2025 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"

19th Edition

Phase 4 of 8

Results open vote 28/03/2025 - 31/03/2025

Process phases

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Municipality of Evron in Mayenne: Let's imagine the school of tomorrow!

Official proposal

29/01/2025 12:32

Four pleasant surprises stand out:

A real group dynamic was built up over the course of the workshops; this team spirit facilitated creativity and freed up the floor for discussion.
The participants (and therefore future users) were relatively reasonable and pragmatic in their scenario proposals, with real coherence and justification in the ideas put forward.
New design ideas were put forward, opening up perspectives on possible future choices.
The dialogue between directors and elected representatives also enabled solutions to be found for other problems encountered, such as cycling and safety.

The French Ministry of Education was particularly active throughout the process. In addition to the teachers and school principals involved, the head of the local education authority, as well as the Secretary General of the Inspecteur d'Académie, followed our work and took a very constructive part in the process (meetings, e-mails).

The investment involved in such an approach is essentially human in terms of working time. Two local authority staff worked on the project, one of them in permanent contact with the service provider.

The cost of the service is substantial in relation to the budget line dedicated to participatory democracy initiatives, but insignificant in relation to the local authority's overall operating budget (€9,999 to which should be added snacks of around €100).

At the end of the process, a feedback meeting will be held in the autumn with all workshop participants, once the elected representatives have made their decision.

An evaluation of the participatory approach will be undertaken independently, to draw lessons from this innovative experience for future participatory projects led by the town.

The project began in a climate of considerable mistrust towards the municipality, following strong opposition from a group of parents who were up in arms against the merger of the 3 schools at Jean Monnet (and thus the elimination of their nursery school).

Furthermore, the commitment requested for the 3 workshops (3 Saturday mornings) left some users perplexed as to the approach and the time devoted to the emergence of a new project.

Last but not least, for the elected representatives and staff, it shook up their work habits, allowed them to question themselves and ask the right questions.