“No One Cares About This Community More Than Us”

Participation

Over the last few years, the importance of public voice in shaping school reform has emerged as a popular theme in media coverage of education. For instance, an editorial in the New York Times argued that while mayoral control of the New York City public schools “has done much good . . . some fine-tuning aimed at giving parents and communities more access is in order” (“The Mayor,” 2009, p. 32). As lawmakers in New York and elsewhere stress the importance of “seeking ways to guarantee greater access for parents and communities,” (“The Mayor,” 2009, p. 32), educational theorists and researchers continue to discuss what this public access and participation should look like.

Torre and Fine (2006) argue, “Participation lies at the core of democracy and justice” (p. 269). As such, it is no surprise that the discourse of participation is prevalent in educational reform (Anderson, 1998) and in research on public administration and school boards. Although many educators, scholars, reformers, and policymakers use the language of participation, there is rarely clarity about what this term actually means in public sites of decision making such as school boards (e.g., Foley, 1998; Timney, 1998). Understandings of participation often vary even among those involved in the actual processes, leaving community members who seek to become engaged feeling frustrated and powerless. For instance, participation sometimes refers to involvement in the implementation of policy, as opposed to lobbying, which denotes attempts to change decisions (Timney, 1998). As Timney explains, while citizen participation is generally voluntary, lobbyists are most often paid.

Apple and Bean (2007) write at length about the value of participation in their description of democratic schools. The authors argue that all members of a school community—professional educators, parents, local activists, and especially students—should have a say in school governance and policy making. In order to participate effectively, stakeholders must be as fully informed as possible and have opportunities to reflect critically upon ideas. Apple and Bean take pains to distinguish between true collaboration and the “engineering of consent,” explaining that attempts to engage stakeholders must be genuine and represent more than efforts to enlist community support for predetermined decisions. Similarly, Shatkin and Gershberg (2007) consider the circumstances under which school-site councils (SSCs) are likely to encourage parent and community participation in decision making. They find that some SSCs operate as “democratic dictatorships” whose principals ultimately retain all control despite the SSC premise of community engagement. When principals are willing to collaborate, however, and when some civic capacity already exists in the community, parents and community members on SSCs are more likely to have an impact on decisions that are made about their schools.

There have been several attempts to articulate various kinds of participation in public settings. In his outline of the most common approaches that public managers take to public participation, Thomas (1995) claims that managers frequently retain control over decisions and carefully orchestrate the moments where citizens are invited to participate. He asserts that public managers tend to take the attitude that it is best to exclude citizens from decision making short of a threat of public protest. Jenkins, Andolina, Keeter, and Zukin (2003) delineate three dimensions of participation: electoral activity, civic activity (e.g., volunteering), and political voice (expressing public opinions). Warren (2011) describes the success of a dual approach to participation. He finds that community organizing groups must work both externally to schools in order to demand change and hold systems accountable and also internally, collaborating with teachers and principals to improve teaching and learning. In addition, this approach must occur at several levels, with community organizers seeking to establish collaborations between state officials, local stakeholders, relevant scholars, and educational activists. Several researchers elaborate how public managers often distinguish between routine decisions where expertise is important and decisions that affect public life. Participation in public entities such as school boards is often precipitated by conflict (e.g., Oliver, 2001).

Participation can be analyzed according to participant roles and responsibilities, as well as purposes, timing, and location. Participation includes talk and silence, listening and trust (Schultz, 2009). Linguistic anthropologists use the concept of participation to analyze the forms of social organization that are made possible through verbal and nonverbal interactions (e.g., Goffman, 1974, 1981; Goodwin & Goodwin, 2004). For instance, Goffman (1981) proposed the concept of “participant framework,” which includes the positioning or the total configuration of all participants in relationship to a speaker’s talk. He defines participation status as the social group’s perspective on the relationship between the speaker and the speaker’s utterance. Taken together, the collection of participation statuses form a participation framework within situated activities (see also Goodwin & Goodwin, 2004). This framework allows for the analysis of talk and participation in public gatherings such as school board meetings. It emphasizes the need to attend to talk and silence and multiple participants’ roles in discussions and decisions.

