Montgomery High School General Plan Student Project
Activity Description
From mid-January through March 2023, four Montgomery High School (MHS) Civic classes learned about local government structure with professional planners from the Santa Rosa General Plan Update (SRGPU) engagement team. They were introduced to the urban planning process and assigned a general plan project activity as an official component of the class curriculum.
SRGPU project team members collaborated with two MHS teachers, Mr. Rudesill and Mr. Hahn, to design a curriculum based on the Y-Plan and SRGPU process. The resulting curriculum was divided in five steps with a flexible schedule to meet the classes’ needs.
Over the course of the semester, SRGPU project team members visited each of the four civics class six times to implement the five-step curriculum. Each meeting included foundational education components about the field of city planning, in-person presentations from the consultants about local government, and support with the various assignments that built up to one final team presentation.
Student Objectives
The student’s task were the following:
- To learn about the General Plan and the urban planning professional field
- To interact with a variety of professionals (young, people of color, and different organizations)
- To identify a concern, priority, or challenge in their community
- To develop recommendations for how the City can overcome the identified challenge using research and lived experience
- To present findings and recommendations to the city staff
Five-step process
- Start-up and Introduction – Receive introduction to planning and identifying a challenge
- Assessment – Understand existing conditions and case study research
- Analysis – Develop a project vision
- Refinement – Gather and respond to feedback from the project team (city planning professionals)
- Presentation – Make final presentations of project recommendations to City staff (linked below)
Student Projects
