All right.
Thank you, everyone, for joining us for Communications Committee this afternoon.
It is 5:00 on the 13th, and I am Stacy Winslow.
And I'm just filling in until we have a new board chair elected.
We did have new committee assignments for some of our committees, and Mr.
Rizzo is now on a different committee.
So if we could do a roll call, please.
We'll start with everyone in the room.
Like I said, I am Stacy.
Once I'm the superintendent, we can go to the right to Mrs.
Mimi. Maria, Mimi School board.
Erica Schmidt, School Board.
Michelle Agee Board Secretary.
Sarah Karpel, Supervisor of Community Relations and Engagement.
Teri Singer School Board Member.
Lindsey Cook School Board
and I see Legible online and Julie Goolsbee.
And I think that's all I see for our online folks today.
Okay.
All right.
So our first order of business is election
of a committee chair.
And I will hear motions
for nominations for anyone who would like to serve as our committee chair.
So I'll open that up for nominations. Is
there anybody who wants it.
Who knew.
Lindsay it?
I was pointing at you.
So nominate you to do it like I.
Will do it.
But if anybody else wants that, I do not want to stand in anybody's way.
But I would be happy to work with Sarah.
I nominate Maria.
Mimi, Thank you.
Second, second.
All those in favor.
Oh, I'll just run it now.
Yes, My.
Are there any other nominations?
Hearing on nominations are closed.
All those in favor of Maria Mimi say I, I and the opposed.
Okay.
Thank you. All right.
The approval of the summary minutes from
I'm assuming the last meeting.
Can I have a motion to approve the communications
and community engagement April 25th, 2022 minute meeting meeting minutes.
So move Lindsay clock second.
Erica Schmidt.
Is there any discussion,
all those in favor of approving the summary minutes say i i i.
The opposed motion carries unfinished business.
Sarah, do you have anything in unfinished
business?
I do not.
Okay. New business.
All right,
so we have two things today.
Let's start with the community engagement goals.
I will put them up on the screen in a minute, but just for some context,
after I've gotten a full school year and as a rule.
So I wrote up some community engagement
and communication strategic goals for us.
So just looking to share those today
and get some feedback on those. So
you'll see
here, it just started as part of our district plan.
We have a communication goal,
so the district will continue to review and re assign communication systems
pathways to ensure clarity, ease of access and open
lines of communications for all stakeholders.
Examine building and department communication platforms and expectations,
and develop common expectations, methods of communications,
and then provide opportunities with communication for parent engagement.
So of course, this expands further than my department.
But the second one definitely is for me and this team.
So I wrote out three goals I have for this,
for my role and for us as a district in terms of improving communications
not only with our families but with just overall
stakeholder people in the community, our teachers, our students.
So the first one is the commitment to make our website
accessible to all individuals in our community and to continue
to make improvements to ensure our web content is accessible for all audiences.
I don't know if any of you were in the last meeting, but we did go
pretty deep into accessibility and what that means
to make sure that not only is
it accessible to those who may be
use like a reader if they're blind or
or just, you know, are using their phone
as their primary method to access information on our website.
So we did purchase software
from a company that allows it it sweeps our Web site
in order to find accessibility issues.
And throughout the summer, I will be working on improving
and making sure that our website is as accessible as possible,
not only because it's the right thing to do, but because we have to do it.
So the deployment of silk tied is that software that I'm talking about.
I want to improve the accurate and complete descriptions of the graphics
on our websites and our social media platforms also allow for us
to put full, full descriptions in for people who do use a reader
and then utilize training during induction and training time
to inform professional staff on the importance of digital accessibility
in their communication with students parents and become
as they become increasingly digital.
So this can just mean making sure
that PDFs that they put up online are readable.
Sometimes they're just like a flat graphics.
So I want to make sure that we're doing stuff like that.
I've seen them in signatures recently, email signatures, so that you actually can
if a reader went through and tried to see that graphic, they wouldn't
be able to read it because it's just flat, if that makes sense.
So just things like that also maybe be utilizing
some training opportunities I get from like tied
with our teachers to teach them more about web accessibility.
