in December 2005, post-Hurricane Katrina.

Murray’s director of technology services, Tim Deetz, is certified to facilitate I-Wheel planning, and he has been our guru through the process.

The first task for CORAS superintendents and COE faculty and administrators was to list our dirty laundry, the problems we have with the current system of public education here in Appalachian Ohio. Our current shortcomings are not a “people problem”; they are a system failure. I-Wheel calls our problems with the current system "The Details."

After itemizing our details, we had to write the center of our I-Wheel, the statement that encapsulates our perfect world - our central goal:

What are the possible implications of creating an aligned, agile, regional system of professional learning that meets the unique educational needs of children and the broader demands of a global society?

The final task of the administrator group was to write the first-level implications. These are fairly broad, generic statements of what would have to change if the new system was in place. You can view our Center and first-level implications HERE.

According to the I-Wheel process, it was then time to solicit opinions from all our constituent groups. We invited representatives to a full-day work meeting, which was held on May 22. This larger group composed the second- and third-level implications. Finally, each constituent group (teachers, principals, HS students, faculty, COE students, and leaders) went through every implication, rating each based on (a) desirability and (b) likelihood.

On July 16, 12 COE faculty and 4 graduate students met at a local restaurant to complete their respective sets of ratings. Associate Professor of Higher Education Valerie Martin Conley suggested expanding the process to focus more specifically on our region’s institutions of higher education.

Tim Deetz is currently completing our Implications Wheel, and he will present it, in its entirety for the first time, at the College Administrative Team retreat on Aug. 22.

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