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Medford high school team outlines engagement plan; committee presses for targeted outreach to underrepresented residents
Summary
SMMA and district staff said they will run visioning sessions, department programming workshops, community meetings and targeted focus groups. Committee members emphasized multilingual outreach, targeted engagement for demographics underrepresented in prior processes, and communications coordination between city and district.
SMMA and district staff described a multipronged engagement strategy for the Medford High School feasibility and schematic phases that includes an educational leadership kickoff, large visioning sessions (an "educational forum"), department‑level programming workshops, focus groups and broader public community meetings.
Staff stressed that engagement will be staged: immersion (site visits and listening), large visioning sessions including students and parents, and smaller program synthesis meetings to convert vision outcomes into a space summary. SMMA also proposed lower‑barrier tactics such as presence at community events, surveys, online interactive tools and language‑native focus groups for non‑English speakers.
Committee members repeatedly pressed the team to broaden outreach beyond those who typically attend civic meetings. "What we want is any and all of the above, online communications, in person, hybrid meetings," SMMA said, adding that they would coordinate with the district and city communications teams to create a clear calendar of touchpoints. The committee encouraged an early meeting among city and district communications staff so no stakeholder can say they lacked notice.
Equity measures discussed included: offering focus groups in languages of choice rather than relying solely on translated materials; using demographic tracking for survey responders and then conducting targeted outreach to underrepresented groups; holding sessions in community locations; recruiting youth engagement committees; and using low‑barrier digital tools (e.g., Mentimeter) so participants can comment without speaking publicly.
The district said a project website is being prepared as a central repository for documents and meeting notices. SMMA and staff committed to posting a public engagement schedule following the PDP kickoff and said they will collaborate with the district’s strategic planning work to align outreach agendas.
Provenance: community engagement topics and proposed methods are introduced in SMMA’s presentation and discussed during Q&A (topic intro: transcript 3355.04–3379.055; topic finish: transcript 6328.12–6371.815).
