By Rob van Herk
The signs are there that the new school year is near. The middle
schools are sending out their information packages to parents of
their new or returning students.
With two of our children at Brownell this year, we received two
mailings last week.
By Rob van Herk
The signs are there that the new school year is near. The middle schools are sending out their information packages to parents of their new or returning students.
With two of our children at Brownell this year, we received two mailings last week. The package included tips on our child as a middle school child, dates and order information for school pictures and a message from the principal which included important dates for the beginning of the new school year. Getting this information a few weeks before school starts is great and helps us as parents to plan for these exciting days at the end of August.
With Ascencion Solorsano opening their seventh grade class this year, which will bring them to 500 students, Brownell and South Valley will both have close to 900 students each. To communicate effectively to such a large group of parents is a lot of work and having office staff available at the school even during the month of July is absolutely critical. Thanks to the office coordinators at the three middle schools, information comes to the parents in a timely manner.
The information coming from the schools is necessary but I wish we would see more. Maybe I’m wrong – and I’d like to hear from parents and school staff – but I would think that schools and parents can improve their communication significantly by using more electronic solutions. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not being negative. Highlighting opportunities doesn’t necessarily mean a negative judgment on existing practices.
First of all, why are we getting every mailing in two languages? As parents we have to fill in the home language and the correspondence language. Can the school use this information to limit the amount of paper and postage and send us the information in the requested language?
As I mentioned, we did receive two mailings because two of our children are at Brownell. I know there are ways for the schools to address these mailings as one per family and still highlight the names of the individual students.
At the moment none of the three middle schools have an up-to-date Web page with important dates published. Before anyone starts shooting arrows: I know that maintaining Web pages costs time and requires skills. Is it possible for the existing staff to add maintaining Web pages to their daily activities? I doubt it. Getting parent volunteers is great, but also requires additional time from school or district staff. Still, there is benefit for parents and school staff if parents are able to check dates and other important school information online.
Another area I think the schools and the district could work on is creating a parent email list.
Last year was the first year the parents were asked for their email address at the bottom of the school’s emergency form. For many parents this wasn’t very obvious and only a minority of parents actually provided their email. Many of the email addresses written down were unreadable or often one of the special characters in the email address was missing.
The result was that more than 50 percent of the emails provided were not valid or usable addresses. One solution may be that in addition to gathering email addresses from the emergency form, schools have sign up options on their Web sites.
Using email and the Web sites seem to be much better ways of communication than using the telephone autocaller.
Using the autocaller allows a school to record two messages, one in Spanish and one in English. With the press of one button, all parents receive an automated telephone call which plays this recorded message in the appropriate language.
Many schools use the autocaller to contact parents whose child was absent from class. The problem with using autocaller for general updates is that it is not perfect in recognizing answering machines and that calling 900 parents could take as long as 4 to 6 hours. In comparison, sending one email to all parents would take less than 1 minute.
Every year over the last few years, the schools and the district had to do more work with fewer resources. Using basic technology initially does require additional time and investment from everyone. Parents, teachers, and the community asked for more and improved communication during the strategic plan input process. I hope we can find a way to deliver.
To check out the district’s Web site with links to each school: http://www.gusd.k12.ca.us
Rob van Herk, his wife Karin and their three children have been living in Gilroy for three years. He is the technology manager for Gilroy Unified. You can reach him at ro*@*****rk.com. His column will be published each Monday.
