Okay, So
welcome to the April 25th, 2022
Communications and Community Engagement Committee meeting.
As we look at the agenda here,
we are missing Miss Erica Schmidt tonight.
And I'd like a motion to have Kathy Secours
sit in as a temporary board member.
So move Lindsay to second.
Maria. Mimi, a discussion
so moved.
Thank you, Kathy.
All right, so what we'll do,
we'll go around the room and just make sure that we have our name
and then whatever our position is here on this committee.
So Mike Rizzo, board member.
Kathy Sick, our board member.
Stacy Winslow Superintendent.
Lindsay Drew Board member.
Maria Miami. Board member Julie.
Will speak to this advisor.
Rebecca Wallace is an advisor.
Michele Agee Board Secretary.
Sara Karp Supervisor, Community Relations and Engagement.
Is there anyone on
this attending virtual that would like to introduce themselves?
Leah Global Citizen Advisor. Hi.
Thank you.
Anyone else?
Okay.
Thank you.
So next on the agenda is the election of committee chairperson.
Can I get a nominations for committee?
Chairperson I'd like to nominate Mike Rizzo.
Second.
Any discussion?
Any other nominations?
All right.
So moved.
Don't have to do anything now if we have to vote.
Is it a recall?
All those in favor of the vote?
All those in favor say I, I anyone opposed the motion carries.
Thank you, Mr.
Rizzo, for being willing to continue as chair.
Yeah.
Think you're welcome.
Actually, remember. That choice you had.
Having great conversation.
So that's good.
So also, the Next-Gen item is the approval
of the summary minutes from the nine 2721 meeting.
Can I get a motion to approve the summary minutes?
So moved Maria May 2nd.
Lindsay drew. Any discussion.
All in favor say. I.
Motion carries.
Oh, any any opposed
motion carries.
All right. So unfinished business.
Just a report on a citizen advisor training 2021 22.
So at the in November
of last year, I completed the training session
for 11 new citizen
advisors, and everyone did attend.
There was one that abstained, but he had been a member prior
to coming on, so he had already had the training
so that we completed
all of our efforts for 2021, 22
here.
Any questions?
I just want to say thank you to you for taking that on.
I know you would become chair of this committee,
but a minute beforehand and we're new to the board. And
it was something that, you know, we had developed over a couple of years.
So thank you for that leadership and initiative.
And for those that were may have been in the training.
Any any thoughts or ideas going forward for training?
Was it comprehensive enough that you could understand?
Yeah, I thought it was good.
I think my only issue and it might just.
Have been a product of when I was
included in the program is just
it was a little bit of a short notice for the training.
But other than that.
I thought it was great.
I really appreciated how many options you gave us for taking the training
to fit with our schedule, and it also allowed the training I took.
It was, I believe me, and one or two other people, but it really allowed
for being able to ask questions and get through things in a more
kind of personal way, just to be able to be open and say, I don't understand.
That helped me.
Now I appreciate the feedback.
And yes, it was a short timing, but it was one of those moments
that you kind of have to get started before you get started.
So I do apologize for that.
And some of that may just been my newness.
Any other discussion in regards to training?
Okay.
So now move on to new business.
Excuse me.
In new business, we do have several topics here today
that we're going to talk about in the in the primary person for that is Ms..
Karpel will be explaining some of the things that we've had
discussions on as far as building the agenda.
First up is new business is the selected software
and this is the accessibility software.
And really this is informational.
This was presented to the board for approval several, several weeks back,
but she would like to present it to the communications team
and kind of get your your feedback.
I did only post the presentation today.
So the presentation you'll see will
also be on the agenda manager for you to review and in the future.
Okay.
Thank you.
So like Mike said, this was presented to the board about a month ago
and it was approved.
It is
basically so tied is a piece of software that will sweep our website and go through
and find accessibility issues,
broken links, stuff like that to make the website more accessible.
And I'm just going to have
a quick presentation about why I feel that accessibility is important
work for us to do in our district right now, especially with the website
being the main hub of everything that we do here
and where parents and committee members.
Go to first.
So web accessibility.
So Web content accessibility guidelines, which are often referred to WCA, G2
is developed through a W3C process, incorporate
with individuals and organizations around the world
with goal of providing a single shared standard for web content accessibility
that meets the needs of individuals, organizations, and in government.
Internationally, accessibility is not just about disability, but inclusivity.
And it's important that our website and the information contained on
our website is accessible to all individuals
in our school community, including those with disability.
So not just for people with disabilities, but for everybody in the community.
But of course, those that have disabilities.
We do want to make sure
they have just as much access to the website as anybody else.
So these are some of the
things that WCG focuses on.
