Steps for Engaging Communities in Developing Outdoor Learning Strategies

Initiation Phase: Define and Reach Out

Define your ‘stakeholder community’

Who is impacted by your outdoor learning plan? Consider both internal and external community members. Make extra efforts to include groups who are often underrepresented in your definition of your community. Examples of stakeholders may include students (including those with special health or learning needs), teachers, parents/families (particularly those who identify as black, brown, or indigenous), site-based administrators, school board, superintendent, unions, county offices of education, groundspeople, master gardeners, community-based organizations, neighbors (including local businesses), and local education non-profits.

Conduct initial stakeholder outreach

Conduct initial stakeholder outreach to determine feasibility, community interest, concerns, and vision for outdoor learning opportunities. Tools such as focus groups and community meetings may be utilized to develop a resource and needs assessment. Surveys and feedback collection should account for accessibility concerns such as language, technology access, and disabilities. Accommodations include multiple survey formats (e.g., online, paper, and verbal data collection) and providing formats in multiple languages. Based on the assessment feedback, determine if outdoor learning is a feasible option in your community. Identify and include as many groups as possible, even those who may not be supportive of proposals, to ensure that the full range of perspectives is included in your community engagement subgroup.

Create a subgroup focused on engagement and communication strategies

Create a subgroup focused on engagement and communication strategies as part of your return-to-school working group. Ensure a diverse membership, especially groups that have been traditionally marginalized, so that you will get multiple perspectives and support broader buy-in from all parts of your community.

This team will work together to:

• Solicit concerns, fears, values, needs, hopes, and goals from the broader community.

• Synthesize feedback and community wisdom to make recommendations for program design and communication needs (e.g., considering models of outdoor learning initiatives from other schools and districts).

• Identify specific needs, concerns, and core values to message out and reflect back to other planning teams.

• Support other planning teams as they bring questions to the community engagement group to obtain stakeholder input.

• Track community ideas for challenges and solutions (e.g., access to local parks requires a new partnership with parks and recreation; lack of instructors could be solved with unemployed non-formal educators).

Ongoing Processes

Communication strategies and tools

Develop communication strategies and tools for various stakeholder groups and the general public who may be affected by and/or involved in the implementation. Define lines of communication to get buy-in from your community at large, not just the individuals on the community engagement working group, to promote the outdoor learning plan. Strategies may include the following:

• The Green Schoolyards 2-page introduction is an easy way to engage audiences during initial discussions.

• Utilize this Forbes article to create an elevator pitch unique to your community to promote buy-in from those who may be uncomfortable with the idea of outdoor learning or unaware of the benefits.

• Create an FAQ sheet or webpage to educate the community when promoting the benefits of outdoor learning, making sure to address the concerns of different interest groups like parents, teachers, city leaders, and so on. Here’s an example.

• Hold listening sessions/town halls between community members and the administration where ideas can be shared and vetted.

• Utilize crowdsourcing applications such as ThoughtExchange to solicit feedback on ideas.

Conduct ongoing stakeholder engagement

Conduct ongoing stakeholder engagement to ensure that community members feel valued, heard, and respected. Collecting feedback from all stakeholders throughout the planning, faculty training, and implementation processes provides opportunities to address needs, concerns, and comfort with ongoing implementation. Teams can interpret and synthesize community wisdom and utilize new research, new information, and community feedback to adjust strategies and implementation as needed.

Below are concrete examples of how stakeholder engagement may look at different parts of the process.

• When planning for infrastructure, intentionally include input from neighbors and other community members with the intention of building buy-in as a community. Provide teachers with possible materials lists to consider and ask what materials they think they will need to be successful. Include input and feedback from maintenance and grounds staff to address logistical concerns.

• When you are considering instructional models, intentionally solicit input from teachers, central office administrators, and site administrators before you start planning, and then get feedback throughout the planning process. Seek instructional support from outdoor environmental education organizations.

• When considering staffing plans, collect feedback from your teachers’ union and educators to ensure there are no staff scheduling conflicts, cross train specialists to teach other subjects or homerooms to reduce class sizes, and train your staff on safety and outdoor learning strategies (e.g. lesson planning). Consider utilizing other organizations - including after school programs - to support staffing needs in alignment with your local public health guidelines. See our advice on staffing in the Education Outside chapter.

• Parks–school collaboration could be an effective use of parks and other outdoor spaces to teach students outdoors in local open spaces.

• Formal–non-formal partnerships are an effective strategy to learn from and utilize resources (e.g. instructional space, educators, outdoor lessons) from non-formal organizations (e.g., Boys & Girls Clubs, outdoor education centers).

• When planning how and when to use internal resources (e.g., school grounds, spaces, teaching materials), coordinate use of these resources (school programs coordination) to ensure there are no conflicts between regular instruction and supplemental school programs (e.g., before school, after school, daycare).

• Remain aware of various stakeholders’ concerns and perspectives regarding health and safety considerations, and be prepared to empathetically address these concerns with up-to-date information. Consider how the plan will respond to local transmission data. For example:

  • When transmission rates are lowest, all students can return to on-site pre-COVID-19 instructional models.

  • When transmission rates are low, which allow for safe outdoor and physically distanced interaction, outdoor learning is Plan A for all students and virtual learning is Plan B in case of COVID-19 exposure within a subset of a school community.

  • Schools can move flexibly through these instructional models. 

identify possible funding sources

Engage your local community to identify possible funding sources for the effort, both at the school level and the district level. In a large district, individual schools may have relationships with local businesses and corporations that do not extend out to the whole district—they may be specific to the school site/neighborhood. These local assets can be a valuable resource.

CREDITS

These resources were compiled and written in 2020 by volunteer members of the Community Engagement Working Group, as part of the National COVID-19 Outdoor Learning Initiative. We are grateful for their efforts and dedication to advocating for outdoor learning, both on a national level and in their own communities.

These pages were later updated in late 2021 by Lauren McKenna, MLA, Green Schoolyards America.

National COVID-19 Outdoor Learning Initiative

The National COVID-19 Outdoor Learning Initiative supports schools and districts around the country in their efforts to reopen safely and equitably using outdoor spaces as strategic, cost-effective solutions to increase physical distancing capacity onsite and provide access to abundant fresh air. The Initiative seeks to equitably improve learning, mental and physical health, and happiness for children and adults using an affordable, time-tested outdoor approach to keeping schools open during a pandemic.