VISIONS facilitators and local community leaders met for several months prior to convening the workshops and identified the following goals for the program:

	To shift focus from symptoms to underlying causes of disparities in academic achievement, including teacher expectations and training, culturally and socially relevant pedagogy, and knowledge of available resources.
	To move beyond the local politics of school officials, teachers’ unions and school committees where dialogue revolves around issues brought up by those who lobby the most.
	To generate fresh approaches in coalition with those most adversely affected by the current system.
	To recuperate the wisdom and energy of those who feel excluded from, or disempowered by, the traditional school experience and to highlight the perspectives of those who have historically been at the periphery of the debate.
	To combine community organizing, theatre strategies and educational training to develop and broaden the skills of local community and school leaders.

An effort was made to recruit parents of color using flyers describing the project in several languages. Meetings were held with school administrators and teachers associations to enlist their participation. The principal of a local elementary school offered space for a community forum and parents also helped arrange meeting space for the workshops. Funds from the Mott Foundation were vital to provide workshop participants with meals, child care, and nominal stipends and to cover the facilitation costs. Parents who completed the first training facilitated, provided administrative support, and helped recruit participants for subsequent trainings.