Last month, we received notice about a change at the elementary school that one of our children attends. Soon, the school will not be sending home a paper copy of the weekly newsletter. Instead, families will have to go to the school district's website and sign up to receive an electronic copy of the newsletter, or families will need to go to the school's website to read a copy of the newsletter. The newsletter contains information such as a calendar of upcoming events, PTA projects, and an occasional column written by the principal. The school has been thinking about doing this for awhile because it will save the school quite a bit of money.
These days, Mr. D and I receive a lot of information from our trusty laptop. We receive general information via email about most of our children's activities. It is a great way to get a lot of information out to a large group of people in a timely manner.
We are fortunate to have a computer at home and the entire family is computer savvy enough to be able to do what we need to do and want to do on the computer.
Not everyone is so fortunate. I work in the public sector. I work in a suburb that has many blue collar workers, retired people and people who are English language learners. Many do not have a computer at home. If they do have a computer, they often need help with basic things like setting up an email account, searching for a job on the internet, or applying for unemployment.
Some organizations realize that computer access can be an issue and have done a good job of getting information to everyone. For example, our family can receive a paper copy and an electronic copy of the weekly religious education newsletter from our church. The middle school that one of our children attends sends out most information electronically but the school does keep their computer lab open on some evenings and provides a staff person in the lab to help parents.
Unfortunately, the elementary school has not indicated if or how it will get the weekly newsletter to parents who cannot readily access the internet. I hope that a young student will never be dropped off at the school in the morning and his parents go off to work, never realizing that the day is a scheduled teacher workday and a day off for students, all because the family could not access the school's weekly newsletter.
Communication becomes difficult when not everyone has the tools to receive the information that is being communicated. Maybe someone ought to communicate that to the communicators?
6 comments:
Well said, Mrs. D. It seems surprising that the school would not have considered this issue. I wonder if this indicates that the school doesn't take much stock in the extent to which these particular families (or any parents) pay attention to the newsletters. Either way, it seems like a good compromise would be printing them just for the people who don't have internet.
I think that someone should step forward and begin compiling a list of those who do not have computers. This list should be presented to the district so that these people can be sent paper copies via "snail mail" or have them sent home with their children.
Funny how so many of the cuts by school districts are actually reductions in service to their constiuency. There seem to be far fewer cuts to administrative costs, payroll costs or perhaps even more importantly sunk costs to retirees who provide nothing to the districts at this point. Perhaps the retirees could deliver the information to the families without computers. Just a thought!
this is a bigger issue.
the cost of mailing the newsletter( pennies) is actually rather insignificant when you consider the overall cost per student the district recieves.
this is about the constant drumbeat of 'more moeny' that the schools are always screaming. this newsletter is just part of the campaign, a campaign that never ends.
Amanda,
This change is consistent with the philosophy of the school. Our kids have attended three schools in the same school district. At two of the schools, the parents are viewed as part of the school community and are treated respectfully. At this elementary school, the parents are not treated respectfully. My guess is that if parents try to suggest alternative ways to get the newsletter out, the suggestions will be ignored.
Anonymous,
I totally agree with you!
Gino,
Good point! Just to let you know, the newsletter is sent home with the students in their backpacks once a week so there are no postage costs involved.
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