Watsonian Institute

Precinct Chair Certification Program

Introduction

The purpose of this document is to provide clear understanding of the Harris County Republican Party’s Precinct Chair Certification Program with Mentorship support. Bear in mind that this is a “Living” process and is subject to change as we learn new things, acquire new tools, and Grassroot requirements change. The following are excerpts from the "Precinct Chair Certification Program" manual.

Overview

This manual was created to provide guidance in developing competency-based training for Precinct Chairs of the Harris County Republican Party’s staff at various levels of responsibility and performance. The development of competency-based training and assessment is based on a systematic approach whereby:

§ Knowledge, skills, and abilities and their standards are defined

§ Performance is measured against the standards

§ Training is based on the gaps between the required competency and current performance

§ Assessment tools for these competencies are developed to determine whether these competencies have been achieved after the training has been conducted.

Throughout this description, the terms:

- “knowledge” is generally considered to be information that is directly applied to perform a function.

- “Skill” is an observable competence to perform a task.

- “Ability” is the competence to perform an observable behavior or a behavior that results in an observable outcome.

The competency-based approach to training has already been introduced in other areas of industry such as Trade skills and Aviation Industry activities, such as flight crew training and licensing.

The underlying principle for this approach uses performance as the measurement to identify the opportunity for competency-based training and how it can address gaps in performance. This evaluation and training ensures that staff members competencies are fully developed and maintained.

GOALS OF THE MANUAL

The manual was created to provide guidance for Precinct Chairs engaged in their Primary Responsibility of winning elections, also known as “Get out the Vote” (GOTV) activities.

The core skills involved in these activities include:

· Introduction to Precinct Chair (Required)

· OHPS Database (Required)

· Project/Event Management (Required)

Electives:

· Blockwalking

· Elections Process

· Elections Integrity and Law

· Get Out The Vote

· Phone Banking

· Voter Registration (VDVR)

· Mass Texting with SendHype

· Fund Raising

Capstone:

· Theory of Constraints (Grand Masters)

Each of these skills tracks will be described in greater detail later in this document.

Skill track progression

Each of the above listed skills route to Skill Certification will precede thru the following Phases:

1. Classroom/Online introductory training

2. On-the-Job (OJT) training with assigned Mentor

3. “Solo” training with Mentor Supervision

4. Skill Management with Mentor