So that's something I'm looking into.
The second point I
have is to create a better two way communication that seeks feedback
from the community about the wants and needs of receiving school closure.
Information, News Important events, and other information for our school
community.
The next point on our agenda is actually a survey about
school closures, important information,
urgent information, emergency information, how people like to receive that,
and also just to get a better understanding of how they access that.
So I'll go through that later.
I talked in the last meeting about a back to school communications hub
so that people can find everything in one place.
That's definitely feedback that I've seen throughout the year
that they don't know where to find things on our website.
So I think back to school is a good place to start with trying to reorganize.
And then I put updating communication, bringing it into the 21st century.
So maybe we can make like a download little file
that has like all our late starts, all of our days off, stuff like that.
And then lastly, I have enhanced community engagement
for our district via the website Social Media Board meetings, many events.
This includes members of the community that are parents or relatives of students
and those who are not, including local agencies or organizations. But
that may still benefit from participating in community news and events.
So looking at the traffic on our social media, what gets the most traction?
What do people like to see?
I can tell you they definitely like to see graduate photos.
That was very obviously very popular this weekend.
I was really happy with all the comments and and sharing.
Encourage and make it easier for teachers, coaches,
administration to contribute to our social media and ensure
a consistent content throughout the school year.
So that's something I'm working on over the summer
for when teachers come back to school is a way for them to submit
great content or invite me to participate and take the content for them
and then collaborate with other agencies that are involved in our community
and outreach to those
who are showing an interest in school events or district topics.
So that's something that Dr.
Winslow and I have been working on with
a postcard initiative, which
hasn't we haven't had to start yet, but we will
and that's it.
So if anyone has any feedback or discussion about my goals.
I'd love to hear it.
Can you print that off and give me a copy when you have a chance, please?
Absolutely.
I'm not sure. Can I attach this to the board agenda?
Okay. I can do that as well. Okay. Thank you.
No problem.
I am so sorry.
Go ahead.
Oh, I just had a question because the part of one of the goals
that was related to training for teachers on accessibility,
things like maybe digital calendars relevant to their classroom.
Is there any sort of requirement right now
that teachers have websites or is it more of a preference?
Every teacher does have a website.
Okay.
On our website I will tell you they're not highly utilized right now
because we are implementing other really great programs such as this on campus.
So they tend to flock more to that because there's a lot more dialog
that can happen within those platforms.
But it depends on the teacher.
Some teachers just have their contact
information and links to their canvas or receive a seesaw.
Others give you like a whole bio about themselves
and family photos and that it really just depends on the teacher.
We don't have a requirement for what they put up.
They just have to have something.
Okay.
No, but that you kind of answered my question
then to that at least at the very least, they might have links
to these other platforms where there is more information. Yes.
And that's something that when we hire new teachers myself, Mrs.
Landry and Ms..
Minnery, who's our tech coach, we all go through with the new teachers
to kind of tell them how to do it, how to access Blackboard, which is our website,
and what kind of stuff they can put up.
And we
have had some right now there's not a specific requirement
to link to your canvas or see saw page coming out of COVID when we know that
every single teacher has a canvas or CSR page, we we, we.
Will. Move towards doing that.
It will take a little bit of time to get everybody
the information and get them to do it, because it does seem like
that could have been like the comment about how not everything is in one place.
I wonder if that for some people is related.
If you know elementary level, it's like they have to look at seesaw
for this or the website for this.
So I like the idea of having it all in one place.
I agree it's kind of an overlap between us and curriculum for sure.
Just always good
coaches taught us
some ways to improve practices for sure.
Is a seesaw canvas for the little kids? Yes.
Okay. I would not know that. Thank you. Yes.
No, thank you for clarifying.
Sometimes these these words need assistance.
People know what they mean.
But yeah, it is the same,
I think.
I mean, this looks really good. Thank you.
And I think speaking for myself and the parents
that are a little more my age group where they've got kids,
you know, in high school, I mean, we're working our age group out
and the new ones coming in, they are very, very computer savvy.
So I am not that savvy.
We've all established that. But
so I just I like paper.