State Takeover of School Districts and Community Engagement

Beginning in the mid-1990s, there were numerous takeovers of large urban districts by mayors and state governments. Districts are taken over for a variety of reasons including fiscal mismanagement, academic failure, poor administration, and deteriorating infrastructures (Wong & Shen, 2003; Ziebarth, 2002). While initially most takeovers were enacted because of fiscal insolvency and/or poor management, in recent years state takeovers have occurred primarily for academic reasons (Wong & Shen, 2003). Although there is little research on the impact of state takeovers, one clear conclusion is that fiscal difficulties seem to be resolved more easily than the challenge of raising academic achievement (Wong & Shen, 2003; Ziebarth, 2002). For instance, after 10 years of managing the New Jersey City Schools, the Education Law Center reflected, “What’s so tragic here is not the takeover but the fact that in ten years we know very little about what happened, what works, and what didn’t work. All you’re left with are anecdotes from different interest groups” (“N. J. plans to end,” 1999, p. 11 in Wong & Shen, 2003).

Most research on state takeovers of school districts tends to focus on the impact of this reform on fiscal management and student achievement; researchers rarely address the role of local stakeholders in the reform process in districts under state control. One notable exception is the research conducted by Research for Action (RFA), a Philadelphia-based, nonprofit organization, as part of its study of Philadelphia’s recent school reform efforts. This report found that the School Reform Commission (SRC), Philadelphia’s state-imposed school board, failed to develop structures through which stakeholders could actively participate or voice their concerns (Useem, Christman, & Boyd, 2006). For instance, school board meetings—the single forum for public comments—were constrained in several ways. Rules for speaking at meetings were prohibitive, as speakers had to sign up ahead of time, provide multiple copies of their comments, and limit their remarks to three minutes. Moreover, SRC members usually listened silently and failed to seek community feedback. The lack of parental input was particularly notable when the SRC assigned 86 schools some form of significant intervention, including outside management and charter status. Parents “had no say in the assignment process and . . . were not given a choice about which model or school they would prefer for their children” (Useem et al., 2006, p. 6).

Similarly, community organizations have had little input in reform decisions in Philadelphia. During the initial time of the state takeover, all community groups who desired involvement were required to enter into formal partnerships with the district, with signed contracts that established clear objectives and responsibilities. Although this move reflected a desire to reach out to community groups, it also allowed the district to co-opt these “traditionally independent ‘voices’” into their own agenda (Gold, Cucchiara, Simon, & Riffer, 2005, p. 9). In addition, the school district hired many community leaders in a move that recognized their expertise but perhaps limited their ability to protest district policies (Useem et al., 2006).

In sum, school officials in Philadelphia felt that the urgent need for change outweighed the need for more democratic decision-making processes (Useem et al., 2006). In fact, one district official described CEO Vallas’s attitude as, “I’m not going to pretend to ask you for your input when I know how to run this” (Useem et al., 2006, p. 14). While the superintendent and Empowerment Board in Clarksville expressed a different sentiment and direction, constantly stressing the need for community involvement as we describe below, the successful engagement of local stakeholders is a complex process that depends to a large extent on how power is distributed and how opportunities for participation are structured in the district.

Local Context

Located on the edge of a large urban center, in recent years Clarksville has been plagued by an economic downturn due to a loss of an industrial and manufacturing base that has lasted decades and resulted in the disappearance of its middle class. Currently, nonprofits are the largest employers in the city. As a consequence of the depleted tax base and the introduction of charter schools, the Clarksville School District has wrestled with many of the same critical issues that challenge urban districts across the United States. A mixture of politics, fear, and hopelessness has been at the center of all decisions in the district for over 20 years. Dominated by a strong Republican political machine since 1875, in the latter part of the twentieth century the city became and remains a majority African American city with African Americans making up more than 70% of the population. In the recent past, Republican Party politics shaped who was hired in local positions and had a strong impact on the schools through a state-appointed Special Board of Control put into place by a Republican governor when the schools were in financial and academic distress. A legal ruling in 2007, led by the Democratic governor, found that the three-member Control Board had repeatedly violated the state school code by increasing the structural debt of the district, hiring unqualified teachers, maintaining inaccurate records, and failing to document incidents of school violence. This decision led to the creation of the new Education Empowerment Board composed of three Democrats to oversee the distressed district of only 5,000 students. This board governed the district until August 2010, when control of the schools was returned to an elected board. The research for this article took place during the three and one-half-year tenure of the EEB during which time Katherine Schultz was a member of the three-member board, giving the researchers unique access to information about the district’s policies and practices.

Data Collection

The research draws on historical documents, interviews with a wide range of stakeholders, and observations of various events in order to examine the nature of stakeholder engagement and opportunities for community participation in board-level policymaking. From October 2007 until June 2010, researchers conducted one to three semistructured interviews with over 50 stakeholders in the school district. These stakeholders include reporters, teachers, administrators, former board members, parents, students, and community members. Stakeholders were initially identified by their public participation in the school district; as the study continued, we identified new participants through community nomination by research participants and community members.

