What knowledge and skills do the students at Corvallis’ public schools need to be successful — now, and years into the future? What kind of culture should students, teachers, staff members and administrators try to create in those schools?

About 50 parents, teachers, school board members and administrators gathered Tuesday night at Corvallis High School to ponder those tough questions — and soon came face-to-face with another question: Why won’t my electronic-voting device record my vote?

The meeting was billed as the culminating public gathering in a four-month project by the Corvallis School District to help shape the district’s values and vision. Jeff DeFranco, a consultant who’s been working on the Corvallis vision process with school officials, said that meetings had been held with about 50 groups and that more than 1,000 people had offered input. One of the purposes of Tuesday night’s culminating session was to help focus and clarify some of the comments and themes offered at the other meetings.

To that end, school officials used an “electronic-voting” technique, in which audience members had the chance to answer questions using hand-held wireless electronic devices. The system worked well during a dry run before the meeting, said Dawn Tarzian, the superintendent of the Corvallis School District. But it proved a bit balky during Tuesday’s meeting: In some cases, audience members had to move within a few feet of the wireless receiver before their votes were recorded.

Nevertheless, the questions prompted considerable discussion and some spirited voting — along with occasional complaints that some of the questions weren’t fair or seemed to be written in such a way as to force certain responses.

Some of that, DeFranco said, was intentional: Some of the questions were structured to mimic, to some degree, the tough choices faced by school trustees — deciding to increase resources in one area, for example, likely will mean reduced resources for another area.

Some of the closest “voting” revolved around questions surrounding teacher development. Asked, for example, whether schools should increase late-start or early-release times and use the time for training, 22 audience members replied yes and 20 voted no.

Another question, about whether school officials should work to decrease class size at secondary schools or offer more electives, drew another split decision, with 26 voters opting for smaller classes and 24 choosing more electives.

In another exercise, participants voted on the “learning experiences” that they thought were most important for students in two groups, grades K-5 and grades 6-12.

For the younger students, experiences drawing the most votes included art and music opportunities; hands-on learning experiences; and small class sizes. For the older students, experiences getting the most votes were small class sizes; hands-on and project-based learning; art and music opportunities; college-preparatory offerings; and global awareness.

The district’s vision quest isn’t over: A “synthesizing” group will now examine all the material gathered and will craft recommendations that the school board will consider, possibly in June.