I like, you know, and
I think it
is more difficult for some parents
to, like you said, to access so much on the website.
Yeah.
And where it seems like it should be very easy
and very straightforward if it isn't for so many people.
I mean, I know last year, the year before, there was some feedback that,
you know, somebody wanted the school handbook or whatever
and they wanted to print a copy and they said, No, it's on online.
And they wouldn't give it to them.
But it's just it makes it difficult for some.
And I mean, again, this was two years ago,
so I'm not like harping on it, but that's some people just like paper.
It's just easier. They've grown up on it.
It's, you know. So
is that true?
Would we not print the handbook out if somebody wanted it?
Yeah, but should that like, I mean, it seems like
if somebody wanted it, we should print it out.
And I'm sure she explored more options.
She probably could have found that.
But she was told at the time with her
new that they it was online and they don't give them out.
So I don't know who, what, where, how.
But that was, you know, I'm quite sure she could have if she looked into it more.
But so, you know, and I know
at the end of the day, this is how we find things.
And it's it's easier, but there's just some of us.
So I guess my point is to make it either
very easy or to still have options here and there for, you know, I don't know.
I don't know how that would look.
I don't it's something to think about. Yeah. And
as you're talking, I'm thinking about the survey that I'm
planning on sending out about how parents like to receive communications.
And maybe I need to put in more about
or even just put it as an option, the multiple choice.
Like, do you prefer paper? Right?
We can't print everything. Sure. And sure.
There's obviously certain communications that need to go out
additionally when it's like a survey or whatever, but the school
handbook is an interesting one or
other forms.
Yeah, I'd have to think about it more. But is.
Yeah, yeah.
How do you tailor it?
Because I agree.
Like if somebody wants to handle it,
we should give it, we should provide them one.
Yeah.
But let's say, let's say out of all the parents
in the district, like 25 people, like how do you tailor
when you're saying you're asking people how they prefer things?
Because I agree.
I like things on paper,
but how do you not without creating a big administrate
and there's not an answer for this right now, today.
But that's what's starting to go through my mind.
Like, how do you keep that?
Like, not in a administrative nightmare, but
but get people things that they want if they do want them printed out.
And some people don't have access to printers, you know, like there's a whole.
Yeah, it's a lot to think about.
Maybe it's just having resources available in the office.
So we print out
maybe 25 handbooks and if someone calls, they can come and pick one up.
That's what I just made a note of.
The one thing that we would have to consider
that's kind of going through my head is that we were part
of putting the handbooks online, is making sure that they're dynamic
so that when something is changed or updated, it's done automatically.
So the person who has the hard copy one would not necessarily know.
Yeah, and I get that.
That's why, you know,
but it's just a thing that we would have to like,
you know, maybe when we update the handbook,
there's just a little notification that says
if you have a hard copy one, these four pages are now different, right?
I don't know.
I mean, I know like myself, like if I wanted a handbook, I probably would.
I would prefer that I would be able to find what I looking for there
instead of going into the website and searching it.
And yeah, it's just it's totally understandable.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I mean, that's my, that's, I'm an example, but
yeah, it's something to think about.
Absolutely.
As we move into the next school year,
I think it would make a valuable survey question too, especially
like with like pertinent information about like a school calendar.
I love everything digital, but that school calendar
that we must have got at kindergarten registration is hanging there
and I couldn't live without a paper copy of that because it's just and so or
print out of how to access seesaw or you know, maybe just imagery.
So it would be interesting
to see if you posed that to the community what the feedback might be.
Okay,
I have a
question relating your social media goals
and most of my questions resolve or revolve around digital safety.
And do you have some kind of a rubric or a guideline that you're following
for what level of personal identifying information of minors
you're putting on a public social media site like with the
with the individual student recognitions, you're putting first and last name
of a student paired with their photograph where they go to school, their grade,
their extracurricular involvement and their interests.
And I'm just wondering, is there something that you're
following for guidelines in that
we have a do not photo policy
which is given to every parent when they sign up their
kid in our district, whether it's through kindergarten or when they register later,
that would be
where parents have the option to opt out.
