Connecticut Valley School

This week we negotiated Connecticut Valley School and I was partnered with Zach and we were representing the faculty. We had a very tough time trying to use the information that we were given on our priorities to figure out which projects were most important to us. This was challenging because the priorities that each project could fulfill was open for interpretation. While we were trying to rank the projects in order of importance to us, the headmaster team approached us and tried to form a coalition. I knew right away that they had no idea what our priorities were because in my opinion, we were going against them trying to get the trustees to choose the project most important to us. But, we came to an agreement with the headmasters that we would push for the swimming pool, the hockey rink, and the fine arts building. That way, we got two projects that were important to us and they got two projects that were important to them. Once we agreed to that with the headmasters, Zach and I determined the ranking of importance of each project. Our first priority was the hockey rink roof because it related to our first and second priorities. Next we thought that the women's locker room was important because the information given to us mentioned that it was dirty, which is a concern of health and safety (first priority). Next we chose the computer lab because our third priority was to improve the quality of student life. Also, the information given to everyone about the computer lab specified that the purpose of the lab was to support curricular goals. Our next priority was promoting the school's liberal arts mission which was the fine arts building. The next priorities were not important to us. These were the swimming pool, buses and heating system.

When it came time for the negotiation, the trustees said that they found a way to finance five of the seven projects. We head which projects they were and we were pleased becuase most of the projects were high in our rankings. However, we then got the memo from the Dean of Students stating the safety problem and proposed solution. Since safety is our number one priority, I suggested that we make the campus lighting our number one priority and bump the rest of the projects down one. Unfortuantely, this kicked out the possibility for the women's locker room because we otherwise wouldn't have enough money.