Making Change Systemic: An Interview with Jan Eastman
by Susan Bonthron

“. . . you don’t do projects. You have to find a way to do systemic change.
It may take longer, but it’s the only way it’s going to work in the long run.”
Jan Eastman, President
Snelling Center for Government

The Snelling Center and “Community of Purpose”
In and out of state government, and a former member of the Peacham school board, Snelling Center President Jan Eastman had known and worked with many of the players in Vermont’s educational drama before the Vermont Rural Partnership started. [photo at left: Peacham community members teach students the art of making an apple pie]

By the time the Annenburg funding arrived, Jan had begun the School Leadership Project at the Snelling Center. Three of the principals who would be part of the VRP were already involved in the Leadership project. She knew that the principals in the partnership wanted funding for leadership and community connections. When Margaret MacLean redrafted the grant for the Rural Schools and Communities Trust, seven schools submitted grants on their own and created a nonprofit to get the funding directly to these small schools. At this point, VRP began to need a governance structure, and from then on, the Snelling Center was behind the scenes helping us take the steps necessary to evolve one as we hammered out a vision for where we wanted to go.

“A lot of this early work was about making this effort systemic, making sure we were listening to what the schools wanted, even if it wasn’t what we had envisioned. We were trying to help the schools see that they had to envision their own future. If we really wanted a nonheirarchical structure, we had to let go. It’s risky, but we have modeled that behavior. Most of the work is done before the meetings talking to people, preparing them.”

Toward a Community of Purpose The term Community of Purpose refers to how you create the connection between the school and the community that becomes the school-community vision.

“If you walk down the street in a small town, and you stop four or five people,
and at least two of them who do not work in the school know what’s going on
at the school, then you have a community of purpose.”
Ray Proulx, Snelling Center Faculty

As Jan explains, it is an understanding that the whole community has to be responsible for the school, not just the parents. “It’s our social commitment to our kids.”

“The Community of Purpose three-year planning process . . . was a truly expanding experience for all of us involved. . . . [T]o reach into the community through the grassroots organizing of kitchen meetings gave all of us a sense of inclusiveness that made the process rewarding. The work of reviewing and revisiting issues that the community and school were concerned with made us all open our minds and hearts to what was best for the school and children. . . We all learned a great deal about education, children, our community and the teachers.”
Bess O’Brien, parent and community member

Starting with the People: Learning Community Seminars
“It’s important to start with the people,” says Jan. “A lot of work cannot happen until the principal is secure in his/herself — enough to let go so he or she will share leadership within a school. That’s creating the professional learning teams. The school leaders also have to be secure and confident to ‘let go to the community,’ and they may have to find their own language to do this. “We want to be sure the community is electing the right kind of school board members, and that the school board members are asking the right kinds of questions in a hiring process, so that when you’ve created this climate and this new culture, it really is bought into. It can’t all be done by a principal or positional leader. It wouldn’t happen that way.”

Every Community is Different
Community of Purpose meetings have happened at Washington Village, Cabot, Coventry, Burke, Walden and Peacham schools. “They look different at every school because they need to,” according to Jan. “At the Snelling Center we have grown well-practiced in listening to what’s going on with a group of people. We try to honor other people’s work, and honor where the community is, and build on that. What I’ve found in other ‘change processes’ is how quickly things can go wrong if a school or an individual school leader gets way out in front of the community.

“There is a way of doing this work that doesn’t assume we have all the answers. Community of Purpose work didn’t come early because people weren’t ready for it. And it doesn’t have to be called “Community of Purpose” — some schools have done this on their own or in other ways. But in places where people are ready to be sure they are connected to community, and to test their assumptions about how much support they have, this kind of work can be useful and valuable. In Coventry, the principal is leaving, and this is a good time for her to do this work. Her school has made a lot of strides and if they have done a good job, there is a good chance the community will hire someone who will continue to do this work. In Burke, the principal began to figure out ways to let go, to get community members and others really committed rather than doing too much of the work herself. She worked hard to do that. Our job is to support, and to help people seek to do more than might otherwise seem possible, but not to do it all.”

Getting at the Values
“Community of Purpose work is value laden, we really want to get at the values. A mission statement is important, but what leads up to the mission statement? Why would someone want to come to your school? What makes your school different? What Community of Purpose work is for is to have the right kind of conversation with the community. You need to understand where the community’s values are and understand if there are conflicting values because that’s what’s going to get you in trouble. People’s values don’t change. You need them to set the framework: What do they believe in and really care about? That then gives you, the staff members at the school, the ability to design how you present your education plan and your curriculum.

“This work should be done when everything’s fine,
not when there’s tension.”
Jan Eastman

“If you have communities talking at the value and purpose level, not the implementation level, you’ll have fewer points of disconnect. What can happen then are true conversations and dialogue, avoiding debate. It takes time and trust to do this. If you have these kinds of conversations, it can help you predict where the mine fields might be. It is also important to work in teams, so that someone can be watching. It’s important for people to see and feel that what’s going on is not unique to their situation. Because you want them to learn from other experiences as well as their own

It takes time and effort to make sure everyone gets to the table, and it takes honest commitment to make sure that the conversation is not about implementation, but about the values we hold dear and what our commitment to kids is.”

“There is a way of honoring people that lets you validate opinions
that you don’t necessarily share — “Here is what I heard you say”
—acknowledging that a person has been heard, that his or her ideas
have been listened to, have influenced the conversation. If we can
help people be more secure in who they are, by listening to and
understanding them, and if we can let go of the idea that we need
100 percent agreement on issues, we can have a conversation that
honors what we all care about, and come to a common understanding
of the values we share. Don’t get angry when you lose a vote. Move on.”
Jan Eastman

Deep Community of Purpose work has set the stage for all the hopes, wishes, and dreams of the Vermont Rural Partnership.

SEE Peacham, Vermont's work with "Community of Purpose"