And then I know for the
I know this doesn't cover all of them, but I know for our student of the month,
they are signing
their parents are signing a separate agreement
that I can post their stuff on the Internet.
But most of this comes through teachers and
like if they wanna feel like an award
there was an example an athlete
it all if they're not on the
do not photo policy we have
always as a district posted information if they have won an award or in an event
or whatever the situation might be, have you always posted it
on a social media platform that's viewable by any of the 8 billion people
on the planet who have Internet access persons
published within the school community?
In my timeline, yes.
And I know Dan, my predecessor, did as well.
I don't know how far back in his like I can go with
how long ago we started doing that though.
Okay.
So with the like with the do not photo policy.
So on the registration form, the prompt is allow
for the release of student photo or interview
with like no indication of where the photo is being released.
You know, what constitutes an interview and then the dropdown box that populates
is photo allowed or a place by child on the do not photograph list.
So it's now the only thing a parent can say is
you're allowed to take a picture of my kid or you're not.
So parents don't have an indication of where the photos are being released to.
So I called in at the office about
having a child not
be put on social media, and they said the only way was to have them on the gene.
That photograph this.
But they told me that would also out my kid out of see-saw.
So through CSA, my kids teacher can send me a picture privately
through a message like a message system through just
that between just a teacher and a parent.
Or they can post it on a journal which is viewable by the class.
But my students teacher has always sent privately to each parent.
And so that's a really effective means of communication
that increases communication with my kid and with my teacher and said I have to opt
out of something private like that in order to opt out of social media.
I was wondering if you would consider a differentiated photo release,
and I didn't even think to ask the office if put put on the photo,
do not photograph list.
Also the student out of the yearbook or the fifth grade slide show?
I don't know. But
so there's kind of two facets to this question of is it wise?
Is it prudent to be doing it all?
And then the other flipside is for parents who don't feel it's wise,
would you consider having a way for them
to opt out of it and
for the is it wise at all,
would you consider maybe consulting a law enforcement officer
or lawyer who specializes or who's dealt a lot with child exploitation
to have them kind of review what we're doing
and whether or not it's prudent because it is explainable,
like if people know the extracurricular schedule through the website
and they know what extracurricular this kid is in there
accessible or even like trying to Facebook friend to kid
through the website.
So for example,
when the student letters of intent were signed
for the athletes, there were a couple of members
of the community who reached out and said, Hey,
I went to that school to observe, to talk to your families
like super appropriate, went through this Facebook website
and wanted to contact the families, not the individual student.
But I think it just goes to show that through what was posted,
strangers who previously had no knowledge of these students or no interest in them
now have a desire to connect with them because of what was posted online.
And I think it would be wise to consider that if we are creating that interest
in those with positive intent, we're also possibly creating that interest
of those of malcontent.
And those of malcontent aren't going to seek out the kids through the website.
They're going to seek them out. Otherwise.
And this is like a relatively new trend
and like the like school Facebook post postings, student stuff.
And I think with most new trends, policies tend to be written
like reactionary after something bad happens
and then people realize, oh, we could have prevented this.
And so I just wonder if we could seek out some guidance for that.
And like, is there a safer way to share, like specifically
within the school community what we want to be sharing?
So maybe, maybe a solution,
if you considered a problem, perhaps a solution that might be
considered is having Ms..
Capella create an account and see where she can individually message student
happenings and then through whatever the high school one was the similar.
I'm sorry I didn't catch the name and I you just said it,
but being able to communicate, do you send those photos privately
just within the school community instead of
much larger than the school community, which I think maybe we're not considering?
We're sending
we're sending a public social media site is viewable by anyone.
So those are my concerns.
Thank you, Ms..
Gable, for bringing all that up with Stacey Winslow.
I think that it probably has been quite some time
since we reviewed the Do Not photo
paperwork.
And I think you bring up a really good point
about what exactly it is that you're giving permission for.
And I think it would be fine for us to work with our solicitor
to look at how we update that in a in a way
that is a little more explicit
about what parents are choosing or not choosing.
