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The Partnership Cadre for School and Community Development1999 – presentFor the Partnership for Kentucky Schools, RKI has worked with a tightly knit design team to carry out the formation of the Partnership Cadre for School and Community Development. The Cadre consists of professionals in the fields of education, organization development, business, community and economic development, and facilitation who are at the top of their professions. Cadre members work to capitalize on the knowledge generated by Partnership research by developing support systems for translating those findings into local action. Put another way, members of the Cadre work to fill a gap between research about what works to improve student performance and actual school-community practice. The Partnership Cadre has two main purposes:
Cadre members help with every phase of designing, planning, implementing, and assessing improvement efforts in specific school-community settings. They use their considerable experience and knowledge base to offer systematic guidance and facilitation to school-community initiatives that aim to improve student achievement and school performance. Typically these efforts also use one or more of the research-based toolkits the Partnership has constructed to accelerate school-community improvement. In addition, the Cadre members help cultivate new opportunities for the Partnership and Cadre members to be involved in action-oriented school-community improvement efforts. The Partnership selected an experienced, highly qualified first-year group of 17 Cadre members who reflect Kentucky's diversity in terms of race, gender, and geography. Each person in the Cadre reflects career-peak mastery in facilitation, education, or community development. In addition, because of the importance of the first year, each member brings the ability to develop the Cadre and its capabilities for long-term future work in the Commonwealth. The orientation for the first group of the Cadre took place on September 29, 2000. This session helped Cadre members get to know each other professionally and personally, and it set the stage for successful statewide work together over the next several years. In keeping with the main premise of the Cadre development process – that we begin with fully capable leaders as members of the Cadre, rather than people who need "training" – some Cadre members themselves participated as presenters and facilitators in the initial orientation. The facilitation skills for Cadre members – considered to be at the very heart of their expertise – received an unusually powerful boost through a year-long process of intensive development with Roger Schwarz, renowned facilitator developer and author of The Skilled Facilitator. Roger had the assistance of Anne Davidson, from the Institute of Local Government in North Carolina, who has a wealth of experience in skilled facilitator development, as well as community development. The main aim was to move these facilitators from their starting levels of good, solid capabilities to a distinguished, mastery level of skills. As the first stage in the development process, the first group of Cadre members participated in a five-day skilled facilitator training conducted by Roger Schwarz in December, 2000. As preparation for eventually making the Cadre development program completely Kentucky-based and Kentucky-driven, RKI Partner Steve Kay participated in a five-day skilled facilitation training with Roger Schwarz in the summer of 2000. Steve then served as the third small-group facilitator at the first skilled facilitator training for the Cadre, which took place in December, 2000. The Partnership Cadre for School and Community Development has the generous support of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. 
Be sure to visit other descriptions of our work in the area of school improvement. |
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