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Does technology improve communication between schools and citizens?

January 1, 2008

Alongside videos of singing pets, clips from Saturday Night Live and other short clips, there is a series of videos of West Bend School District Superintendent Patricia Herdrich on YouTube explaining her district’s November referendum.

Although the Web site is mostly used for entertainment – a video of a singing dog has been viewed 649,579 times – that doesn’t mean it can’t be used for more serious matters, like explaining a referendum. Herdrich, who held dozens of face-to-face meetings in addition to the videos, says posting on YouTube was just another way to reach the public.

“We’re using every avenue we can to get information out,” she says. Although her video can’t compete with that of the crooning dog, Herdrich says her videos, one of which has 752 views, have been a success.

“I’m surprised at how many hits it had,” she admits.

Communicating with parents and community members on any number of issues, not just referendums, can be a challenge for school boards. However, technology has opened up new avenues with which to reach parents, community members and beyond.

School Board Blogger

Madison Metropolitan School Board member Maya Cole wants to get her word out to as many people as possible. So she created a blog.

Maya Cole Schoolcast (coleschoolcast.org) updates readers on the proceedings of the Madison Metropolitan School Board and provides important information about the school climate in Madison.

“We’re such a large school district, I’m trying to find ways to connect with as many people as possible,” Cole says.

The blog also includes podcasts that Cole records and produces herself. Eventually, Cole would like to have her podcasts posted on the Madison Metropolitan School District Web site to increase visibility. “A lot of this is new territory, so it’s a matter of feeling it out,” she explains.

Cole is proud of her blog and has seen the number of hits to her site grow but she says school board members who venture out onto the World Wide Web need to be cautious.

“I think the biggest thing is when you’re communicating as an elected official, like a school board member, you have to make sure people understand you are only talking as yourself,” Cole asserts.

“Another potential problem is the impact it might have on fellow board members,” says Elmbrook School Board member Stephen Schwei. “Do they perceive the person as having made up their mind on issues or doing business with the public more than with the board?”

A recent article in the American School Board Journal discusses the positives and negatives of board blogging, “Give the wrong member of your board a blog, for example, and you could be dealing with a loose canon who posts entries so embarrassing it makes Howard Stern seem tame.”

Charles Hillman, who is president of the West Bend School Board, occasionally responds to posts on a local news blog. With a $119 million referendum on the ballot in this past November’s election, there were plenty of comments on the blog concerning the referendum. Hillman views the blog as another way to connect with voters.

“I think it’s a good way of communicating with people because it’s two-way,” he says.

Polling the People

Although blogs allow for feedback from the public, to really get a community’s feeling on certain items, like an upcoming referendum, several school districts, like Hartford Joint #1, employ online, Web-based surveys to poll constituents.

“As far as getting info from the community, it is a very useful tool,” Hartford J1 Superintendent Mark Smits says.

To conduct a survey, postcards are sent to every household within the boundaries of the school district. The postcard has information about the survey and how to access it online.

Bill Foster, founder of a slinger-based survey business called School Perceptions, says the information his firm collects is accurate because the survey is secure. To access the survey, people use a one-time password that allows an individual to submit one survey. Voters can’t fill out multiple surveys in attempt to skew the results. And for those without Internet access, Foster says people can request hard copies on a survey.

“It allows us to stay in touch, it improves communication and it gives everyone a chance to participate,” Smits says.

“After the survey is complete, you can see here’s where people have questions, here’s what people understand, and from there, a board can clear up any misunderstandings,” Foster says. “It’s really more of a communication tool than it is a data-gathering tool.”

Online Parents

Newer forms of technology also help plug parents into their children’s educational experience in ways they haven’t been able to before. At Hartford J1’s Central Middle School, parents can keep tabs on their student through an online version of a school information program developed by Skyward.

Parents are given log-in and password information through which they can track their child’s grade, upcoming assignments, teacher comments and even what their child eats for lunch.

While Hartford J1 School Board President Katheryn Carroll says her daughter, who is a student at Central Middle School, is studious and makes good choices at lunch, she says the program is much appreciated.

“As a parent, I have fully utilized it,” Carroll says. “You can see exactly what they’re eating; you can see where students are with their grades. If they’re missing an assignment or project, you know right away.”

Carroll says the software also provides an easy avenue through which parents can send messages to teachers. “I think it improves communication all around. It’s good to have an open line of communication to teachers,” she points out.

The software seems to be a hit with parents. In only its first year of existence, school administrators estimate that 80 percent of parents utilize the program. Skyward’s products are especially popular in Wisconsin. A total of 339 districts in the state use the software in one form or another but not all districts have opted for the version that allows parents to access their child’s information via the Internet.

Many Wisconsin school districts utilize some version of an online grade book through which parents can monitor their child’s grades and upcoming assignments. With a high percentage of parents tracking their children’s grades more closely than ever before, educators believe grades will improve.

“When their child comes home and the parents ask, ‘Do you have any homework?’ and the child says, ‘No,’ the parent will be able to say, ‘Wait, you have this, this and this to work on,” Jeff Higgins, a principal at Horicon Marsh High School, says. “Hopefully this will promote better grades.”

According to an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, one science teacher at Hartford J1’s Central Middle School said after parents were connected to the Skyward system, he saw a 25 percent jump in completed homework assignments.

“We know supportive and involved parents can contribute to the academic success of a child,” remarks Anne Lee Flynn, director of education technology for the National School Board Association. “There are a growing number of both free and fee services that allow teachers to post homework assignments online or that allow parents to have real time attendance or grade information.”