Initially, the interviews focused on the individual’s history with the district, the participant’s understandings of issues facing the district, and his or her vision for its future. After the initial period of data collection, community engagement emerged as a significant issue in the district and questions were added to address this topic specifically. Individuals were asked how they characterize “insiders” and “outsiders” in the city and how a person’s position in the community affects her ability to influence change. Follow-up interviews were conducted periodically with individuals who were actively involved in the district’s reform process, and these individuals were asked to reflect on what had changed in the city or district since the first interview.

In addition to interviews, the researchers attended Empowerment Board meetings twice a month for the study period. As the principal investigator Katherine Schultz was a member of the Empowerment Board, her field notes reflect that perspective. Kathryn McGinn was a member of the audience and focused on the “public comments” portion of the meetings, as these comments provided an opportunity to document the interactions among community members and the Empowerment Board. As an Empowerment Board member, Schultz was also present at meetings relating to legal matters, personnel decisions, and property issues. Both researchers had occasion to participate in a range of other public meetings, including superintendent’s advisory board meetings, curriculum mapping meetings, the state of the city address, and local campaign meetings for the democratic primary.

Researchers analyzed newspaper and journal articles about the district. Editorials and letters to the editors in local papers provide insights about community members’ viewpoints, and feature articles reflect issues that are subject to current debate and discussion in the city. Researchers also drew on other documents, including board meeting agendas and minutes, ballot initiatives, budget data, contracts, professional development materials, papers relating to lawsuits, property insurance and information, and programs for a variety of school events. These materials were used to generate codes and triangulate the data sources in the analysis.

Data Analysis

Using grounded theory, we began our data analysis with open coding of our data in order to identify salient themes, a process outlined by Creswell (2007). As we examined our data, community engagement emerged as a significant issue. Next, we used atlas.ti to apply axial codes to our interview transcripts and field notes, focusing on both forms of and barriers to community engagement in the district. Through this process we developed coding paradigms to further explore our findings. We created a descriptive table that displayed forms of participation and barriers to participation by each stakeholder group.

This descriptive table was the starting point for the development of our typology of participation (see Figure 1).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Participation by stakeholder group.

Access, Roles, and Ethics

While both members of the research team endeavored to become involved in a variety of ways in the Clarksville School District, we were still largely regarded as “outsiders.” First, Clarksville is a small city and to be truly regarded as an “insider,” one needs to be born and raised in the community. In addition to being relatively new to the district, our race marks us as outsiders. We are White, and the majority of Clarksville residents are African American. Interestingly, the topic of race rarely came up explicitly during interviews. Though some participants described their understanding of the racial dynamics of school reform in Clarksville, the majority of interviewees did not. We are not certain if individuals are reluctant to talk to us about race because we are White or because of the loaded nature of the topic in general.

In addition to their regard of the research team as outsiders, some people may have been wary of speaking honestly about the school district because of Katherine Schultz’s position on the Empowerment Board. While most people we interviewed seem to speak freely about their experiences in Clarksville, some district employees may have worried about giving their honest reflections on the district because they saw Schultz as their boss, although in reality only the superintendent reported to the Board. As a result, we may not have heard people’s candid criticisms or concerns about policy decisions made by the Empowerment Board.

In some respects, this project can be considered a form of practitioner research (see, Cochran-Smith & Lytle 1993, 2009) or action research. As an EEB member, Schultz had unusual access to insiders’ perspectives on issues such as opportunities for public engagement and public involvement in decision making. At the same time, the state laws mandated that all decisions requiring a vote be deliberated in public, so many of these conversations occurred during publically held board meetings. Schultz made it clear to her colleagues and to all of the participants in this study that she was engaged in documentation of the meetings. If there was ever a conflict in roles, she always privileged her responsibilities as a board member. As a member of the Empowerment Board and a researcher for this project, she was always painfully aware of the opportunities and limitations of her role as a board member. Change at a district level is nearly always slow and deliberate, and that slow process was reflected in the board’s actions and documented in this research article. For this article, we chose to focus on the opportunities and constraints placed on community participation in this district.

