Sociocracy in Schools

“We are so happy to be using Sociocracy in our school with full participation in Member (children), Staff, Parent, and Board circles joined by a Community Circle. The kids are amazingly confident, free, happy people who are excellent communicators because of our weekly Change Up meeting, where we try out new practices one week at a time.

Sometimes our meetings end in tears because people have never experienced a workplace where every voice truly matters both in sharing feelings about how things are going and checking in with each other emotionally, and also in policy decisions such as paid overtime, staff hours, and how our governance works.  Every time we ask for feedback on our processes, people share how clear and efficient our meetings are. There are still difficulties, as collaborative skills are not widely shared in the larger world, and we are starting from scratch with a lot of our parents and staff so training is necessary to bring everyone on board. We are still learning how to be clear about power and responsibility with roles and our circle structure. However, seeing the children lead effective meetings, make consent based decisions together, and check in about “good enough for now, safe enough to try,” it gives me hope for the future.