The Tomah Area School District has taken the online grade book one step further. Instead of purchasing online grade-book software, the district has written its own.

The school district’s technology director Paula Potter, a former software engineer, wrote all of the district’s programs, from the ones that manage the district’s programs, from the ones that manage the district’s accounts to an online grade book, saving the district money in the process and allowing the district to manipulate the software in any way it wants.

“We can do what we want to do,” Potter says. “We’re getting software for us, written by us.”

That includes an online grade book, which parents can use to check grades and even read their child’s curriculum – they know what their child is learning or is supposed to be learning. Soon, Potter says, parents will even be able to use the Web access account to control what their child eats at lunch.

The success of the software is evident in its daily traffic. A total of 459 parents access their account daily. Not bad for a district with 3,080 students. “That’s a big number of questions we answered,” Potter said.

Another piece of software developed by Potter is an online testing program called XAM. Students take tests on a computer or handheld device and, after taking the test, they can instantly review their scores while the grades are automatically posted online. The software has proven so effectively that the Tomah Area School Foundation has registered the software and now sells it to other districts.

Emergence of Email

“In the past, most of our communication with the public was in person or by phone,” says Schwei, who has served on the Elmbrook School District for 10 years. “We receive many fewer calls now and get most of our community-initiated feedback and questions by e-mail.”

In an effort to accommodate this shift in communication trends, schools, like Badger Middle School in the West Bend School District, have switched to a paperless system.

“Once a week we get an e-mail that updates us on what’s going on,” says Kristopher Beaver, a West Bend School Board member and parent.

“One of the complaints we received is parents were saying, ‘We get all kings of information when our kid is in elementary school but once they get to middle school, that communication stops,’” Beaver says. “I think this bridges the gap. I’ve heard positive things about it from parents.”

Of course not everyone has convenient Internet access. Ted Neitzke, Badger Middle School principal, says the school provides paper copies to those families who request it but only 70 of the school’s 800 families have done so. Neitzke says about 88 percent of parents have access to e-mail.

In addition to streamlining communication, a paperless system can save a school on paper and printing costs. “With modern communication tools, it’s no longer necessary to rely primarily on sending notes home from schools in backpacks or have the expense of printing and mailing a school or district newsletter to parents,” Flynn notes.

Most importantly, Neitzke says, the e-mails let parents know what their child is doing in school and what grades they are receiving.

“When report cards went out, I used to get 10 to 20 calls from parents who were surprised by their children’s grades,” Neitzke recalls. “This has significantly cut down on this because parents know what their kids are getting now.”

Not Everyone is Online

Although many educators are excited about shifting to online communication strategies, Flynn says schools need to make sure they don’t leave residents without Internet access out of the loop.

“Districts should conduct periodic polls to determine the connectivity levels among the student population and to work closely with community centers and local libraries to provide access,” Flynn says. “In addition, some districts have developed programs to help support low-income families with both hardware and access fees.”

For school districts like Hudson, which enlist the services of the software company eChalk, it’s crucial to have a majority of students and parents connected at home.

Nancy Toll, director of technology with the Hudson School District, says a recent poll of Hudson’s high school students found 93 percent have Internet access at home. For those who don’t, they school’s media center is open to the public one night a week.

“People are becoming more comfortable with using technology as a communication tool,” says Toll, who has served as the district’s technology director for eight years. “We have gotten more and more hits on our Web site.”

However, according to a survey administered as part of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, there are still a number of Americans who do not use the Internet.

Of people 65 years and older, only 32 percent log online and a mere 40 percent of people who earn $30,000 or less a year use the Internet. Another study conducted in May by the same research institution found that only 49 percent of all Americans occasionally use modern communication “gadgetry” such as cell phones and the Internet.

The highest percentages of Internet users are the young and upper class. The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 87 percent of people 18-29 are cyberspace regulars and so are 82 percent of individuals who earn between $50,000 and $74,999.

Technology Takes Work

While many districts may be interested in reaching out to the community through newer forms of communication, doing so takes time, energy and money. The implementation of a strong communication plan starts with the school board (see page 22 “Board Member, Can you Really Communicate?”), often through its strategic plan.

It’s about making it a priority,” Toll says. “Here at Hudson, we have made communication with the community part of our strategic plan.”

In addition to recently hiring a communication specialist, the school board also formed a communication committee. And helping support these initiatives is a non-profit organization devoted to supporting the school district called Hudson Foundation.

“The Hudson Education Foundation is a great supporter of our schools,” Hudson School Board President Daniel Tjornehoj says, “Grants are submitted to the foundation from teachers, staff and administrators from the Hudson School District and many worthy projects are funded through the foundation that might not otherwise be funded through the district.”

However, a school district doesn’t need its own benefactor to join in on the communication software buzz. When it comes to price for programs, such as online grade books, Toll says prices have dramatically dropped. Still, for some school districts, any additional costs are hard to absorb.

“There are so many things that have the potential to save time for both school personnel and the public and do a better job of communicating,” says Edgar School Board President Sue Haupt, who is also the communications director for United Way of Marathon County. “But schools need the personnel to set up the systems and to maintain them. That doesn’t look likely under the current cost controls.”

Even districts that can afford new programs still need good old-fashioned commitment from its board. But Flynn says it’s worth the work.

“We are quickly approaching a new generation of parents that have been connected to the Internet since their teen years,” she notes. “It’s natural that these individuals are going to expect their children’s school to offer useful and timely information. Simply posting a lunch menu is no longer sufficient.”



Wisconsin School News
Shelby Anderson