• The summit was planned as part of a larger existing community goal (Greater Louisville Project) to increase educational attainment.  Partners interested in furthering this goal were at the table early-on.  The community saw dropout solutions not as a new initiative, but as part of a larger overall strategy the community had already embraced.
• The initial brainstorming meeting to plan the summit was open to anyone interested in the topic.  As a result, we had early buy-in from a number of partners. 
• Committees were formed and began work prior to the summit.  Their task was to identify best practices, look at data, identify existing efforts and to propose emerging recommendation to present at the summit.
• We asked Kentucky Youth Advocates (the non-profit organization that gathers data for Kids Count) to prepare and present the data portion of the summit. They also provided ethnographers for each working track and are to publish "Proceedings" of the summit.

  Building Knowledge:

• This website became the repository for information about the summit, resources, studies and articles we discovered as we researched topics, and data items and sources.  The site also listed meeting dates and times.
• Understanding the scope of the dropout issue was our first challenge.  A Data Committee delved into the various sources and tried to reconcile discrepancies in data.
• The Youth Voice Committee made a concerted effort to "hear the voices" of young people.  They worked with a researcher to survey and hold focus groups with 300 youngsters, and published their findings for the summit in Youth Voice, Louisville's Young People Speak Out on their Experiences in School.
• The Parent Voice Committee worked with the Annie E. Casey Foundation to hold a listening session with parent serving organizations.  The notes from that session are posted on the website.

Identifying Solutions:

• Prior to the summit, the four committees planning the summit's working tracks recommended several "emerging recommendations" to put forth the day of the summit.
• Summit registrants, as they registered on-line, were asked to identify one working track in which they wished to participate the day of the summit. 
• The day of the summit, more than 400 participants divided into four working groups to discuss the issues in each area, hear possible solutions (these were the emerging recommendations), propose other options, and finally prioritize responses for the action plan that would result from the summit.
• Following the summit, the committees worked with the ethnographers assigned to each track to fine-tune prioritized recommendations that will be used as the basis for next steps outlined in the upcoming Action Plan.

Building Public Will:

• When committees were formed, co-chairs were recruited – one person from our public school system and one from a community organization or local government. This was a way to balance committee membership and share the responsibilities and concerns across the sectors.  Early on, we realized that solutions to the dropout issues needed to involve the whole community, not just the public schools.
• The day of the summit, the Superintendent, with the Mayor’s full support, announced two goals to reach within 10 years.
• Goal 1: When looking at graduation rates, Louisville Metro will move from the middle to the top tier among 15 competitive cities in the next 10 years. (Currently, Louisville Metro is in the middle of the group of Greater Louisville Education Project comparative cities when comparing graduation rates.)
• Goal 2: Louisville Metro will cut its dropout rate in half in the next 10 years.
• We are in the process of writing three documents to convey summit results in ways that will meet the needs of each audience that reads them. (Note: these are not yet available)
• The “Proceedings from the Graduate Greater Louisville: High School Dropout Solutions Summit” will include all information gathered at the summit and will list all the recommendations.
• A high level executive summary will be suitable for news articles or for sharing with community groups such as the Rotary Club.
• An Action Plan will be developed within six months of the summit and will guide the work of the task force and committees implementing the plan.

Helpful documents:

• "Dropout Summit Lessons Learned" - how we planned the summit and what we learned from that process
• "Initial Planning Session" - expanded agenda for first meeting, a brainstorming session with all parties interested in dropout issue
• "Parent Engagement in School Dropout Prevention: A Consultative Session" - this session was sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and held with representatives of parent serving organization
• "Pre-Summit Emerging Recommendations" – compiled by committees prior to summit to spur discussion in working groups the day of the summit