And to your
point about being on the do not photo list, I don't think would
prevent your your students teacher from interacting with you on see
so I think she might want it done as being on the do not photo list
do it keeps any kind of public photo from being used.
So like if like say
Pennlive were here taking a picture of the reading parade, for example,
we would examine those photos or we would tell them, like you cannot wait.
Basically what we do is you can't take a picture of a kid's face.
It has to be something that's very nondescript.
But it's interesting.
If I pennlive has a very a comparatively
small potential viewership to Facebook.
So it's just interesting.
Right. And Ms..
Carpal does not post any pictures of students who are on the
do not photo list, but it does not prevent them from being in yearbooks or from,
you know, being part of a fifth grade slideshow or anything like that.
That's used internally.
It's I mean, I can say that I added my student to the do not photograph list
and they were still photographs, but I know that it's difficult
in large group photo or a smaller group set to specifically have.
Thank you.
Yeah, of course.
Thank you for bringing that up.
I'm not sure how this works if I'm not in person,
but I wanted to also raise a concern or
to recommend
that the first part of what Leah mentioned be looked into and to see
what a good policy is for what should be posted.
I don't even post my child's school or teacher
name in my own social media, which I keep
fairly locked down.
Every time I hit 400 friends, I start to look and pare back down.
So I think that, you know, there's a lot of good
in what we are brought up, and I think it's worth
revisiting so that we're not in a situation where there is a child who is
is contacted
and lured away because of what somebody found online,
which those of you who have been in the district for long enough
know that we have had students end up in places
with nefarious people,
not because of the district's involvement, but just in general.
So I think it's a wise move to reevaluate the entire policy
and what is shared.
I think we'll look into that policy
and see see what adjustments we can make going forward.
I appreciate your concerns.
This is Terry Singer.
I think it's covered in the goal related to communicating
and interacting with other agencies and organizations
and maybe something like this is already done.
But what I was wondering is if I'm recalling Dr.
Shaw's comments about the community College Harrisburg Area Community College. And
I guess that we weren't utilizing
that to the extent of maybe the investment that we were making in it.
And I remember at the time there being a conversation that, gee,
we should do a little bit more to publicize
what that investment
is for and how it can benefit our kids, you know, our constituents.
Same thing with the Dauphin County Technical School.
You know, we've talked about we're on the low side,
you know, of the number of students that that go there.
And maybe that's just the way it's going to be.
But I guess what I'm wondering is if
the situations
where we have resources that could be
beneficial, maybe capital area,
intermediate unit, just services and
and offerings that are,
you know, parents and community members
could benefit from knowing about, you know, maybe it's a monthly feature
or something on external resources or services. Just
that thought was crossed my mind.
I know we had talked before about how to
raise awareness around Hacc and
Dauphin County Tech.
Yeah, yeah.
It's something that fits in somewhere.
Yeah. Yeah.
We do a flier, like if you have contacts at the either of these,
we do definitely do a flier that goes out to parents.
It's it's up to the organization or the business to to request.
But it does go out to the parents on Saturdays.
So that's an option.
But we can look at other like a newsletter or.
You know and related to that
and again, I don't know how this would fit or if it does
and I don't know what we may have done to date on this, but if there's
a way we can communicate on
our website about the,
you know, what we do,
what we're doing educationally here within our district
has opposed to what students who
who choose cyber and charter school options
receive
just to promote, I guess
somehow, some way
the district
as an enrollment of choice so we can attract back
you know some of our charter and cyber may be perfectly appropriate,
you know, for X number of children and it may not make a difference,
but just some out of contrast and
and compare
and try to
illustrate and show people, you know,
why education being enrolled in
our district is as valuable and, you know, beneficial for their children.
Yeah, we've looked into some of what that can look like.
There are a couple of pieces of information examples that are out there.
It's it's something that
to do it right would probably be
a fair expense.
And I do want to be careful that
I love this committee and I love that Sarah wants feedback, but
I want to be careful that we're not adding tasks to her job description
in in this committee.
There's a there's she's got a limited amount of time
and there are some major priorities
that we have to focus on before we move to other things.
One of them being accessibility piece, because that's something that we could
get in a lot of trouble for if we don't have it cleaned up.