Some of the ones I want to focus on specifically are, of course,
compatibility.
Do you get the same experience on your phone as you do on your computer?
People access things on all sorts of different ways.
We wanna make sure that's obviously accessible navigation and predictability.
You'll often see people saying like,
I don't know where to find this form, so we're going to just go through
and relook at that readability and clarity.
So things like
font colors on different fonts, on different color backgrounds,
while it might look cool, it is not necessarily easily
easy for certain people to read or anybody to read.
And then having alternative descriptions.
So for those that are visually impaired, photographs have descriptors
underneath them or that they can use with their software that they use for their
specific need.
So these are just some of the things that we're working on.
But I thought this is a nice little layout of how
these guidelines work.
So we're going to be deploying the software.
I mentioned called Loctite,
and it goes across the all the pages of our website.
We have about 4000 pages on our website, which include, of course,
different documents and forms with the go through, make sure they're readable
by certain softwares that do readability for people that are visually impaired.
It also includes like teacher websites, sports websites,
calendars, all sorts of any page that's on the website.
So selected will check for those accessibility
issues on forms and PDFs and color contrast and more.
It's also going to check for simple things like spelling, grammar,
user experience, broken links with having 4000 pages.
Sometimes it's hard to keep track of where all those links are,
and when things change, it's hard to make sure that they all get changed.
So this is going to help me and people who do the Web site
with making sure it's the best possible user interaction.
The software simplifies complex
accessibility guidelines and prioritizes tasks to be corrected,
and this allows GSD to create a better and more accessible way for our community
to access important information on our website.
So moving forward,
you're going to begin to see changes on our website.
This is something that's going to begin in the summer of 2022,
but it's going to be ongoing as people who have access to the website
make changes for the next school year.
As I make changes for the next school year, I can tell you one of the big things
that I'm going to it might be the most obvious change to people.
It's a small change, but right now on our website,
all the banners are an orange and they have a white font in there
like headers on our website.
I'm going to change that
to like a navy blue, because right now that is failing in our accessibility
because that is not readable for everyone.
Those are just some references.
I got documents and some information from.
Does anyone have any questions?
It's just a quick overview.
This one.
See, thank you for taking this initiative and I know I mentioned it
at the board meeting when it was approved, but this is a really big
liability for any company or organization
to make sure that their website is compliant.
And I think being a school district, it's even more important
so that all students and taxpayers and residents can access
equitably, you know, to the website.
So thank you for for taking this on.
I know the website has been like a huge work in progress
and we're moving in a really great direction on it.
Awesome.
Yes, it is the right work to do, but it's also something as a government website
we need to do because we could be audited and find ourselves with. A.
Heap of work to have to go back and prove things.
So just trying to save, save that as well as do the right thing in line
with our district goals.
Now, will this continue to survey the site once changes are made
so that if something falls out of compliance?
Yeah. Yep.
So it will run a full sweep of the website automatically once a week
and I can go and actually like force it to run as well.
But I feel like once a week is probably good and we will renew this contract.
If it goes well, it will be a yearly renewal. Right.
Thank you.
I pulled up the website.
When you said about the white on the Navy blue.
Now explain what you mean by all that. Yeah.
So let me pull up an example here.
So if you were to
go to our district homepage and you see how it's a school board up at the top,
you just click on school board.
It. Should
open into a new page and it crossed the top of that one page.
It says about school board or school board or school
directors overview in that orange banner and the font is white
that is failing in terms of accessibility right now
because the color contrast isn't strong enough.
So if we made it white font with a navy blue bar, that is a strong enough contrast
for people that have some visual impairments, for example,
that answer your question.
So then the only.
Software that I've ever heard of is is Jaws.
Have you heard of Jaws?
I have not. I looked into some other softwares.
I did not come across Jaws.
That's for people who are blind and my dad has it.
So when you were saying that this is compatible, then
does this what you're implementing recognize
that somebody's computer has Jaws and it may Or is that like to I'm
just curious zapper removed so
it is jaws a type of software that kind of overlays
and reads through the screen reader Yeah so this would
this software is going to flag
anything that the screen reader is not going to understand.
So things like picture descriptions.
So if they can't
see the pictures, there's a description that's in the background
that that software would then go in and read the stuff, the
the description of that photo in the background out loud.
That's with no experience with Jaws.
I'm guess that's the.
Program. Behind it.
Like three kids sitting at around desk reading a book like.
Yes, exactly.
And a caption because it's obvious.
Okay. Yes, exactly.
So it might not be written on the screen for, you know, a.
Normal.
I should say normal would like average user TV seen, but
it would be in the background for another type of software to pick up.
So what selected is doing is going and finding all of those things.
