Vision Governance

 

There are three separate VISION Home and Community Programs (HCP's) who work together under one umbrella with a common Board of Stewards. Governance happens on the level of individual programs when appropriate and on the Stewards' level when the issues relate to the programs' relations with the school district and the state legislature.

Within each individual program, decisions are made by consensus with the entire VISION community. Community meetings are held by each program separately once a month. Minutes from these discussions as well as policy proposals can be found on the VISION forum at http://www.visionhcp.mywowbb.com.

The purpose of VISION HCP is to support learners and parents. To create that support, each learner and family makes important and unique agreements with a resource consultant and with educators. These agreements are open, blank slates full of potential. Resource consultants (RCs) and educators likely already have made some agreements with the program. .

Resource Consultants are employed by the program and the school district. Their job is to work as advocates for the learners, parents and program. The resource consultants are the link between the individual learner and the government of public education, and as such their agreements with the program are of central importance.

Educators work with learners on individual subjects. Educators may be teachers, tutors, parents, mentors or community members. A formalized agreement between each educator and the learner and family is strongly recommended but not required. Educators who want to be listed or featured in VISION educator lists, newsletters and other forms of outreach must fill out an application, pass a background check and participate in a program orientation

The Administrative Staff are responsible for maintaining various aspects of the program and for coordinating and facilitating resource consultants, students, parents, educators, school district requirements and other program needs. The staff works out of the VISION Office in downtown Paonia, which is also a resource center and a meeting space for the program. The staff meets weekly to help with everyday program issues and they are often the first point of contact for people interested in the VISION program.

The North Fork VISION HCP is joined by the Delta and Surface Creek branches of the Home and Community Program. These three branches all follow the same mission and philosophy and work with a single Board of Stewards. The stewards meet regularly to discuss long-term program goals. They hire and evaluate program directors. The board of stewards is supported by an Advisory Board consisting of former stewards and internationally recognized leaders in education.

VISION HCP is a public school and is made possible byan agreement between the board of stewards and the Delta County School Board and Superintendent. A copy of this agreement is available for viewing at the VISION Office. This agreement takes the form of a school board resolution, and we have verbally agreed to follow it. VISION HCP is part of the VISION Coalition or VISION School, which is the name by which the district has received the necessary waivers for VISION from the Colorado State Board of Education. The VISION Coalition also includes Lamborn VISION School, The North Fork Community Montessori School and the Delta Academy of Applied Learning. Each of these entities operates independently and has its own agreement with the district. Representatives from these programs meet regularly to exchange information. Guidelines for the administration of public schools in Colorado and the waivers that exempt VISION from many of these guidelines are available for viewing in the office.

In the spring of 2006 the directors and stewards invited a group of professionals to help the program conduct a site evaluation. Many discussions about governance and policy had been in process before the visit, and the ideas and potential developments reflected in the discussions were shared with the site visit team. Currently, the Vision directors and stewards are discussing these developments with the School Board and district administration. Following are some of the documents recently generated around these discussions.

Click here to view the letter to view a letter of response to the site visit.

Click here to view the draft proposal for Resource Consultants' Role.

Click here to view the draft proposal for Program-Wide Governance.

Click here to view the draft proposal for the Learning Plan Cycle.