While most people involved in the district reacted positively to this research, there were some stakeholders who were both suspicious and unhappy about the project, most often because they were suspicious about research in Clarksville in general. A few individuals declined to participate in interviews. Others participated, but they also articulated their concerns during the course of the interview. For example, a local pastor told us he found the idea of the project “distasteful,” and that while he liked Schultz, he worried that she was exploiting the district by doing this research (Interview, April 24, 2008). One of Schultz’s fellow Empowerment Board members also expressed frustration with the amount of research that has been done in the school district, explaining, “One of the things that I will not vote for again is more studies of this district. This district has been a laboratory for more experiments than I think any district should have been [. . .] We’ve been prodded and poked enough to last a lifetime” (Interview, November 5, 2008). Both members of the research team take these concerns seriously. Much has been written about the potentially imperialist nature of qualitative research in which “outsiders” study “others” and represent their voices in a variety of forms (e.g., Fine, 1998; Wolf, 1994). While there is no easy solution to this problem, we are committed to privileging “insider” voices and knowledge in our research, and to producing work that can be used to help this district and others like it. Our goal is to demonstrate this commitment through our research methods and writing.

Listening but not Hearing

The new Education Empowerment Board began its meetings by confronting the perilous financial position of the district. One source of this trouble was the high proportion of students enrolled in charter schools. At the time the EEB was formed, over half of the district’s students in kindergarten through eighth grade were enrolled in charter schools, which made it impossible to maintain the district infrastructure to support the remaining buildings and students in the noncharter public schools. A resolution was drafted for the EEB members that proposed a cap on the number of students in charter schools at the current level and the cancellation of proposed expansion of these schools. The board was concerned about the rapid and unchecked growth of the charter schools under the previous control board and the related increasing cost of special education payments to the charter schools.

The board meeting to consider this proposal was held at the standard time in the boardroom located in the district office. Hours before the meeting began, busloads of parents and children, brought in by the largest charter school, filled the hallways. Police officers, local representatives, reporters from regional newspapers and the local TV channels, along with the community members, teachers and administrators who regularly attended the board meetings joined them in search of seats. As the members of the EEB and the district administration filed into the boardroom it became immediately clear that the meeting should be relocated to the larger high school auditorium. After a short break to reconvene, the meeting opened in its new location.

The three-member board patiently listened to the hours of heated and often loud testimony for and against the cap on charter school enrollment. Parents, students, politicians, charter school advocates, administrators, and community members gave impassioned testimony about the success of their charter schools, emphasizing safety. Others spoke about the growing threat of the burgeoning charter school movement for the rest of Clarksville’s youth and families. Although the EEB listened closely to the speeches for several hours, in their executive meeting prior to the pubic meeting, they had already informally made up their minds to vote for the cap. In this instance, the community was invited to give input into an issue about which they felt strongly, yet from the beginning nearly everyone knew that the board had already come to a decision.

A second striking example of this type of participation occurred at a very different regular Empowerment Board meeting when none of the board members were present. On August 14, 2008, McGinn arrived about 15 minutes late for an Empowerment Board meeting. When she looked in the boardroom, she saw almost no one in the audience and no board members seated in front. Instead, the superintendent, Dr. Johnson, a middle-aged African American man, sat with all of the participants at the board table: Two local ministers (an African American female and a white male) who came to nearly every meeting, as well as two African American women who were infrequent participants. Sitting in the hallway, listening in and trying to figure out what was going on, McGinn heard Dr. Johnson go through what sounded like a meeting agenda, with the notable difference that people were encouraged to comment as he noted each item, rather than waiting for the designated time for public comments. During regular meetings, community members were required to arrive ahead of time to sign up and speak. They were called to come up to a podium and state their name and address for the record before they commented on the agenda. The comment period preceded the discussion and questions by the board members about the issues. Eventually, McGinn decided that this was indeed an Empowerment Board meeting, and she went into the boardroom to observe. The meeting lasted for several hours, as the community members engaged Dr. Johnson in lengthy discussions about every item on the agenda. After the meeting, McGinn learned that since none of the Empowerment Board could make the meeting that night, Dr. Johnson had asked the few people in attendance to sit with him at the board table, and he decided to lead a more informal meeting (Field notes, August 14, 2008). Many participants claimed that this was the first time they had sat at that table.

Although Dr. Johnson stated repeatedly that he views himself and his staff as “an intervention team” whose purpose is to “build the capacity of the city” (Interview, December, 7, 2007), and while he certainly engaged the community in a discussion about board policy on this particular evening, the stakeholders’ input had no real impact on the agenda items or the Empowerment Board’s eventual vote on those items. Each month there are two meetings: a conference meeting where initial discussions are held about the agenda items and board members and community participants are encouraged to raise questions. The items are often revised and sometimes removed during the following week before the second meeting, which is called the “public” or voting meeting. This meeting on August 14 was a “conference” meeting. A comparison of agendas from the conference meeting on August 14 and the subsequent public meeting on August 21 shows that no changes were made as a result of community input, although new resolutions were added to the agenda, as is typical between conference and public meetings.

