Activity: Planned Communications Your school or district may already have several vehicles for communication, such as newsletters, progress reports, or portfolios of student work. How effective is that communication? How often does it occur? Have you established an effective two-way channel for communicating with parents and the community? Consider these communication vehicles. Make a list of the communications used in your school or district. Include the mode of delivery, such as print, face-to-face, or electronic. Is the communication supported by or delivered by technology? Determine and provide reasons as to whether the communication is effective. How would you know the communication is effective? Is it designed to result in a measurable response? Do you have means for counting contacts or responses? List barriers that limit the effectiveness of these existing school communications. Are the communications timely and consistent? Do they reach the desired audience? Do they have the desired effect? Select one example that you have determined is not as effective as desired and explain how technology could help to overcome associated barriers and strengthen this communication. Post your example to the discussion. For an idea on organizing this plan, see the example below. Click the "Discussion" button on the top menu bar to view your response and the responses from other participants to this activity. This planning process will help set the groundwork for future evaluations of your school communications. While it is desirable to communicate with parents and the community, contacts that are inconsistent, uninformative, or too numerous may erode these relationships. Consider your communications as a whole and plan an effective combination of communication tools and means. School Communications Example Communication Type Effectiveness Barriers Suggested Improvements School Newsletter The newsletter seems to be moderately effective. We usually get some calls from parents on issues and events discussed in the newsletter. No figures to compare parental involvement from events advertised in newsletter vs. those that are not. It is difficult to get the newsletter organized and published four times a year. We tried having the journalism class take over the newsletter, but it was difficult to add this project on top of the already busy journalism curriculum. Teachers have little time to write stories for the newsletter and sometimes dates and times changes too late to get them into the newsletter. Although the newsletter is mailed out to every household, we don't know how many parents actually read it. It may be possible to develop a school Web site using a hosting service. We don't really have the programming expertise on staff, but "WebHost.com" provides a template for schools that allows staff to enter information without knowing how to write HTML. Teachers can even have their own class Web pages and can post homework assignments. "WebHost.com" can also support threaded discussions. The district supports listservs, so we could start a parent/community listserv that would replace some of the functions of the newsletter. That way, we can notify parents of upcoming events and refer them to the school Web site for further details. Last minute changes would be easier to make that way. Not every family will have access to e-mail, so we can still publish the newsletter twice a year this first year and reassess after a year.