School District's Communication Plan Targets Website Overhaul

As far back as September 2009, the Melrose School Committee had set a goal for itself: "By the end of 2009-2010 school year, the committee will have drafted and begun to implement a communications plan to communicate better with the public."

Twenty months later, that plan arrived before the School Committee this past Tuesday night, when the committee unanimously approved a plan (PDF attached and available online) that enumerates nine objectives, with none completed any later than January 2012.

Andy Freed, a parent volunteer and communications professional who worked on the Communication Plan Working Group , presented the plan to the committee, joined by fellow working group members Roosevelt School Principal Kerry Clery and incoming student representatives Jared Gardiner and Emily Conn.

Freed acknowledged that the plan was a "long time coming," and said part of the problem was the district wound up with multiple plans: One for the district, and one for the School Committee.

"The problem with two plans is that it isn’t really better than one," Freed said. "If a contractor shows up at my house with two plans, I’d probably ask him to narrow it down to one."

Adding to the stagnant progress on the plan, he continued, was that those plans "started in the middle, getting into tactics," without first establishing what the plan was trying to accomplish. So, the plan presented Tuesday night first establishes an objective: "keeping stakeholders informed and driving home the message that Melrose schools are of the highest quality."

The plan also identifies the various audiences the district is trying to reach and acknowledges that do to constrained resources, any actions within the plan must be "accomplished and maintained within existing school staffing and budget."

Critical component: Website's content and appearance

Overarching objectives within the plan run the gamut: from improved contact capabilities through the district's ConnectEd phone system (or comparable system); to developing improved "sales pieces"—brochures, really—in print and for the web; to better utilization of the district's TV station through MMTV.

One objective stood out as critical and in need of immediate attention: restructuring the Melrose Public Schools website, last updated in the fall of 2008.

Freed said the district's website is the "number one place" people go to get information about schools, and while the website currently has "a lot of good information on there," it's "very hard" for people to find what they're looking for, especially critical items such as school closings.

As a model and in response to a question from committee member Carrie Kourkoumelis—who asked about making more information available online, rather than within systems like the high school's EdLine—Freed pointed to Microsoft's website, which simultaneously serves users of different capabilities, while making information easy to find.

"They’re trying to communicate to my mother who can’t figure out how to get her email to work; my son who's trying to get his XBox to work and find out about the latest XBox game; and at the same time communicate to my VP of IT," he said. "They figure out how to get to all those people at the same time on one site."

Two-way communication?

Kourkoumelis also asked Freed about two-way communication, saying that of the myriad communication plans she reviewed from other districts, the plans that "jump out to me as most compelling" were plans that had a message about two-way communication.

"They don’t want to feel we’re marketing to them," she said.

Freed agreed and noted that the fourth "message" listed in the plan is "we value participation and input from our stakeholder community." Part of that, he said, involves principals and school officials being honest with members of the community, and school officials letting the public know their input is valued. He also pointed to the fourth objective listed in the plan: "Communications training for staff on key messaging.

"This isn’t just training staff on how you go out and spout the gospel that Melrose Schools are the best, but also training staff on how you go out in the morning to student drop-off and be like a candidate on a rope line—actively listen to folks, look for problems to solve and look for input," Freed said, adding as an example Superintendent Joe Casey's ease with greeting and talking with members of the public.

"I think there are days he would happily spend his entire day standing outside the Winthrop School," Freed said. "Not everybody, from my experience, intuits that."

Kristin Thorp, chairwoman of the School Committee's Policy and Planning subcommittee, told the public that "there are numerous places in this plan to put together working groups" and that anyone interested in helping advance any portion of the plan should contact Superintendent Joe Casey by email at jcasey@melrose.mec.edu or by phone at 781-979-2294.