So I think there are some really great ideas here
and there's some important policy to take a look at.
And I'm not opposed to doing something
with advertising for what we offer versus what cyber school offers.
We don't have an advertising budget
and to really get it out there and it's great to put something on the website
and it's designed to put like video or whatever on social media,
but to really reach the people that we want to reach,
we would have to be looking at billboards and TV and,
you know, that kind of advertising.
And that is not something that that we have at our disposal.
I think it's just an important thing to consider.
This is turn signal.
Again, I don't remember the delta between
the amount of funds that was going out for charter
and cyber students pre COVID and what's going out now.
But I thought it was maybe 250,300 in that range and now it's up to a million. So
it might be something that there would be,
you know, board support for in terms of an expenditure.
We're talking about the budget tonight.
And anyway, just a thought.
No, thank you.
I appreciate it.
Is there any other feedback
around the goals?
Okay.
We'll look into some of those things we've talked about.
Thank you.
The next thing on my agenda
is the
the family communication questionnaire.
So I wanted to divide this into three sections.
One is being like general information in this section.
I was looking just to get an access
or just understand how people are accessing our information.
So what's their primary source of news? Is it Facebook?
Is that our website?
Are they using their phones or they're using their computers
in just trying to understand, just the general use
of our website, our our all of our communications, I should say,
and how they feel the frequency is going and so forth,
and then allow them to get feedback if they want to, to increase or decrease.
The next section is emergency communications.
So in this section, I, I want to
understand how people like to
get the most important information, in my opinion,
would be like a clothing school closure or another emergency.
How what are they going to look at first?
Is it a text message directing them to the website?
Is it our Facebook?
Is it a phone call?
I just want to understand what people prefer, where they look to first
so that I can use that information to actually develop just a short little
what to expect an emergency communications like a one pager.
So and and to also go forward next year
and not run into some of the roadblocks I ran into this year.
And one of them being that we found that depending on the time of day,
that snow day email was sent out,
it could take up to 20 minutes for a snow day email to go out.
And if at 6:00 in the morning, that's too long, in my opinion.
So if it is quicker to send a text that directs you to the website
that has all the information and that can get out within a minute,
I want to kind of
see how people feel about that and also explain the the 20 minute
email issue that I was running into and just knowing that what do they prefer?
So I have some questions about what is the first place you would prefer to get it
and what are some other
options if you didn't get there first, What were your like top three choices?
And then also
one thing I found interesting this year
going through it is I noticed that people did not
or I shouldn't say I got some comments on Facebook
that the information was on Facebook before
they had received their email as a parent, and some people didn't appreciate that.
So I did include a question in there saying,
Do you prefer to have the email or the information to you
first before it goes on the website and goes on there on social media?
So I just wanted to understand that a little better.
It's a lot of yes no and ranking questions, just so I can kind of gather that data
and give
us some kind of concrete information visualization at the end of it.
And then the last one is just non-emergency communications.
And I think this is where the print one would be a great place to put.
So this includes
just districtwide information such as the calendar, back
to school information forms, changes in policy.
How do they prefer to be contacted again?
How do they feel the frequency of those communications have been so far?
Do they want to increase, decrease?
Do they prefer
like a once a week newsletter?
Do they prefer as it happens?
So I have some questions in there about that.
I'm happy to share the survey as I have it right now
and I'm hoping to send it out in the next couple of weeks.
I just didn't want it to get lumped in with the end of year
mass communications that were going out, especially if you had a senior.
So I wanted to
kind of let the dust settle and then send this out and give people
until August to fill it out and send out some reminders.
And I'm hoping that the survey really gives us a chance to refine
some of the processes that were handed down to me
and maybe make things a little bit smoother, make it less
hectic on a snow day and go from there.
Can you explain the process with the snow day?
There's something called is it one call? Yep.
So now phone calls, the texting, the email and then posting.
Just talk us through why and what do they get first?
Does everybody instantly get a text?
I'm going to join it.
So we have one call now.
It's going to move over to a different platform,
but it should look almost identical to a parent.
