Technology is changing at break-neck speed and public education is struggling to keep up. Today's students do not learn, or even communicate the way many of the older (or should I say more experienced) educators do.
In the past, communication has been a weakness in this, the 8th largest school district in the nation. But size is no excuse for poor communication, and as such, has been a major focus for improvement over the past couple of years.
At the school boards urging, the superintendent has been communicating every step of the way during the budget process. It is important that people have the facts, good or bad, because if people are left to wonder rumors will run rampant, productivity will decline and ultimately students interests will not be best served. The board has made it a priority that we do not want to lay off employees and we don’t want the cuts to touch the classroom. The superintendent has communicated this along with the details of what is happening on the financial front as we receive details using email and pop up messages through our internal email system.
I am very happy that HCPS is catching up to the new millennia and using technology to communicate with our staff and the community. We have ‘Parent Link’ which sends out pre-recorded messages to specific groups or the entire universe of current phone numbers and/or email in our system, provided parents or guardians keep their contact information current. This system is used to send updates on everything from emergencies to parent/teacher conferences.
More recently we used Twitter to communicate during the swine flu outbreak that closed 3 local schools. One of the more exciting aspects about using Twitter aside from the real time communication on important updates is that it does not cost the tax payers anything because it is a free service.
Are we where we need to be? Not yet, but we are moving in a positive direction.