And then it also has the option to
imitate different types of accessibility needs so that we can see
or hear what other people who are using those softwares are experiencing.
So this is one of those things that has really
grown as a need as
website technology has advanced because previously when you had like a
HTML code that was just straight line text code,
it was a lot easier for any software to do.
But as we move into this digital age of having so many different type
mediums and, you know, slash players and videos and pictures
and so many websites are now very image
rich compared to text,
it's become more important to make sure that the
accessibility is there with embedding in the descriptions of the photos
so that a reader like John's would be able to give the description,
the verbal description of all of the images that they cannot see.
So we'll start doing that on social media as well.
Instagram and Facebook have have descriptor.
You can add a descriptor.
And so that's something that we'll begin doing to.
I have a bunch of questions.
Okay. I'll do my best to answer them.
So which level.
Of WCAG are. You?
What is.
The goal?
Is a triple A OR Right now we're only required
to go to A by
the government requirement.
I know that in all the demos I got from various companies,
the goal it's very hard to get to 100% compliance,
but sitting somewhere in like the 90% range
would probably be my goal to a and then as we get
that cleaned up and get on a good footing, we can start to go further than that.
I think right now we're only at like a 60 what they did, like a 100 page
grab and a sweep for my demo, and that was what we were at.
So I'll be quick.
Okay.
So somewhere in there you mentioned that it was flagging language too.
So certain types of language, will it flag things like see.
And. Master and enable and disable, which are in the gray area.
Right.
These are all words that are part of inclusive language that are being stripped
along with. Target.
Fitness hang and other words that are.
Part of. Language that is no longer.
Inclusive.
Mostly I'm concerned with things like, see, you will see this.
You will see that the language should.
Be select.
Or click.
So I'm just curious to see if it's going. To.
Outline those issues too.
That's an interesting question.
I know that the software allows us to actually write our own guidelines
so we could put in things like you will see and like
have it basically it's like a find when you have a document
and it's just going through the website
and finding those things and then we can adjust it.
So that's interesting.
It's not something I had thought about, but that's a really good
I like suggestion or something to be aware of is like inclusive language.
I'm happy to help you if you want to chat offline.
I have a whole big long dictionary at this point.
Okay. Along with yeah.
Wait lists, blacklist, it's okay, etc..
So yeah, that could be a good summer summary project to look into.
Thank you. Yeah.
I think that was it.
Because you addressed my last question on social media.
Okay. Thanks, Julie. Yeah,
I don't have nearly as technical questions.
My knowledge base is not as large as Julie's in this area.
So just to clarify, this basically just does a sweep
and identifies the problems and then the school board or you are
responsible for going in and fixing.
That's correct. Yeah. Okay.
And then my second question, and this might not be specific to this
software, but in general
for the website inaccessibility,
are there any tools, does this do anything
with other languages, non-native English speakers?
Does it check to make sure there's
different forms for them?
This language or.
This tool is not one that we would be using for colleges, but
Blackboard, which is who hosts our website,
does have some language like you are able to. To.
Move the website over into different languages already.
Okay, so will it be able to check for accessibility in.
Regards to that?
I don't believe they do, unfortunately. I'm sorry.
It's very faint.
Sorry.
So is the website automatically translated into the other languages?
Yeah.
And it uses.
Yeah, exactly.
Sorry, I do have one more question.
That's okay.
Aside from what the software is doing, is there a unity?
Like is there a user acceptance criteria or is there a group of people
who test the website to hit these different audiences or a virtual not?
I am the main person who does all the website work and
we are going to be planning part of the package.
This is actually some training and since I'm the only really one of maybe
three people that will get trained on this, they did
offer to do accessibility training for some teachers if they were interested,
so that
that will be more broad. Like how how
accessibility, web accessibility, digital accessibility works. And
I would love to encourage teachers to do that
because they do have websites like Seesaw and Canvas
and they use our district website to make their own websites.
And I would love to have just a basic understanding of how it works
and go from there and hopefully we can get more buy in and involvement from there.
But I don't have a group of people right now, but I will utilize the,
the, the part of their program that allows us to imitate different
visually impaired hearing impaired stuff like that,
so that I can do my own testing.
Sure. Okay.
No problem.
Sarah.
That conversation made me think of something a couple of years ago
when we first started talking about upgrades to the district website,
we had looked at the fact that when you go
the elementary schools, probably the best example
there were links on the elementary school
website that went to off site
sites that are more blogged blog type sites. Yes.
And at the time
it was not really within the purview of the board,
but some of the feedback that we gave was that we felt it was a bit
concerning to have non district sponsored websites,
you know, being used like a Wix site or,
you know, one of those.
Has there been any consideration given
to trying to bring those in because then we'll still.
