Alachua district summarizes first-round master-plan engagement; online tools close Friday
Summary
Consultant JB Pro and district staff demonstrated a Slido-based engagement with four stations covering vision, programs, facilities and boundaries; the district says more than 400 responses have come in so far and online tools will close at the end of the week.
JB Pro consultants and Alachua County school staff on Tuesday walked board members through the district's first round of master-plan public engagement, describing an online Slido tool and four engagement "stations" designed to collect anonymous input on vision, programs, facilities and boundaries.
"The way we've set up this online engagement through Slido is very similar to what you've seen at those online engagement sessions," Jacob of JB Pro told the board, explaining that participants will be able to rate and submit open-ended answers that mirror in-person activities. Kathy of JB Pro said the firm was asked "to not just look at this as a rezoning" but to treat the effort as a broader master plan focused on where students live, facility condition and programming.
District staff said outreach has included a lead iNews article, social media pushes, a live feed, a website banner and repeated emails and texts to families and staff; the district's community email reaches about 48,000 recipients, staff reported. Facilitators confirmed banners with QR codes were hand-delivered to every school site to encourage online participation.
The engagement is structured around four stations: "vision, values and priorities" (open-ended and prioritization exercises, including a hypothetical $1,000,000 prioritization), a district-wide programs audit (eight program categories), a facilities audit (eight facility-condition categories) and a "boundaries and connections" station that asks how students should be grouped and how transportation and neighborhood connections should be handled. A separate Student Central station offers age-appropriate activities to capture student perspectives.
Board members asked about sample size and representativeness. "Fifty people out of a population of 1,800 students, to me, is not representative," said boardmember Miss Plavic, referencing turnout at one in-person event. JB Pro staff replied that "we have had over 400 already" in total responses and said they are monitoring hourly increases ahead of the Friday deadline and are focused on consistency across formats.
JB Pro said it is compiling nightly data and will produce a summary report and up to eight guiding principles during the winter break. The consultants plan to present those guiding principles in individual briefings the first week after break and at a Jan. 12 workshop; a final report is scheduled for March. Facilitators also committed to providing participation counts and appendices that summarize raw input for board review.
The district encouraged anyone who has not yet participated to use the online tool or email feedback; staff said an email address is available for comments that do not fit the Slido activities. The board was told the current round of engagement closes this week and the online tools will be shut down after Friday.
Looking ahead, JB Pro said a second phase of engagement will present alternatives tied to the guiding principles and will include a mixture of the digital activities used in phase one and more traditional, in-person presentations designed to let people speak directly to planners. "This next round will be hybrid," the facilitator said.
