BUILDING FOR SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY - Kennedy Bibliothek

152. In order to provide the Board of Education with a vehicle to overcome
the self-defeating balkanisation of the metropolitan area, UDA
worked in collaboration with the various jurisdictions. Citizens and
citizen groups were involved with regard to social services, ecology and
conservation. The region as a whole was seen as a "system". The infrastructural
net was made up of highways, the river, major land uses., and
open spaces. Superimposed on these were a jurisdictional structure, a
demographic structure, a utilities structure, etc. And within these
various structures a rich inventory of human, institutional and commercial
resources were'found which were poorly related to each other and hardly
utilised by the educational system.
153. The plan covers not only the whole but is also divided into six
major quadrants, delimited by the Huron River Valley, by expressways,
major secondary roads, and the University: one in the northeast, two on
the west side, two in the southeast, and one comprising the Ann Arbor-
Ypsilanti corridor. Each of these quadrants is perceived as a "minisystem",
providing a comprehensible locally-scaled framework for interrelating
resources.
"The education master plan is conceived as a framework, a strategy
for accommodating growth and change in a period of transition, and
a procedure for maximizing on resources for the enrichment of the
educational experience. The framework calls for the creation of two
new staff offices in the central administration:
Office of Community and External Affairs
Office of Program and Staff Development
The purpose of the Office of Community and External Affairs is to
coordinate education programs with local and regional resources,
and will be concerned with inter-agency relationships and programs.
The Office of Program and Staff Development, on the other hand, is
intended to develop human resources and skills within the education
system, assist in the design and development of programs at the
local or decentral level, and coordinate the programming and supply
of media, "(i )
15.4. To emphasize the role of both agencies in co-ordination and implementation
it was recommended that ad hoc groups, designed to respond to local
situations, be set up and supported by both offices mentioned above. The
local planning processes for each school, which were subsequently established
during the two-year period of planning and implementation, had many
1) UDA, op.cit., page 33-
114