Calling the Roll: Study Circles for Better Schools (video)

Calling the Roll: Study Circles for Better Schools tells the story of a SEDL partnership of the same name that examined how 15 communities in Arkansas and Oklahoma conducted small-group dialogues, or study circles, on education. State and local policymakers, organizers, educators, community members, and students discuss their experiences as participants, and how they changed their ideas about education and education policymaking. The videotape provides information about the study circle model of dialogue and what it offers to community members, school staffs, policymakers, and others who are interested in organizing community dialogues on education to inform policymaking. Produced by EDF Productions for SEDL. The original videotape was captioned in English and Spanish.

Related resources

• Calling the Roll: Study Circles for Better Schools (print)

Transcript of this Video

Man: Kids who can't read, kids who can't think, kids who have absolutely no sense of common sense.

Woman: We're concerned that we're seeing more and more violence.

Woman: Well there's absolutely no way that we can solve all of these issues on our own.

Man: Far and away, the best way to learn what your constituents think is to talk to them.

Narrator: You may have heard comments like these two people you know. Like you, they believe we all play a part of the quality of education we provide our young people. It's up to us to help children succeed and become productive members of our society. "Calling the Roll: Study Circles for Better Schools" shows how educators, policymakers, students, and community members raised their hands to show they are present and accounted for on the issues of education facing their schools. During the decades the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory has worked in the southwestern U.S. to improve teaching and learning, we have seen the value of involving parents and community members in education and its policymaking. For this reason we work with Arkansas Friends for Better Schools, the League of Women Voters of Oklahoma, and the Study Circles Resource Center on this project. Our goal was to explore how to more directly connect the public with educators and policymakers in an open inclusive forum for exchanging information and ideas. In this video, we share what we have learned with you.

Sarah Campbell - Deputy Director, Study Circles Resource Center: Study circles are a process for small groups of people to come together on the grassroots level and deliberate about complex social issues. It is a means for people to examine issues that are facing their community over a series of weeks with the help of a neutral facilitator, balanced discussion materials and eventually examine an issue thoroughly and then develop strategies for action.

Narrator: In Oklahoma, the League of Women Voters sponsored a statewide program of study circles in education. In an earlier project on criminal justice, they had seen how study circles can make positive changes.

Carol Woodward Scott - President, League of Women Voters of Oklahoma: Study circles are different than other forms of citizen education that the league has done in the past, because the most of our education to citizens is through authorities giving information to citizens and saying, "Is there any questions, and how can I give you more information?" So it's more or less in a giving information versus gaining information from citizens and the League knows that voting turnout and people participating in government has a great deal to do with how much people feel connected to community.

Narrator: Arkansas Friends for Better Schools, an organization that encourages communitywide support for public education, saw study circles as a way to give people a real voice in education reform.

Judy Wilmoth White - Coordinator, Arkansas Friends for Better Schools: When you have folks at the grassroots level involved and committed in their public schools, things are going to happen that are going to be positive. I really see study circles as a way to empower people. There is something that's very comfortable about going into a small group to talk about tough issues, and people who wouldn't normally go to a large public hearing or public meeting and stand up and talk may find a voice in some of these small study circles.

Grace Kelly - Local Study Circles Coordinator, Oklahoma City: Most of the things I think that we attend as citizens are public forums or you have a speaker who is telling you about a topic, but they don't have people sit down and be equal at a table and talk about their experiences. It's amazing to listen to people talk about how they feel about an issue and hear different people's different points of view, and it always changes my own point of view. "We've gotten to know each other, so we've developed a rapport here."

Linda Sholar - Kindergarten Teacher, Stillwater, Oklahoma: I think that whenever we get diverse perspectives together, and when people come together and they share their concerns or good ideas, then you're going to come up with a better solution to any problem.

Sarah Campbell: Well, what's interesting about this approach to community problems is that because people come together in small groups and might sit down with people their neighbors or people from across town and the businessman sitting next to the senior citizen who lives in the neighborhood, so there are relationships that are built across the barriers that often separate us in communities. Barriers of age, educational level, race, socio-economic level.

Richard Ortez - Restaurant Owner, Stillwater, Oklahoma: Study circles is a whole different ball game. At least it has the potential for that, because now we have the potential for the business community and anybody else outside of education to actually have some input in the decisionmaking as to what are the objectives, and that is what I think is sorely needed.

Sarah Campbell: The process is helped with the use of of ground rules that ensure that there'll be an emphasis on listening and civility and respect for all points of view.

