Using an Evaluation Hotline to Promote Stakeholder Involvement

This article addresses the design and application of a hotline to promote broader community-wide participation in a public school evaluation. Evaluations of community resources such as public schools present evaluators with challenges from the perspective of promoting stakeholder involvement. Although many evaluation stakeholders are readily identifiable, there are potentially many unknown and hard-to-reach community leaders and residents who may want to participate in the evaluation. An evaluation hotline offers a mechanism for potentially identifying and reaching some of these interested community stakeholders and enabling their participation. This article introduces an evaluation hotline design and implementation, along with perceived hotline strengths and weaknesses observed in its use.