Conduct
Project Challenges
School Environment Complexity
- Member schools range from some of the smallest to the largest in the school System.
- Schools were in different stages of implementing academy structures with newer schools not being able to devote sufficient or experienced resources to the project.
- Schools locations are on different islands, making physical commutes difficult.
Project Environment Complexity
- Schools had different experience levels with community based projects.
- Large number of participants – 25 member schools, 4 University of Hawaii colleges, Multiple community partners.
- Different partner types particularly among community partners require tailoring project requirements and implementation specifically to each school’s situation.
Short Project Execution Timeframe
- The short project execution timeframe did not allow for thoughtful adjustments to problems that typically arise during the execution of complex projects in complex environments.
Project Strategies
Common Collaboration
- Conduct periodic planning and collaboration sessions to meet virtually using on-line meeting environments.
- Plan sessions with large blocks of unstructured times to allow school teams to interact with other school teams to discuss common interests which may be different from the needs of other teams.
Expedite Decision Making
- Require member schools to have a decision maker who has the authority to commit the school at meetings to minimize delays on time sensitive decisions.
Allow Implementation Flexibility
- Configure project administrative structures to allow sufficient flexibility to accommodate differences in school operations.
- Allow each school to manage their school project independently to suit their unique needs.
Leverage Technologies
- Use virtual meeting technologies to allow collaboration to span across multiple islands.
- Use meeting applications with features that mimic in-person meeting components such as general membership and breakout sessions.
Project Results
Project Administration
- Virtual planning and collaboration sessions met project needs. Frequent periodic meetings allowed for adjustments to be made based on project progress. Relationships developed between school teams prior to Covid restrictions facilitated sharing.
- Unstructured time provided in Hawaiʻi Academies meetings allowed experienced school teams to mentor schools new to the process were very productive.
School Projects
- Member of schools created or enhanced existing school / community projects. Projects ranged from targeted activities implemented through a single event to broad reach projects involving multiple business partners.
Early College
- Students in member schools were offered ICS 101 - Digital Tools For the Information World by all partner colleges. The coordinating and configuring effort expended in setting up and administering this course can serve as a model for these kinds of partnerships moving forward.
Teacher Training - Instruction and Implementation workshops on Design Thinking were offered in a multiple day training session. Teachers used these skills in their day-to-day work.
Project Lessons Learned
Project Planning Lessons
- Budget allocations for each school required more granularity than planned resulting in unspent funds for categories that were redundantly funded from non-Project sources.
- School project budget categories should have been broad enough to provide sufficient flexibility to repurpose funds to adjust to funding needs, within authorized expenditure guidelines as project implementation progressed.
Project Implementation Lessons
- School and project complexities required additional time than grant timeframes allowed. Flexibility in budget expenditures could have provided procurement of additional resources to cover emerging needs encountered during the course of the project to meet allocated timeframes.
- Allow processes that were successful to become part of standard practices in the non-Covid environment. Best practice experiences provided by this project can be adopted as standard practices moving forward.
Final School Reports