Learn & Serve Grants Learn & Serve Leaders' Institute Courtyard by Marriott Savannah, Georgia Friday, May 14, 2004 We began the day with a protocol call Connections. The purpose of connections is to help people build a bridge from where they are or have been (i.e., mentally, physically, etc.) to where they will be going and what they will be doing regarding the work ahead. After Connections, we debriefed the process by discussing its usefulness in schools as educators and students create democratic learning communities. A summary of the first two Leadership Institutes was provided to help set the stage for the day's learning. We then had a chalk talk based with the stem: "Implementation of service learning". Participants identified the issues, concerns, benefits, and questions they had regarding school-wide service learning. League facilitators posed the question, "How will you address these issues in your school?" and a conversation of possibilities followed. School teams made preliminary plans for a structured Learn and Serve grant decision-making process based on the League's Self-Monitoring Guide. Patrice Wright-Lewis from the State Department of Education provided information about Comprehensive School Reform grants. We finished the day by having a consultancy in a fish bowl. A consultancy is a protocol that features a person with a concern or dilemma and a group of four to six people that will help the person with the concern think about possible courses of action. A fish bowl refers to a small group of people being observed by a larger group of people. The dilemma discussed during this consultancy was "How do I enhance communication in my school?" The facilitator of the consultancy led a debriefing of the process where participants and observers discussed the benefits of using a Consultancy protocol in schools and classrooms.