Abstract
This article presents an application of a future search conference in a California middle school. The future search conference, detailed by Marvin Weisbord in his book Discovering Common Ground, is an event where large numbers of people from across, down, and outside an organization gather to focus on an issue. In the case presented, the central theme was the clarification of the school's vision for the year 2002. In attendance were teachers, administrators, parents, students, district representatives, union representatives, business, higher education, school board members, feeder school teachers and principles, and school support staff. The article addresses the conditions that made the school receptive to action, the planning process, the conference design components(the past, the present, the future, and planning), successful outcomes, and lessons learned.
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