Have.
Sites being used by buildings or teachers
that are not being swept
for accessibility by the software?
It is something I'm thinking about because we do still have that.
I know our libraries
and our finance offices are probably the biggest people that are using that
just because they don't feel comfortable with a blackboard.
So I'm been trying to think about how we can get them trained properly.
Unfortunately, backward training is kind of expensive.
So is that something
I do or but one of the things I can do
is add their websites to selected because they did.
I don't think I'm going to hit the page count that I have 5000 pages I can sweep.
I don't think we're going to hit that.
So I might be able to add their.
Their off. Of site websites.
But the long term goal is to bring all of that back on to the website.
It's just not there yet.
Okay.
And does it reach into like the handbooks are all on Google Docs
that are either embedded into our website or are links to?
Does it also get to that or only things that are,
you know, fully living on the web pages?
Yeah, right now it is.
So any PDFs that lived on our web site, it would do that, but
it wouldn't have access because we have a lot of that stuff
like a log in basis.
So yeah, but there are all really great things to consider going forward as we.
Push. Through this new initiative.
It's like a can of worms.
I know it really, as you start thinking about things and all of a sudden
it's yeah, it is a can of worms, but it's good work.
So thank you. We'll get there.
Do you have a timeline of cause I know you said this summer
they're going to start reviewing.
There's 4000 pages and you seem to be primarily
the person who will be going in and making the changes.
That seems like a lot of work.
Is there is there a timeline of set goals that you're trying to reach with?
I I'm hoping that I can do a lot of work over the summer when it's a little quieter
in between closing out the year and getting started for the next year.
It's going to be ongoing.
So I'm going to my goal right now is to try and do all those main pages
that we visit the most often.
First.
And then go through there and then continue to sweep.
I'm hoping maybe by Christmas I can have it
in a pretty good spot, but.
I. Haven't seen the total results of our website, so I really don't.
They're still important right now, so I don't know what I'm getting
into exactly, to be fair.
Thank you though.
So are there.
Additional resources that will be at your disposal
because some of the findings might be.
A little meaty to remediate
based on someone who's going through that now?
So you want what resources.
Are at your disposal if you do, if you can't fix it, or if it's
going to be an entire rewrite of a page, which is what I'm finding right now.
We have really good customer service packages, both through selected
and through Blackboard, and I would be utilizing them.
Fortunately, it's
not about Blackboard is not code base, so anything I can fix
would have to be visual and then if it was like really wrong,
I would have to go back through Blackboard.
So much so that their customer service packages does include
helping me work through any problems that I cannot solve just simply by,
you know, fixing colors and spelling mistakes and stuff like that.
I'm sure I will run into some of those things and we'll just have to either
take pages down and start them from scratch.
Maybe they're too old and they just I know that's definitely on our website pages.
I've been there for ten years and
maybe they just need to be brought down and started over again.
So we'll have to see.
But yes, it would be mostly me doing this work.
Right. Thank you. You're welcome.
Thanks for your interest. It's really exciting.
Any further questions?
So I'd like to just a
few to be based on time.
I'd like to move item E up if everyone's okay with it.
Talk about that, and then we'll
we'll hit the rest of the agenda just in case we don't make it in.
The reasons why I want to move
point E up is because of these discussions.
We only meet twice a year.
So I think now with Ms..
Karpel on board, we'd like to meet more, more frequent.
And then in talking with her,
I think we would like to start with a quarterly meeting.
So four times a year.
One prior to the summer.
So she has a plan going into the summer, one in the summer prior to
school, starting one towards the end of the year where we have
the new committee members coming on and then we'll figure out where the third.
I'd like to do one around to November or December to just solidify
a winter weather plan to review what we did last year.
Did it. Work?
What can we do better this year?
So that was my thought.
If we had as many messages go out as we did this year,
I think it'd be good to review.
So the process for that is
as we get to the end of the school year
and start looking ahead to the next year
once the board meeting
calendar is finalized, then
Stacy and I will compile
all of the requests from the committees for their with their goals
and then their requests for the dates and plug those in
to their.
So we'll just make sure that that's part of.
The end of this year.
There is a.
First starting next year.
Of 5:00 opening due.
In June.
Over this year.
You want to add another one for this year, but I don't know or you're just
I was interpreting it as you're talking about for next year.
Well, it would be primarily for next year, but I just wanted to make sure that Ms..
Karpel has everything she needs for going into the summer
and into the beginning school. Right?
Because otherwise we would have to set goals there.
This is our last year.
Yeah, there is an opening on June 13th at 5:00 for our committee meeting.
There's a 4:00 curriculum.
There's nothing at 5:00. 9:00, 6:00 Exactly.