Judy Kirkley - Human Resources Manager, Crossett, Arkansas: Once we started talking, everybody opened up and I think that its because some of the ground rules that we set forth in the very beginning that we were able to feel comfortable with each other.

Shun Brown - High School Student, Crossett Arkansas: Well, they were really interested in what we had to say and what we want to do to make a difference. They really showed great leadership in just sitting there listening to what we had to say about it.

Brenda Anderson Bose - Local Study Circles Coordinator, Stillwater, OK: People coming every week with another set of issues and more enthusiasm and more dedication to this whole process.

Karen Murphy - Local Study Circles Coordinator, Crossett, AR: So you see ties built, and I think that's the most interesting thing is how that changes from session one to session two, session three and it gets stronger and more powerful any you start seeing people believe that they have a voice again.

Sarah Campbell: The real power in the program is that over a series of weeks the citizens and members of the groups begin to develop a sense of ownership for the issue by the final session the members are beginning to talk about what can they do in this community to make a difference on this issue.

Narrator: To help individuals or organizations start their own study circles, the Study Circles Resource Center provides ongoing guidance, training, and materials. In Arkansas, they worked with Judy Wilmoth White, coordinator of the multi-community program initiated by Arkansas Friends for Better Schools. In each community, White contacted school superintendents and board members to keep the project grounded in local concerns.

Judy Wilmoth White - Coordinator - Arkansas Friends for Better Schools: I think it's important that Study Circles happened at the community level, because each community has its own set of issues—its own concerns.

Narrator: In Crossett, White worked with Karen and Mike Murphy, parents who learned about study circles from the school superintendent.

Karen Murphy: We are concerned that we are seeing more and more violence. We are seeing more and more violence nationwide, but we're seeing more and more violence in Arkansas, specifically in Crossett, and our children will reap the destruction of that if we don't step in, and that's something we're not willing to allow to happen, at least without trying to make a difference.

Narrator: The Murphys' concerns led them to sign on as coordinators and facilitators.

Karen Murphy: There were three of us who went through training with Study Circles Resource Center personnel, and they came in and trained up pretty intensively, and then the three of us trained the other facilitators.

Narrator: In Oklahoma, Carol Woodward Scott, state president of the League of Women Voters, organized the statewide project with League members we're in touch with all sectors of their communities.

Carol Woodward Scott - President, League of Women Voters of Oklahoma: I don't think truly you can reach out into all aspects of the community if you don't have representatives of that part of the community working on the planning.

Narrator: To achieve broad-based representation in Stillwater, League member Brenda Anderson Bose called upon church, business, media, and university leaders, many of whom she knew.

Brenda Anderson Bose - Local Study Circles Coordinator, Stillwater, OK: To begin with, I sat down with a group of selected individuals in the community. We formed a small committee of community leaders to get the word out.

Narrator: In Oklahoma City, coordinator Grace Kelly's challenge was to bring together a diverse and sprawling population, typical of a large city.

Grace Kelly: Sometimes we tend to focus on—in bigger cities—on those people that we see the most often, and I think it's important to reach all parts of the community. One of the decisions we made was to train facilitators who were bilingual so that they could talk to the different aspects of our community.

Karen Murphy: The most effective groups are those which are quite diverse. People recruit for diversity to have all kinds of people come together in the small groups. There a lot of programs that include college and high school age students and that's especially true with education efforts. We really encourage that. It absolutely changes the nature of the discussion to have high school students in the conversation talking about the issues that affect them everyday.

Shun Brown: We need to, as young people, talk to our teachers and let them know what we want to learn or how we can help them better themselves in teaching us and preparing us before the next level.

Narrator: Calling the Roll also provided a forum to connect teachers, students and community members with their policymakers.

Linda Sholar: I think when I first started teaching, I said I just wanna be a teacher. I want to be out of politics. I don't want to be involved in the politics of teaching, and I think over the course of my teaching career, I have found out that politics are a big part of teaching, because so many of the decisions made about education and those decisions that affect me on a daily basis, my children on a daily basis, those decisions are made at the legislature.

Grace Kelly: Sometimes what the people in their communities wanted to have done about a topic was not was being talked about at the capitol, and this gave them a forum to hear what people wanted to say about an issue.

Brenda Anderson Bose: An in-depth set of dialogues that can really make the decisionmakers understand, in-depth, what the community believes should be done in this issue.

Karen Murphy: Because instead of the typical politician up on a platform discussing their concerns, their agenda, they are in a collaborative group.

Narrator: The opportunity to explore concerns and solutions with their constituents is valuable to policymakers at all levels.

