Own the Conversation

An imperative for the 21st century

K12 Insight has developed a comprehensive and systemic solution to help nurture trust capital in school districts, by cultivating relationships with all stakeholders and proactively reaching out to the silent majority. When your stakeholders are made aware of the challenges facing administrators and school boards, they’re less vulnerable to the power of negative chatter.

The core components of K12 Insight’s solution are:

  • Helping districts make a commitment to greater transparency, providing every stakeholder with the chance to provide input on all critical decisions.
  • Helping districts customize a calendar of communication-focused surveys for each stakeholder group. We show you how to replace ad hoc, reactive surveys with proactive plans for engaging parents, teachers, staff, students and community members.
  • Helping districts set proper expectations on the use of survey findings. Every question in every survey can create expectations in the minds of survey participants, with many participants mistaking a survey for a referendum. Building trust requires setting proper expectations from the start.
  • Helping districts design questionnaires that facilitate authentic two-way dialogue. Inviting public input without providing the right context is unfair to the issues under consideration. Designing a questionnaire with the intent of capturing the public’s input and growing trust requires a different approach than simply conducting a poll on a single issue.
  • Helping districts analyze, interpret and understand the findings of each survey. Numbers alone are not enough to tell the entire story. Sometimes it is necessary to know how your peer districts are faring on a particular issue. In many cases, where you are going (the longitudinal trend) is more important than where you are in any one year.
  • Helping districts communicate findings with parents, teachers, students and community members. “Closing the loop” by clearly communicating what changes your stakeholders can expect based on the survey findings is essential for trust-building.

Let’s talk further about owning the conversation . . . .
Read about Building Trust and Facilitating Engagement