Would you like to.
I'm looking at the board brief.
If you want to go through goals for next year.
We could use that meeting to do that.
Yeah, let's do that.
So do I need to need a motion for to add that
or is that just a request?
She. It's just a request.
We'll have to just publicize it and mention it to the board
like we did with adding the general services one
earlier this month.
Look.
Does that work for you, Dr.
Anza?
Is that sir?
June 13th?
You said it would be a 5:00, not a 4:00, though.
That's fine.
Thanks, Cathy.
All right.
Thank you for allowing me to move that up.
The next agenda topic is B emergency and important information communication.
And again, this is just informational where Sarah believes
that she would like to move with this topic.
Great.
So I kind of just mentioned it, but I want to improve
our communications, especially in emergency weather events.
And one of the things this will be a much quicker
topic is to send out a survey over the summer about
preferred methods of communication.
So right now when we have a weather event, for example,
we need to either close school, do a two hour delay, whatever it needs to be.
It goes in order email, phone call, text
message, website, social media, and then the news.
And I want to see if that works for our community.
So I want to send out a survey that includes questions like that,
along with some other questions about communication and to see
what what our community actually prefers.
Do they want to just get a text message that drives them straight to the website?
Is that easier for people?
We've gotten feedback before that I posted on Facebook
before it got to their email address and they didn't necessarily like that.
So I just want to see through a survey what people prefer and then I will.
Maybe we can all work together as committee or Mike
and this is and advisors to come up with some questions
to see how we can better improve our communication
so that it's more seamless because those, those decisions get made very quickly.
And I would love to get the news out there as fast as possible.
So right now the email seems to be slow, depending on the time of day.
So if we can do like a text message which is immediate
and then drive them to the website, which is also immediate,
and then email and phone calls come later, does that work better for people?
Those are just some thoughts that I'm having right now.
So I'd like to send out maybe at the beginning of July an email
that solicits feedback and we can make a new plan from there
and be
prepared for another flood in September,
because that caught us by surprise.
I'm just curious as we like kind of talk through that.
I know so many of those some of the delays come from
like technology capabilities, right.
So one call takes forever.
And oftentimes when there's a delay or something, people
in the first third of the alphabet know like receive it,
and then there's social media or, you know, communications.
Everyone's like, I already got it. And I was like, I didn't get it yet.
We're like.
You're you hold on. It's coming.
Yes, I see that a lot.
When I'm after I've finished
posting everything and I go online and see what people are saying.
I, I do see that a lot where it's like
there is a delay, even if it's just like
I received a phone call at 6 a.m.
and my husband didn't receive it until 610. So
how can we make that more seamless?
It's not going to be flawless necessarily,
where everyone will get the information all the exact same time.
But maybe that's something we can actually explain in the survey, right?
And then take that survey and actually put out
a what to expect communication document where it's like
if we're expecting to know, you will get a message
and it will go in this order and this is what to expect.
Yeah, because I think communication comes down to a big part of that.
And like if a
if one parent's getting it first but not the other one's getting it
delayed, if that maybe it's because that person's this secondary contact.
So it's going through
A, through Z of the primary contacts and then going to secondary.
And if we can explain that so people understand and
can anticipate that it's coming. Yes.
And I think one.
Of the things that Miss Karpel and I.
Saw throughout this year also was that for whatever reason,
whenever we would send it out at night, it was just like that
in the morning when people needed just like that, there was a much.
Greater delay, which. Was very frustrating.
To watch, right? Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, I think that's exactly it.
So this does one lump into the next item on our agenda, but we are moving mass
notifications software at the beginning of next year.
It should be pretty seamless for the community
because they're still going to get the emails are still going
to look pretty much the same, except that the bottom.
Text will look. A little different.
But we're
hoping that that actually is going to help improve the communication.
But there will be network slowdowns,
especially if every all the districts in the area are sending things out
all at the same time
and using this same software that we are, we might run into a slowdown,
but we are moving things over.
So we're hoping to see an improvement.
So it will not be from one call now.
It will not be.
It's going to be migrated into our Blackboard website.
There's Blackboard Messenger.
So that was something that was put in place before I took over.
And with the help of Mr.
Ayala, we are implementing it now and getting all of that information
migrated into the system like we have it in Oracle now.
So first contact, second contact, staff contacts, stuff like that.
And I think that it. Was.
When one call now
started being used, we didn't have synergy,
we didn't have blackboard, you know, capabilities,
so it served its purpose but is just so standalone now.
It is the one thing I guess, but I would just offer for consideration
is that as a parent in my phone,
the no reply at DTC, you know, the email address that comes from one call.