Even though the superintendent and the community members present at the meeting engaged in a conversation about relevant issues in the district, the community’s participation had no direct impact on the board’s final vote on items in the agenda. In fact, as a board member, Schultz did not learn about the structure of this meeting until after the meeting and this final vote, when she went over field notes from the research assistant. Given the press of time and the urgency of several budgetary and programmatic issues, the superintendent simply forgot to describe the planning meeting and its results to the board members. While Dr. Johnson welcomed community members at the board table and respected their perspectives, truly meaning to give them access to decisions at the district level, these stakeholders were not actually full partners in the conversation. Though the superintendent’s desire to engage the community is certainly sincere, on this particular occasion, like the louder and more impassioned initial example, the stakeholders’ participation appeared to be more for show than for substantive purposes. In both examples, the participation was initiated for the most part by the stakeholders themselves and resulted in little or no change.

Listening and Responding to Stakeholder Input

Although district officials do not take local stakeholders’ input into account in their deliberations on every issue, sometimes there are authentic opportunities for community members to participate in microlevel decision making. For example, stakeholders had an impact on the Empowerment Board’s decision not to sell district property.

Relatively early in the Empowerment Board’s tenure, a community leader spoke during the public comments portion of a board meeting, urging the board not to sell school district property and to reopen Hughes Middle School immediately. In response to the growth of charter schools in the district and the decline in enrollment, several schools had been closed in one section of the city. Many community members and groups were particularly concerned about these school closures. In fact, at the first informal meeting the new board had with community members, several residents stated that the reopening of schools should be a district priority. Hughes Middle School had been closed for repairs by the prior superintendent one year earlier. One community leader argued that there were no public schools on the west side of the city, and he worried “where are we going to send kids later down the road?” (Field notes, September 27, 2007). In this community there were tensions between youth on the east and west sides of the city; community members were concerned not only about the distance their children would have to travel, but also about the possibilities for violence especially among members of rival gangs. At the next board meeting, a local pastor echoed these concerns, arguing that “getting rid of capital assets” is “shooting ourselves in the head for the future.” He, too, was alarmed that there would be no schools on the west side of Clarksville, and he implored the board to understand that selling school property is the equivalent of “selling the community” (Field notes, October 18, 2007).

At the following board meeting, the board chair explained that the district needed an additional US$1.3 million to address a large deficit incurred by the prior board, and selling property was one of the only viable means to acquire additional funds. He added, however, that the board would explore any opportunities that would allow the district to hold on to these assets (Field notes, October 25, 2007). During an Empowerment Board meeting a month later, the superintendent added that the Empowerment Board had met with community members to talk about selling property, elaborating that the board was working to find alternative sources of revenue (Field notes, November 25, 2007).

Ultimately, the Empowerment Board was not able to reopen all the district school buildings that were closed, although they endeavored to sell district assets only as a last resort. The district, however, raised money to renovate and reopen Hughes Middle School as the site for one of its new small partnership high schools in the fall of 2009. The district put significant funds into renovating the building, and the superintendent referred to the refurbished building as a “dream come true” (Field notes, September 10, 2009). Although the board was not able to do what many community members hoped for and did not reopen all of the district buildings, the input of local stakeholders shaped the board’s decision-making processes and priorities about the issue. In this case, community members initiated their participation in several discussions, which resulted in a policy that reflected their priorities.

Inviting Feedback, Failing to Use It

There were several times when community members were invited to participate in decisions and, ultimately, despite the intention to act based on their deliberations, their feedback was not used.

In the spring of 2010, the superintendent accepted a job as the superintendent of a larger midwestern urban district. His negotiations for this position were in the local news for a few months prior to his final decision because it was contingent on state-level negotiations around the future of the Education Empowerment Board in this district. The vice chair, Schultz, was appointed as the chair of the search committee to select a new superintendent and given a relatively short time period to do so. As an initial step in this process, she convened a group of community members who represented the various stakeholder groups in the city. This mirrored the process the Empowerment Board had successfully used before hiring the prior superintendent and was a pivotal moment when the community felt their voices were heard and respected in a critical decision-making process. The meeting to gather input on the next superintendent was held in a community room of the local hospital and was well attended. The participants took their involvement in the process seriously and in the two-hour discussion, they eagerly contributed their perspectives of the qualities they desired in the next superintendent and their priorities for how the search should be conducted. The comments were carefully recorded by the vice chair and the head of human resources for the district.

