ROLE PLAY ON CITIZEN PARTICIPATION AND CONSENSUS BUILDING

Form groups of 4-5 people. Your group will assume the role of school social workers. You must develop a plan for recruiting parents for participation in the School Council, a planning group, that consists of teachers, the school principal, a representative from the school superintendent's office, and a member of the school board. Most of the parents in your school district are low-income and may not have high school degrees. Some of the parents may not speak English as their first language

In your plan address the following issues:

What problems can you expect to encounter in trying to recruit parents for participation in the council?

What techniques can you use to recruit parents for the school council?

What reasons are parents likely to give for refusing to join the council? How would you address their concerns?

What type of training or orientation would you prepare for parents who agree to join the council?

How would you structure the first meeting of the council in order to maximize parent participation?

Note: One of the planning groups will be selected to take responsibility for actually conducting a school council meeting - class members will assume the roles, parents, teachers, and other decision-makers. The selected planning group will take on the role of social workers who have been asked to facilitate the first meeting. Make sure that the meeting structure permits maximum participation from parents and that decision-making takes place by consensus among the various interest groups.

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