Now I have saved as a VIP, so I get a notification
and it's in my starred folder so that I can easily reference
and find them, you know, buried in a sea of emails.
So if that from addresses changing because it's not going to be one call
now maybe just letting people know that so that they know
what to search from.
That's a great recommendation. Thank you.
Any other discussion?
I know your email sounds really organized.
It's not.
It's just that I have like 100,000 unread emails.
So like a pool, everything over it.
So I think a survey is a really great idea.
And I think. Communicating.
With parents to let them know why, what's happening is happening is great.
I do wonder how much of response you're going to get in July.
From parents if putting this.
Survey out before the end of.
The school year would encourage more.
Participation?
Okay, we can look into that.
Yeah,
I mean.
I'm not I don't have experience with surveys over the summer.
So if anyone has.
Do you know too well it depends on the topic I think.
Yeah.
Because we've done surveys the last couple of summers, but
for different reasons.
We've had a higher level of engagement because of the, you know, topic.
I was also curious
with the blackboard piece of it.
I could be wrong, but the current process is
you would you have to call the district office or email or go through like,
you know, numerous channels if you want to confirm or change
the primary contact or verify that your email address is working.
Is there any way, like we have
parent synergy accounts through parent view,
that there is a way for people to be able to update their own?
My understanding, I just looked over and he's not saying over there, but.
Oh, he's online.
He might be able to chime in here.
But yeah, I can I can answer that if that's okay.
Oh, go ahead. Phil.
Yeah.
So What happens is every single morning I get one or two in the morning,
it pulls the contact information directly from Synergy
and refreshes that information.
So in the parent portal,
you have the ability to go to like my account,
and then there's your email addresses and your phone numbers.
When you change it there,
it would automatically synchronize the next morning.
That's great. Thanks.
And maybe that's something else, too.
And like an frequently asked questions, document or communication
or on the website or something that people know that that's
where they can go to update their information.
Absolutely.
Great, Great suggestion.
So I actually have a question for you.
Is the switch.
To one call to using Blackboard?
Is one call. On. A cloud provider?
I know that blackboard is AWG.
Should that reduce the lag time?
Hopefully we'll see.
It is it is a cloud provider.
There's no on prem server for blackboard
so I'm hopeful on it is always depending on the carriers
and the traffic that the carriers have at the time
but I'm hopeful that that it will
increase the response time.
Thank you.
Any further discussion?
All right.
So that
discussion covered both
item C and or B and C, So we'll move on to D,
which is the last item we have today, which is 2020 to 2023.
Communications and community engagement planning, discussion.
Do you want me to start?
You may so
going into next year,
I do want to make sure that we are driving up our engagement
with positive things as we've gone through
a few really tough years where engagement was for like Mr.
it mentioned for different reasons.
So I do have some ideas, but
I want this to be a discussion about how we can
do a better job of engaging and also providing
the correct communication and what people are looking for.
One of the things I'd like to start the school year with
is creating like a back to school communication hub on our website
that will include things like
downloadable forms, important dates
in time, school supplies, lunch menus,
welcome messages from principals, transportation info, COBR info.
If we're still at that point where we want to share that
schedule info directory info
how we communicate like the weather stuff we were just talking about.
So having this hub where parents that you kind of fall out of it
over the summer a year trying to get back into your groove
or your new to the district somewhere that is very straightforward
and accessible for everyone to get get files
also doing some fun things.
So I'm looking towards the end of the school year
at, the beginning of the school year, I did a first day of school video.
I want to do a last day of school video,
put it together, put it on our social media.
We had about 70 people participate
last time, which I thought was great for a first, our very first one.
And people loved it.
Like I got a lot of really positive feedback about it.
So I'm hoping that we'll see some more of this time and I'll make a graphic again.
And then, of course, doing first day of school video going into next year,
increase engagement with our teachers.
So how can I get them more involved with sending me things
or bringing me out to events?
It has it gone up over the course of the year?
I have some people
like Mr.
Beautiful that's very engaged and always sending me tons of really great things.
So trying to get some teachers involved with that as well.
But that's those are just some ideas I have for now,
and I'd love to hear any ideas that anybody else
has to increase engagement, making things easier
to access
anything that will improve.
The. Communications. Department.
I think you've done a really great job at taking
like our presence from a social media and sharing
what's going on within the school community to another level.
You know, even just the the graphic component of it, the,
you know, videos and reels like it's exciting to see that.
And it also, like for me as a parent helps kind of connect
some of the things that are going on that maybe my student doesn't share,
you know, in the course of it.
And it helps to prompt discussion about things that are going on.
I was curious, you know, what the process is?
Is it kind of just whoever sends things to you now?