At a state level meeting the next week, however, a decision was made to put the hiring process on hold until the fate of the empowerment legislation was worked out. During that time period, the empowerment legislation was up for renewal and hotly debated, placing the future composition of the board and political control of the district in flux. The expected outcome was that the board would go from three state appointees (all Democrats in a Republican district) to one state appointee and two local appointees or that it would return to the elected board. The group at the table, which included advisors to the governor and board members, concluded that it would be difficult to find someone to take on the superintendent’s position without a clear idea of the composition of the next board. This could lead to a short tenure for the superintendent who could easily be fired if he or she was a member of the wrong political party or had the wrong allegiances in this highly politicized district. Although the input of the community was not forgotten, it was set aside when the current board made the decision to hire an interim superintendent. As a result, although the original intent of the board was to solicit authentic participation for the hiring process, the community input for this decision was ultimately not used in making the decision.

Effective Invitations and Forms of Participation

Although Clarksville stakeholders did not often have a voice in state-level deliberations, there were occasions when local participation was understood as essential to the achievement of favorable outcomes in state-level decisions. In particular, during the 2009-2010 academic year, the Empowerment Board and superintendent repeatedly called on Clarksville community members to lobby their state representatives for adequate school funding as part of the state budget.

As one of the poorest and most under funded districts in the state, with failing schools that were always near the bottom of the rankings, during the time of the research Clarksville received significant state resources to improve the teaching and learning in the schools. This money was tied to the board’s and superintendent’s careful oversight of the finances and academic programs, and this funding was necessary for their ambitious plans. During the summer of 2009, the state government faced a budget deficit well into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Raising taxes alone would not balance the budget; in fact, the superintendent explained that to make up the shortfall, taxes would have to increase by 175% (Field notes, June 5, 2009). Nearly every day, the newspapers reported that the state government would have to cut services in order to balance the budget. Anticipating a reduction in their allocation that was essential to meet the payroll and move forward with their plans, the superintendent and Empowerment Board implored community members to contact their representatives and make their voices heard at the state level. For example, during an Empowerment Board meeting at the end of the summer, the superintendent explained that the district was facing a “tremendous problem” with their cash flow, as 75% of Clarksville’s funding came from the state. The board secretary added that in his 40 years in education, this budget situation was the “most dire” he had ever seen. He encouraged parents and community members to take a closer look at the budget and to make phone calls, remarking, “We [the administration] have done what we can do, the difference now is with the parents and the community” (Field notes, August 13, 2009).

The state budget crisis was a recurrent theme in meetings during the fall of 2009, with the superintendent and Empowerment Board explaining repeatedly to the community that all board resolutions were ultimately contingent on adequate funding from the state. The board secretary, who was a consultant to the state secretary of education, outlined aspects of the state budget to community members. For instance, during a December board meeting, he stressed the importance of community involvement in the budget process and in the district in general. He explained that when the state applied for federal grants in education, and when the state decided how to apportion any federal dollars it received, officials looked at the level of community involvement in different districts. He emphasized the need for local stakeholders to become engaged in the district, arguing that federal grants could “bring an unprecedented level of funding,” but that the community was limited by “the paradigms [of non-participation] in our mind” (Field notes, December 17, 2009).

By the spring, both the state and district had received a number of grants, and the funding situation was not as grim. However, the state still faced a large deficit and budget cuts continued to be a constant concern. While it is difficult to know how many community members contacted their representatives and lobbied for funding, it is important to note that the board members and superintendent repeatedly tried to explain the budget situation to the community and encouraged local citizens to become involved. The district administration and board genuinely believed that the engagement of community members could have a significant impact on funding for Clarksville schools. The involvement of community members was not simply for show; rather, their participation was viewed as a crucial element of the budget process. As the administration and board began to construct the next budget, they invited community members to open meetings to discuss funding priorities.

