Here’s a front-pager from the Washington Post that does a nice job of capturing the complexities of email use and web communication for the parent community at schools.
This is a tricky one for me, because I’m all for empowering parents and increasing parent communication, but I’ve seen too many of these one-school or one-district forums or listservs wind up creating real division at schools. At the end, the division can erode community support and involvment. Email and anonymous (or faceless) forums have this tendency to encourage folks to say things (and say them in a way) that they never would in-person. And even for well-intentioned posts, misunderstandings (of tone or intent) are common.
My misgivings are largely about the open two-way/all-way communications like message boards or listservs, which allow any poster to send any and every thought to every other member of the list group. On the other hand, I think using email — and including many ways for parents to respond privately — is an enormously important tool these days. Schools and principals should be using it. And parent groups, too, should absolutely be taking advantage. (Note: Our PTO Manager tool includes a very cool, simple email functionality that’s making a big difference for lots of groups.)
Interested if you’ve run across any troubles (or great success stories) around this issue in your district or at your school?