Because I think the big thing would be just making sure
we're not missing the sharing of it, because, you know, I know
there are things that maybe are going on in clubs or, you know, whatnot.
And if that advisor or teacher is not sending that information,
we don't want to inadvertently miss an opportunity to recognize students.
Yeah, absolutely.
Something.
You know, become more and more aware of as the year has gone on
is how do I have proper representation across all of our buildings and
academics, music, arts, athletics.
So it is a bit of a juggling act.
And one of the thought I had was creating
just something very simple as maybe like a Google form for our teachers
so that they're having an event in their classroom.
They can either invite me or they can just upload photos and a description.
Our principals have been working harder as the year has gone on to
encourage their teachers to send me things I have, like I said,
some very frequent fliers that are always sending me fun things.
But I do want to make sure that it's not always just.
You're always just seeing the one classroom
because that teacher's super engaged. So
I would like to to work with Mrs.
Landry as we start the next school year and start doing induction
and bringing teachers back and maybe including having a Google form
ready and explaining the importance and how much
you see some of these
posts that I post about different kids that are really doing amazing things.
And the, the community response is incredible.
You know, I'm getting hundreds of likes and
30 plus comments just congratulating kids on doing such
a great job with certain events and academic achievement.
So that always feels really good.
So I'm hoping that we can encourage teachers do that.
Well, more. I'm open to suggestions.
That's just where I've been as I go through my first year where I've been, I.
Think a few involved the.
Student reps.
That's not a great idea.
I think it'd be super easy to get things
from the elementary school, but then as you move
up, yes, be really hard to kind of crack into the high school.
And the middle school
is actually been the hardest one to crack into because the mills,
the high school, the clubs and stuff are very willing to send me things.
And the elementary school, of course,
the middle school is the one I've definitely had the hardest time with.
But Mophie is great.
I have with her.
She's one of our student reps and she has. Been.
She's also the president of the student council,
so she's great about sending me spirit events and stuff like that.
So that is a great idea.
And I know that Ms..
Schmidt is also looking to, as she starts her first year
full year as a principal at the high school.
She has some really great ideas, so we're going to collaborate on that
as well, using student doing maybe student take over or stuff like.
That as It's. Got to be fun to see.
I know you probably have to be super careful at the parameters
that are set around that, but having like students do a, you know,
district social media take over for the day and be able I know the
there are some of the accounts on Instagram that the band
or some of the other student led clubs have done that,
especially when they were on their recent Orlando trip.
And it was just really cool to see that
not just the
additional content, but also the interaction between.
The staff and the students just gave a really unique perspective.
Yeah, there's definitely some clubs
and some students are doing some really cool things.
We also have a completely student read LED Instagram
account called HHS Humans, where they just take really nice photos.
And then there's a quote
and it's been passed down year after year to the next senior class
and they keep doing it and it's completely run by them.
So time kind of tapping into those kids
that are doing really great things and utilizing them is a great idea.
How can you tap into the.
School newspaper and yearbook. Staff?
A Yeah, that that's definitely yeah,
that's a good idea to utilizing some writing maybe too.
And photography.
Mm hmm. I haven't yet, but that's a good idea.
On the opposite side of it.
Do we have anything that maybe could come from your world?
There are also
a lot of social media accounts that are not district affiliated. Yes.
Being created by students that are sometimes not things
that we would want to have sponsored, but are using logos or
she high school references. Yeah.
Is there maybe like a template
that can be reinforced at the start of the year with clubs and activities?
You know, from the building level is just reminding folks
to have the disclaimer out there that it is not district affiliated.
Yeah, that's a great idea.
Yeah, we can create something that if they want to make a school
like the band to follow these guidelines and then if you know
and also have a disclaimer,
is that what you mean.
Yeah,
I think the band has a lot of involvement with the teachers.
There are some Twitter and Instagram accounts
that are HHS specific that are not great.
Okay?
Ones that have been to their involvement.
We can look into that.
Yeah.
Any further discussion on that topic?
Can Jen Agenda Item seven District Updates.
I don't know if you had anything, Dr.
Wenzel you want to provide?
I don't have anything.
I just really appreciate the robust discussion that Ms..
Karpel is bringing to the table.
The Communications Committee, I think, has floundered
a little bit in the last couple. Of years.
And it's really great to
to see so much being brought to the table and to be seeking
input for how we can do better because it is always one of those spaces where
people always
say, you need to communicate better,
but we need to know what that actually means for folks
and we really do have good intentions to do it well.
And I'm really pleased with Ms.. Karp. How's work?
She's been a wonderful partner this year, too,
to be working through so many things.
One, when so many of us are new in our positions
and we've had some really strange things happen.
So, you know, a flood, the first week of school
is very unexpected.