But how we
were doing it for this school year is I sent the mass email out to everyone,
K to 12, and I also included like agencies in our area.
So like anyone that's getting transportation from ICE,
the police department, our department.
The first thing you. Do, that's the very few.
Are physically doing.
Yes. These tasks, yes, I am doing all these tasks and Stacey, Eric, Dr.
Winslow and I were pretty proactive about having things pre-written.
If we saw weather coming in, we would have things prerecorded and pre-written
and I would make up a graphic for Facebook.
But so the first thing that went out
was the email.
The next thing would be the phone call and the text message.
The text messages are instant.
It will
do all all of our phone numbers in like a minute.
The emails sometimes take 20, but it can be five.
And those go out to not just the primary guardian
but both guardians on the students account.
Same thing with phone call.
They're usually pretty quick too.
5 to 10 minutes after I get a confirmation that all of that's been sent out,
I put a pop up on the website.
So if you go to Hershey Dot K-12, USA, it's right in your face.
I put a
a graphic with that basically information
on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
And I also send it to for our four
local news agencies, which is FOX 31, WJR, CBS
21 and I forget the fourth one, but I have a list.
So it goes to four news agencies.
So that's the order. We're doing it.
And now if it were up to me, I would send a text message
first that directs them to the website because I think that is the quickest way
to get the information out.
But I want to see what people what people want to see as well,
and then have an
email and a phone call and Facebook and all of that go out as well.
But the very first thing I do,
the quickest way for me to get the information out
would be a text message directing them to the website.
I have a question about that because these are emergency communications.
Is there a differentiation in emergency because snow day?
Yes, it's an emergency, but like a lockdown,
like a school lockdown would be a true emergency.
Is the protocol the same for how the text message
would always go first or the way that the information is being relayed?
I wasn't handed down
that order of things, but I would probably use
I would just be using my best judgment in sending a text message or a phone call
because that's the quickest way to God.
I wonder if, like a parent sees this survey information
and kind of like that's where their brain might go right now.
DID Yeah, I did give like a descriptor at the top of the section
that explains what it is.
But you're right, emergency
communication is anything that's like you need to know now.
Yeah, because it's like snowing.
I'll look at the website, but you know, you're not going to look at the website
throughout the day, see if the school is on a lockdown or anything like that.
So I just wonder if.
Right?
Yes, we would absolutely send out a I think a text message
would be the first thing I would send out directing them to the website,
because that is something that I know both go out instantly and
I would
not send an email out if we were in a lockdown,
or at least not right away.
That would be a follow up thing, I think, with more information.
So we are going to a new platform
with one call now and the emails.
Is that what she said at the beginning of this?
We are going to a new platform for email, text and phone calls.
It's Blackboard, It's who runs our website.
Mr. Tredinnick had already signed on to it before I had started,
so we're just in the process.
We just finished actually with the help of Mr.
and Mr.
I. Hello to
migrate all of our information.
So it's actually going to be
a little more streamlined on the back end because we have every bus route now.
It's all divided up
and we also have all our employees in a little more organized fashion.
But for a parent perspective, it's going to look almost the same.
They're going to get their emails and their text and their phone number,
and it's all going to still come from the same no reply, chat,
email address and phone number. Right.
Thank you, sir.
You're welcome.
All right.
That's all I had.
Do we have any district updates.
As far
as what we're working on with communications?
So that's it right here.
I'm not sure anything on the agenda, so I don't know.
That's a big question now.
So I think I had already shared with the board, but anybody
who would be listening from the public wouldn't necessarily know that we did.
Sarah attended a virtual conference and then shared several the sessions with me.
And one of the ideas that we pulled away from that was
how to further
engage people who speak, for example, in school board meetings.
And we so we had postcards made
thanking people for for speaking and giving them the opportunity to reach
out to me in particular if they wanted to have further conversation.
So since we had those printed and ready to go, we have not had a public comment,
but I'm guessing we might tonight.
Yeah.
So yeah, so we're we're excited to them a try and see what it does.
We did also send out
a survey to students in charter schools,
particularly wanting to target students in cyber charter.