Solicitation of Input Without Consequence

The participation by community members was perhaps most ineffective when the board first introduced the issue to the community. At the end of the final Empowerment Board meeting of 2008, the board chair asked if there were any additional issues to address. The district’s attorney explained that there was, in fact, one piece of business that had come to her attention. As everyone was aware, a major-league soccer stadium was going to be built in Clarksville on a parcel of land that had been designated tax-exempt by the state government. As it turned out, five acres of that land had not received the tax-exempt status, and as a result the stadium developers needed permission from the three tax-levying agencies of Clarksville, one of which was the school district, to include that five-acre parcel in their development. The board members looked thoughtful and asked if there was anyone in the audience who could speak for the stadium developers. An older white man wearing a suit and tie came to the podium and explained that he represented the development corporation. The board members asked him a number of questions regarding what the school district would get in return for their approval of the tax-exempt status. The representative replied that the stadium developers wanted to work in partnership with the district to help the students of Clarksville. The superintendent interjected that he had been disappointed with his past interactions with the organization, as the developers had initially promised the district that they would initiate soccer teams in the district and provide coaching and equipment—promises that never materialized. There was a public discussion among the board members who agreed that they needed to see a plan in writing that delineated how the stadium developers planned to work with the district. Moreover, the board members felt the community deserved to have more input into this decision. The board members and superintendent emphasized that they were interested in financial support that would directly help the students of the district in academic as well as athletic arenas. The chair suggested that the Empowerment Board hold a special hearing in a week and a half in order to hear from each constituent, including the stadium developers and the community members. The board members quickly agreed on a date and time, and the meeting was adjourned (Field notes, December 18, 2008).

Sitting in the audience and watching these events unfold, McGinn was struck by how calmly the board handled this request and how smoothly they went about scheduling a follow-up meeting. Reflecting on the meetings she had attended during the prior year and a half, she suddenly realized that the meeting had proceeded a little too smoothly. Sure enough, after the meeting she checked in with Schultz, who told her that the board had been informed of the request just prior to the meeting and had carefully orchestrated their response. McGinn gleefully replied, “I knew it!” and was quickly hushed by Schultz, the vice chair, as the community members in attendance seemed fully convinced by the performance. Many individuals came up to the board members after the meeting to shake their hands and thank them for creating a time and space for the community to be involved in the decision (Field notes, December 18, 2008). It was one of the most positive meetings of the year; community members felt that the board had stood up to the outsiders on their behalf. Finally, both sides seemed to be of one accord.

To be fair, while the board’s performance was planned ahead of time, it was also sincere: they did want more input from the community before entering into any agreements with the soccer representatives. They desired community feedback in order to decide what to ask for in exchange for the tax-exempt status. At the same time, by presenting the situation in the way that they did—as an unfolding public process—the board ensured that they would have the community’s support as they moved forward. In addition, by acting as though they were thinking through the issue on the spot, the board members essentially hid their access to information and prior interactions from the community. Acting according to the law and refraining from making decisions out of the public eye, they were able to conduct business in public while seeking to make a considered decision. Although the board members pretended to deliberate about the situation in a public forum, they had already formulated their responses in a private meeting without voting on it. In this sense, while the community members both initiated and were invited to give input, they did not have an impact on the decision to schedule a hearing, which was made ahead of time out of the public purview.

No Invitation to Participate in Decisions

Local stakeholders knew that many decisions were made at the state-level about the soccer stadium; however, they did not necessarily know the exact nature or content of these deliberations. As a report in a local magazine explained, “The story of how soccer came to Clarksville isn’t just—or even mostly—a story about soccer . . . it’s a tale about politics . . . money, insider connections, and the sorts of backroom deals that are fairly typical of how things get done in [the state].” In fact, the public funding for the stadium came in the form of state aid that was “tucked into various cracks in the budget that didn’t require votes for approval” and city and local contributions that did not require any “messy public referendum.” ²

At an Empowerment Board meeting in October 2007, a community leader raised the issue of the soccer stadium to the board. Bernard Davis, head of a local activist group, told the board and the superintendent that he believed the district was “kept in shadows” with regards to state budgeting issues. When he asked if the district had an opportunity to discuss the impact of tax-exempt zones with local or state officials, the board chair assured Mr. Davis that the board would engage in these conversations. Mr. Davis warned the board that city hall was “selling [Clarksville] down the drain” in the negotiations with the soccer stadium (Field notes, October 25, 2007). The issue of the soccer stadium was not raised again at an Empowerment Board meeting until April 2008, when Mr. Davis asked the board about the status of their talks with the stadium developers. The board chair said he had met with the developers who spoke in “broad strokes” about their potential involvement with the school district, explaining that they did not have their own finances in order yet, and they were not in any position to make assurances to the district. Mr. Davis expressed his hope that the stadium developers would be more helpful to the district than other enterprises—such as a casino—that had come to Clarksville in recent years (Field notes, April 17, 2008).