So I'm just really thankful and I'm thankful
for the increase in meeting times in order to help to give us
continued guidance and direction, because we really do want to make this
a two way street and we don't want it to just be us pushing.
And we know that pushing communications out is very important,
but receiving communications is also very important.
And I don't know that we've always done a great job with that.
And what makes sense to us doesn't always make sense to the
like I put things on the website, I'm like, this is where this belongs.
And then sometimes they cannot find it.
So we want to make it a two way street for sure.
But if you look
all right at this time, I'd like to open it up to public comment.
This is for anything that you'd like to talk about from a communications
perspective.
There is not anyone in attendance online.
Just like. Okay,
I was just hoping you guys as well.
So the only thing I want to want to say,
you know, before we adjourn is
I knew that I noticed there's a lot of activities
that to occur and there's one person working on those activities.
So I think we need to look at, you know, setting a structure so that Ms..
Karpel is not working seven days a week, 24 hours a day,
trying to get things
done to an expectation that we haven't communicated.
So I'll work with Ms.. Karpel and Ms..
Wood, Dr.
Winslow on for the June 13th timeframe so that we kind of have a plan
going forward for you.
I think that's an excellent idea. And I know Ms..
Karpel shared some draft goals with me
and that might be a good place to identify
the priority pieces
each year is in those goals to make sure that
obviously there are things that she's going to
that are going to be unexpected that she needs to work on.
But if there are overarching goals like the selected work
and getting the website compliant, like in my mind, that's
kind of an overarching top priority as we go into next year.
I'd also recommend looking at
any alternative measures to be able to complete
some of these these communications opportunities.
And this is not to take away from Ms.
Karpel, but if there are things that we really feel are on a time limit
and we can't make it, maybe we ought to look
to provide her some resources to be able to get those done, especially over
the summer when there may be someone that's interested and has some skills
from the rest of the group that.
I was actually just thinking in the back of my mind like,
this would be an awesome opportunity for an internship for a high school student.
Would think that would be great.
I would love that. Yeah, I.
Think about that and, you know, bring it to the board then or to us,
if not to the board before, we adjourn and June 13th.
And I think that's a really good point because when I was board president
for three years with the previous director in administration,
there was a lot of push back to not have this committee because it
they felt like it got in the weeds because this is a board committee
that in you report to the superintendent, not to the board.
So I think that's a good point.
But I love what I'm hearing is like you're willing to accept
input and collaboration and to say, well, I put it on the website,
not sure, but and if you can hear like parents on the table
say, Well, this is what we're thinking, it's only going to make it better.
So I really do appreciate your willingness and openness to listen.
And so somehow we balance that line of not being in the weeds, but still
allowing us to collaborate with you on how we can do our communication better.
Yeah, absolutely.
Just even the suggestion of you might not get as much feedback in July.
This things like that. I'm always willing.
To to hear what.
The community actually has to say.
I mean, that's my job.
So I'll echo Mrs.
Secours comments because I wanted to
say something similar.
I mean, I've been on this committee since I've been on the board and chaired it
until this fall, and it was a struggle because there were times
where we got to it, where we had ideas, and the citizen advisors
on this committee have always fantastic in providing feedback.
But it got to a point where we wrestled with
kind of what was the return on investment of
of the time and the conversation that was happening here,
because it's not like other board committees where we're
referring things out to the full board.
It's definitely more of a feedback and collaboration,
and that was not as welcomed previously.
And so we often met the struggle of that's not in the purview of the board
or, you know, it's an administrative decision.
So I really appreciate all the work you're doing
and the way that you've opened it and
are so accepting of feedback.
So thank you for that, because I think that that could really breathe new life
into the role of this committee and allow us to do that.
My only other suggestion would be one of the things we started to focus on
previously was ways for the board
to bridge that gap as well.
So in 2019,
before COVID, you know, we started attending
back to school nights, so we would have representatives
up to four since we can't have a quorum at each one of the schools
back to school nights.
And we had a board table that just really explained the board,
but it gave board members the opportunity to participate and kind of have face time
outside of the public meetings with community members.
We were going to also try to do one
in collaboration with the senior center so that we could reach,
non-parents, taxpayers and residents as well.
But again, because of the pandemic hitting,
all of those things kind of stopped.
So I think being able to maybe try and find ways for that involvement
would be really helpful because sometimes it's nice to get out from here and
hear feedback, you know, in a less environment.
Yeah, just conversation. Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
Any further discussion now?
If not, then I will ask for a motion for adjournment.
So moved.
Second.
I just lost mentioning that any discussion,
if not standard voices with that
all in favor, say I, I
so moved.
Thank you.
Adjourned at 4:58 p.m..