We have just over 100 students right now who are enrolled.
We got 19 responses.
The great majority of which who do not wish to talk about it further,
and two of whom are at CASA, which, you know,
that's they just to me, that's like going to Dauphin County Technical School.
That's offering a completely different educational program than than what we can
offer here and would certainly not try to convince people to leave Paso
to come back here.
It was something that districts agreed to whenever it opened
20 years ago or so.
So I will be we have administrative retreat this week,
but while I'm there, I'm going to have Michelle reach out to the folks who
are interested in learning more and talking
to set up appointments to talk with them next week.
So we are
trying with this survey,
ask why they left or just if they were interested in coming back.
Both. Okay.
Both.
It had what their concerns and
and whether or not they were interested in coming back
and if they wanted to talk about it at all.
I think the the postcards really good.
I think it makes you look more accessible,
like I know you're open to conversations, but maybe people don't always get that
in that follow up postcards. Really good idea.
Like, Hey, you can call me.
And one of the things that we've talked about is how hard it is
during public comment to not interact and for people to I mean, to
to truly know that we are hearing you and we do care about what you have to say.
And this is an opportunity to to have some actual dialog on it
as opposed to just looking at us all sitting here and then walking away.
Over not listening.
And it was unnerving. Yeah, Yeah.
And one of the things we had talked about as well is
how do we engage people who don't necessarily have a student here
and we do get those people at public comment.
So hopefully that that helps
open up lines of communication and the world will get around.
Yeah, and that is something that we as part of our comp plan goals too is how to
to further engage
community members who don't necessarily have a student in the buildings
and trying to figure out we haven't figured out
exactly how to learn more about
what people want to engage with.
While it is something that is on our radar and that we continue to explore
and have conversations about, I know that we do,
you know, we get a lot of community that come to the musicals, for example,
and I think that's a really great way to reach out to folks, especially
some of our senior citizens who really enjoy coming to your show.
It's very affordable and it's great to see kids doing cool things.
But how do we reach,
you know, more people with with with more of the things that are going on here?
Because it is our kids do do really cool stuff.
Basketball games are big.
A lot of people come out of high school come basketball.
When I was first on the board, I remember we went to
I was with Joe and I and Dan and we went to the Mueller Center.
I did. I was there for that. Yeah.
So that was a long time, but that was so much fun.
It was nice, Yeah.
Yeah.
To talk because and I would imagine with tonight that there will be
some people in that demographic that will have, you know, some concerns.
But for sure, Yeah.
So especially now that, you know, there's more openness but
moving a little out of the COVID environment,
hopefully we'll be able to reconnect with some of those spaces.
Also, like I would love to bring back the business leaders breakfast.
You know, there are just different different things
that were very valuable connections that we learned
lot from in our community that we lost during during COVID.
What is that?
I don't remember.
The business leaders breakfast.
It was I want to say it was twice a year.
Business businesses in the local area were in for breakfast at the middle school,
and we would do a little presentation on something new that we were doing.
Like I know there was a STEM presentation, I think there was something on drones
one time,
but then it would center around,
What do you need from our kids when they come to work for, you know?
And that's where we learned a lot about.
That's why we started actually working on social emotional learning
skills way before COVID, because that was the feedback that we got
kids need to employees need to be able to collaborate.
They need to be able to deal with conflict appropriately.
They need to be creative thinkers, they need to
be critical thinkers.
So it was less about any particular.
Textbook.
Skill and a lot more about how you interact with other human beings.
And that's very. Well-attended.
Very well attended.
Oh yeah, they were actually I mean, they were fun.
Like we would, you know, each administrator would pick
a table to sit at and kind of facilitate the conversation.
After the presentation was done, I enjoyed them a lot.
It's also how we made some of our connections for internships.
That's a good one.
Thank you.
Of course.
Is there any public comment online?
There's no one in the audience
No. Okay.
Is there anybody else?
I would like to add anything
saying nothing.
Okay.
I would like to have a motion for adjournment.
So move Lindsey Cook
second.
Erica Schmidt.
Okay. Thank you.
The meeting is adjourned at 549. Thank you, everyone.