Mike Morgan - Oklahoma State Senator - Stillwater: I think far and away, the best way to learn what your constituents think is to talk to them. When you go to the coffee shop, you can hit a pretty wide range of things. You can't solve all the world's problems in fifteen minutes, but when you go to the study circle, it's focused; it's directed; and you can hone in on what the problem is and how we're gonna solve it.

Jim Argue, Jr. - Arkansas State Senator, Little Rock: In Arkansas, we're a poor southern state with limited resources. We've simply got to know how to spend our dollars as wisely as possible, but we also need broad-based public support from parents and taxpayers who are willing to sacrifice in behalf of better schools in Arkansas.

Barbara Gates - School Superintendent, Crossett, Arkansas: Several years ago, school thought that, "Hands off; we can handle everything," and that's no longer true. I not only need to listen if there are concerns and issues out there that we're not addressing, but we need to look at, "What can we do?"

Jimmy Jeffress: The public requires or feels that we need provide a quality education, but just what is a quality education that's what we're trying to get a handle on. I don't like to think of myself as a politician; I like to think of myself as a facilitator of what the folks back home are desiring.

Narrator: But as study circles lead to state or local policy decisions or result in school or community action, the results can be far reaching.

Jim Argue, Jr.: That leads me to Senate Bill 125 which would require the State Department of Education to publish annually a performance report for each individual school in the state and distribute those reports to the parents or guardians who have children in our public schools and to make those reports available via the Internet.

Narrator: As a member of the House Education Committee and co-sponsor of the bill, representative Jeffress helped pass Senator Argue's bill in the House.

House of Representatives: The motion is due passed on Senate Bill 125. All in favor say Aye. Aye! Opposed? [silence]

Jim Argue Jr.: I think school performance reports in Senate Bill 125 relate to the Call the Roll initiative, because it provides parents with performance information. I participated in Call the Roll. I met with parents and teachers who are genuinely interested in improving their schools, but without information that is specific to individual schools, parents really don't have the right information or adequate information to judge their schools.

Narrator: Information and an open exchange of ideas and perspectives can help people understand both the issues and each other.

Barbara Gates: Parents, senior citizens, businesspeople, we can all have a better understanding of the problems and collaboratively come together so that we can try to solve them and do a better job by the young people of our community.

Barbara Gates: Parents, senior citizens, business people, we can all have a better understanding of the problems and collaboratively come together so that we can try to solve them and do a better job by the young people of our community.

Judy Kirkley: It's been very enlightening to me to see some of the things that we have going on in Crossett that I was unaware of, not having any children in school now. There may be things that people have expressed in the study circles that the school may be unaware of or haven't thought of or maybe have not realized that there is a need there, and I think in that way the community is involved and we're putting more input into the school system.

Richard Ortez: I think there's a lot of value in this approach to affecting legislation. It seems to me that a legislator at any level, that the decisions of that legislator is only going to be as good as the amount of information that they have available.

Teacher: Well, I think that I've been a little bit more thoughtful as to how I approach legislation, because in the past I've always more or less considered how is it going to affect me as a school teacher. Now I have to think more about how is it going to affect not only myself, but the community at large. How is it going to affect students? So, I'm coming at it from a more well-rounded approach than I was before.

Karen Murphy: That I think has been one of the best things to come out of study circles is the relationships between people who are sometimes perceived as adversaries and now they're not. They're on the same side; they're allies, and that's a neat outcome.

Linda Sholar: And I think after being a part of the study circles, I have been able to get a better perspective on why there are some negative feelings about the education system. /p>

Judy Wilmoth White: It has just been a real joy to get out there and meet people who are very concerned about their schools, who have a commitment to doing the right thing for the kids in their community. You know, often people who don't have children into schools, it's just a real treat to be around those folks into the in their company and to be a part of what they're doing.

Shun Brown: I learned that working with other people can really make a difference and help make the issues better in our schools.

Narrator: Study circles is one way community members, educators, and policymakers can work together for education. You have just heard the story of some of the people who answered the roll call in Arkansas and Oklahoma. Their investment to help keep students in school, prepare them for the future, and keep them safe and well cared for is an investment that will benefit their families and community for a long time to come.

Carol Woodward Scott: When you get people to get together, talk with each other, and have a sense that their opinion counts, at least in that study circle, I think that that connection can make a big difference in how people actually feel about community, first, government second, maybe voting, and really, you know, citizenship itself. I've been in community-active kinds of work all my life. I have never experienced a process that I thought it was as valuable and as inclusive as the Study Circles Project. Almost the perfect means to get citizen participation, and I don't think there's anything else that comes close to it.

Mike Morgan: Two hours out of your evening is nothing, when you look at the big picture.