In 2024, the Hawai‘i Public Charter School Commission (HSPCSC) asked REL Pacific to support their team in creating and documenting an evidence based process for gathering stakeholder input. The goal was to make the school renewal process more transparent and strengthen relationships with education communities through more collaborative feedback. They also wanted to test this process in stakeholder meetings before finalizing and sharing it more widely.
As the sole authorizer of charter schools in the state, HSPCSC annually reviews applications to open new schools or renew school contracts. A key component of this process involves soliciting feedback from key charter school stakeholders. These include school governing board members, school administrators, other school and community representatives, and the HSPCSC board of commissioners. The purpose of asking for stakeholder feedback is to ensure everyone understands the process’s goals and expectations, while maintaining alignment with state laws, policies, and best practices. In the past, the HSPCSC held feedback meetings but found it challenging to obtain actionable input from stakeholders.
Figure 1. Timeline of the project
With the approval of HSPCSC’s leadership, REL Pacific proposed a series of sessions for this project. These sessions helped build participants' understanding that quality engagement could be viewed as a process—built from start to finish—that allows stakeholders to contribute meaningfully to authentic decision making1. 1 The sessions supported the HSPCSC team in developing an HSPCSC-specific stakeholder engagement process. This blog provides a mid-project overview (figure 1 provides a timeline of the project), lessons learned so far, and considerations for organizations interested in using the process.
The Hawai’i State Public Charter School Commission stakeholder engagement process in action
Figure 1. Timeline of the project
The key elements of the Hawai’i State Public Charter School Commission (HSPCSC) stakeholder engagement process are identifying a purpose, conducting preliminary research and engaging experts, identifying stakeholders of interest and influence, communicating with stakeholders, and engaging stakeholders (see figure 2 for a visual of the process).
The HSPCSC team used each step of the process when they engaged stakeholders about the contract renewal process and table 1 provides more detail about what happened during each step.
Table 1. How HSPCSC engaged with the steps of the stakeholder engagement process
| Key Elements | The HSPCSC team… |
|---|---|
| Identify a purpose – Teams benefit when they identify a clear purpose for the feedback so stakeholders can offer relevant input. | clarified the purpose of their feedback meetings by specifying what topics were open for discussion, when and where to hold the meetings, and how they would collect people’s input. |
| Conduct preliminary research and engage experts – When the team conducts initial research, they are ready to discuss key issues objectively which supports effective problem solving. Teams build trust and credibility when they openly share knowledge and prepare for common questions based on past feedback. | established that in some cases, bringing in an external facilitator for in-person meetings helps create a welcoming environment and ensures that ideas are processed fairly. Their partnership with REL Pacific also played an important role by providing expertise as the HSPSCS team developed a research-based plan, process, and meeting agendas. |
| Identify stakeholder interest and influence – Not every stakeholder is interested in or able to influence every issue, so it is important to focus time and resources where they matter most by identifying interest and influence. | listed all potential stakeholder groups and mapped them by level of interest and influence. This mapping helped them decide on the most meaningful way to involve each group. |
| Communicate with stakeholders – Developing a communication plan provides a framework for requesting, receiving, and responding to stakeholder feedback. An effective communication plan includes stakeholder roles, multiple opportunities for stakeholder engagement, the purpose of each feedback session, and the messaging needed before, during, and after the sessions. | created such a plan, shared it with commissioners for input, and used the approved version to guide how stakeholders could provide feedback. The approved communication plan and the implementation artifacts became key documentation of stakeholders’ opportunities to provide feedback. |
| Engage stakeholders – With a communication plan in place, a team can engage stakeholders for feedback. | used three primary methods to solicit feedback: an online survey to identify priorities for the in-person meetings, in-person stakeholder feedback meetings across the state, and a virtual meeting for those unable to attend in person. To ensure meaningful engagement and make the best use of stakeholder input, their process incorporated three cyclical touchpoints. |
| Respond to feedback – Building time into the process to respond to stakeholder feedback increases transparency and strengthens communication. | knew the value of this from experience, so they built in steps to provide specific and timely responses to the feedback received. |
| Act on feedback – Explaining how teams act on feedback helps stakeholders trust that their input is taken seriously. When feedback is not actionable, teams are encouraged to reassess whether their request was specific and meaningful enough. | used input from stakeholders to propose updates to their contract form and to make clarifications in their process and purpose documents. |
| Re-engage stakeholders – Re-engaging stakeholders ensures that the actions taken address the feedback received. This step is especially important when teams are trying to find a solution after receiving conflicting feedback. | reviewed their actions with smaller groups of stakeholders. This approach sustained progress within their time constraints. |
| Formalize and produce the product – Formalizing a decision and sharing the final documentation helps bring closure to a stakeholder engagement process. | completed the process by presenting the revised product to the commissioners and documenting the engagement approach for internal staff and state policymakers. |
Refining and sustaining the stakeholder engagement process
Process Confidence
"I like this process. It brings us back to our purpose and keeps us on track instead of taking us anywhere the wind blows." –PJ Foehr,
Deputy Director, HSPCSC
The Hawai’i State Public Charter School Commission (HSPCSC) team found that their engagement process worked best when it was intentional, offered multiple ways for people to participate, and clearly separated what feedback was needed from how the engagement process itself worked.
Designing a simple process that is applicable to other contexts made it easier for HSPCSC staff to uniformly adopt it and communicate the importance of making it a documented formal process. Process documentation supports stakeholders to understand the purpose of each engagement opportunity within the process.
As part of its commitment to continuous improvement, HSPCSC created a flexible engagement process that can work in many situations. They plan to refine and improve it using lessons from the first cycle such as offering varied meeting times to accommodate more schedules, adjusting survey items to increase response rates, and starting the process earlier. The refined approach will be tested in a new context to ensure it works broadly.
If you are interested in replicating this process for your organization, we offer some considerations:
- This engagement process is designed to be flexible so organizations can adapt it to their needs.
- Adjust the process based on the purpose of the engagement and the type of feedback you need.
- At every step, consider your own context—what the work involves, who is affected, who the audience is, and how much time you have.
- Teams are encouraged to discuss these elements together, since collaboration helps ensure thoughtful and intentional decisions at each stage.
Although the HSPCSC team is still refining its approach, the lessons learned so far can help other organizations strengthen their stakeholder engagement efforts. Other organizations could benefit by adopting the key elements of the engagement process the HSPCSC team developed.
1 UNESCAP. (2018). Training Reference Material: Effective Stakeholder Engagement for the 2030 Agenda. United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. https://repository.unescap.org/handle/20.500.12870/105
