Ideas for increasing engagement between parents, teachers, and students of School District 65. Written as the capstone project for the Level 2 certification from the Engagement Alliance.

2. WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?
Teachers
StudentsParents
Teachers want students
who are engaged with classroom
content.
Teachers want parents
to know what’s happening
in their children’s classrooms.
Parents want to
know what‘s
happening in
their
children‘s school
lives.
Students will
perform better
when teachers
and parents
are aligned.

3. SO HOW DO WE……..
…make it easy to get involved with the school district.
…get knowledgeable, experienced parents to share that expertise with others.
…create a positive feedback loop of recognition and gratitude for those activities.
WHAT ABOUT….

4. EXTRA CREDIT – A CORE CONCEPT
• One of the best ways we can motivate people to get or stay involved with the
district is through public recognition of their efforts.
• It’s an industrial sized thank you that others can see.
• And when others see it, it will inspire them to go out and do the same.
• Communities are built on reciprocity - so we want to provide parents,
teachers, and students with as many opportunities to recognize each other
and “pay it forward” as possible.
• As part of the user profile on the District 65 site, introduce Extra Credit.
• Think of it as a sort of thank you system.
• Volunteer at the Bake Sale? Get Extra Credit.
• Help organize a fundraiser? Chaperone a dance? Extra Credit.
• Its even a way to quickly say thank you from one person to another.
Extra Credit is our way of recognizing you for all the
blood, sweat, and tears
you’ve given to District 65.

5. CURIOUS ABOUT HELPING? CLICK HERE
• There are so many things happening in the district (or at any given school)
that it creates complexity for people looking on how they can engage.
• Complexity decreases participation because as it rises, only a smaller and
smaller percentage of people are interested.
• In order to decrease complexity and make it easy for people to participate in
the district, the district would need to take on that complexity instead of
passing it on to the participant.
• Provide a button on the District 65 site that when selected, would walk the
person through a series of questions (revolving around interests, child’s
school, and availability), and then provide them with 3 relevant choices for
ways to get engaged or volunteer.
• By limiting choice (and hopefully providing relevant ideas), the district
increases the chances of that person volunteering or otherwise getting
involved.
HOW DOES EXTRA CREDIT WORK HERE?
• Complete one of the recommended activities? Extra
Credit!
• Ooo, that felt good. I should do some more!

6. THE IDEA LAB
• On the District 65 site, create a place where parents, teachers, and students
could enter ideas for fundraising/volunteer activities.
• Ideas could be community service projects, school improvements, or
fundraising for specific organizations or goal.
• In the same place, allow people to provide feedback as well as rate the ideas.
• Allow submitters to indicate what skills, equipment, and volunteer count are
necessary to achieve the idea.
• Then let others sign up and indicate what part of the project they can provide.
• It’s a one stop shop that allows anyone in the district to surface an idea,
obtain community consensus regarding it’s value, and then achieve it through
organizing the necessary resources!
HOW DOES EXTRA CREDIT WORK HERE?
• Put an idea up that gets positive ratings? Extra Credit.
• Recruit volunteers and actually get it done? Even more!

7. RECRUITING THE DISTRICT 65 NINJA
• Everyone knows one. The parent or teacher who seems to know everything
about every after school program, lunch option and cool, school club. You
have a need, they have the school resource
• They are invaluable assets – not only to the fellow parents that befriend them
but to the school district as a walking advertisement for everything that’s
available.
• They have the power to transform the school experience from one that’s
overwhelming, to one that feels like it was custom built for a family.
• On the District 65 site, create a forum for each school; encourage parents to
not only ask questions but provide answers.
• Then have the original question asker rate the best/most useful answer they
got. Start encouraging people to out-help one another!
HOW DOES EXTRA CREDIT WORK HERE?
• Give the best answer to a question? You guessed it!

8. THE VALUE OF EXTRA CREDIT
• For the individual, it lets them see how valuable their efforts have been to the
District.
• They can be a teacher accumulating Extra Credit as thank you’s from parents and
students, a parent trying to do their part, or one of those District Ninja’s trying to
make everybody’s school experience better.
• For the District, it provides useful data that can guide decisions and make things
better and better. By moving sign ups and activities to a central place, the District
will have a working knowledge of the activities that garner the most sign ups, and
the least.
• It can tell you what schools or programs have high volunteer efforts and, by
contrast, what clubs or places need extra help in driving that participation up.
• Looking at the Idea Lab and watching the themes that emerge from the community
will help inform the District where efforts and resources should be spent.
• It can provide insight into what is on the minds of the parent and student
community.

9. THANK YOU
I am a District 65 parent working on obtaining my
certification for designing engagement platforms.
This represents my capstone project for the course.
I hope you can find some value in it; barring that,
Thank you for humoring me.