Although a total of US$85 million of public funds had been pledged to the stadium developers, the issue of the stadium was only raised twice by a single person at board meetings from the time the Empowerment Board was appointed to office (March 2007) to the time the developers came to the district with a request for a tax exemption (December 2008). While Mr. Davis clearly had some knowledge of the state-level deals that were taking place, other community members present at meetings either did not know about the impact of the state’s decisions on the district or did not feel inclined to address the issue. In this case, the Empowerment Board did not hide or keep information from stakeholders; however, decisions about the soccer stadium were made by businesspeople and state officials who were removed from the district. Although many stakeholders in Clarksville certainly knew decisions had been made about the soccer stadium at the state level, they did not (and could not) know the exact nature of these deliberations, nor did they have a forum in which to become involved in the discussion. Though the governor stated repeatedly that the stadium was “going to change the face of Clarksville,” decisions about the stadium were made on behalf of—and not by—the people of Clarksville. In this sense, the lack of dialogue about the soccer stadium at Empowerment Board meetings represents ineffective and uninvited participation by local stakeholders.

At the Crossroads of Invited and Effective Participation

After the stadium developers requested tax-exempt status for an additional five acres of their site, the Empowerment Board convened a special meeting to allow community members to speak directly with the stadium developers. This meeting was well attended—every seat in the boardroom was taken—and members of the audience included parents, pastors, a state representative, concerned community members, and local activists. The board structured the meeting so that the stadium developers began with a presentation of their plans to support the school district in exchange for the new status, followed by questions and comments from community members.

The developers presented several ways in which they planned to contribute to the district, which included the initiation of soccer programs at the middle- and high-school levels, hosting summer camps, and providing internships. The CEO and Operating Partner of this branch of Major League Soccer explained to the audience how the soccer stadium would bring many new businesses and revenues to Clarksville, and he concluded by remarking, “No one cares about this community more than us.” There were cries of outrage from the audience at the audacity of this statement (Field notes, December 30, 2008).

When it was their turn to speak, community member after community member told the developers that they could not build their stadium “on the backs of our children.” Not only was the community unhappy about the last-minute nature of the developers’ promises, local stakeholders also decried the developers’ lack of support for academic programs. For example, a local resident told the developers, “We got ball [already].” She explained she was concerned about Clarksville students’ reading and math proficiencies, not their soccer skills, and she wanted the developers to present plans that would help educate the children. Another resident and community activist voiced his frustration that the developers left the school district out of their original plans. He told the board that the stadium was farther along than they realized, and the district had been initially excluded from the plans. This same leader also pressed for support of academic programs, and he told the developers that while he was in favor of business partnerships and growth, he did not support the developers profiting off of Clarksville but leaving “our young folk for the cemetery or the jail.” While Clarksville’s state representative defended the good intentions of the stadium developers, he argued that they were set up by a “system that puts kids last.” He urged the developers to help provide for the children of Clarksville what they would want for their own children. Finally, many community members encouraged the board not to grant the tax exemption in order to send a message to the “powers-that-be.” For instance, a local resident and activist urged the board to “not bail these people out.” A local pastor added that refusing to grant the exemption would show those in charge that they can’t “walk all over us in the future” (Field notes, December 30, 2008).

After almost two hours of discussion, a representative of the stadium developers addressed the board a final time. He apologized for the urgency of the developers’ request and for the inadequacy of its initial form. He stated that the developers had decided to withdraw their proposal for the inclusion of the five extra acres in the stadium’s tax-exempt status, with the understanding that the developers would like to continue to work with the district in order to create a more suitable partnership. The board chair was genuinely surprised and told the developers that the board appreciated the gesture because it would lead to a “fruitful partnership” that would “start on equal footing.” The chair ended the meeting by accepting the developers’ withdrawal, as well as their commitment to work with the district (Field notes, December 30, 2008).

While it is difficult to know the exact impact of the community feedback on the stadium developers’ plans, the meeting was an opportunity for local stakeholders to engage directly with the Empowerment Board and the stadium developers themselves. Both the board members and the developers endeavored to explain the issue regarding the tax-exempt status in as clear a manner as possible to the community, ensuring a greater degree of transparency. Community members questioned the stadium developers directly and expressed their opinions on the issue in no uncertain terms. The developers did follow up on their promises to engage with the school district, even sending their community liaison to work full time in the administration building. The following summer, a soccer program was initiated in the high school. Drawing on clear and accurate information, stakeholders both initiated and were invited to participate in such a way that their input seemed to change the course of the decision.