Core Principles

K12 Insight’s approach to helping school districts build higher reserves of trust capital with all stakeholders is rooted in three core principles:

• The entire process must be 100% authentic. Speaking unvarnished truth is powerful, communicating to your stakeholders that you trust their judgment to make the right decisions and support the right causes. Being 100% authentic also means that you’ll share both good and bad news as a way of building long-term trust with your community.
• You must balance both short-term and long-term results. Lacking civic capacity or suffering low reserves of trust capital are not issues that appear suddenly, nor will they be solved overnight. Reversing these trends will take time.
• This cultural transformation requires transparency and collaborative decision-making. Most school districts have always been transparent in sharing details of school operations and challenges and have always aspired to provide collaborative decision-making, whereby the public is invited to weigh in before decisions are made. Unfortunately, though, districts have lacked an organized way to implement transparency and collaborative decision-making. While discussions have taken place in forums like school board meetings, typically only a small number of people are able to attend. You need to reach the silent majority.

K12 Insight can help you communicate authentically and transparently with the entire community. Once you have heard everyone’s voice and gained critical stakeholder support, it will be easier to make appropriate, well-informed decisions.

Learn how K12 Insight helped Cedar Rapids Community School District gather community support during a difficult school closure initiative.