A: The old fashioned way.
Findings
The annual fall communication survey by the school district shows that 74 percent of parents who responded get information about the schools from letters and notes sent home.
Lesser percentages, in descending order, get information from conversations with their children, consersations with friends and neighbors, and finally, the school Web site and district Web site.
The survey showed that parents truly get their information from a mixture of all those sources, with the letters or notes home at the top of the list.
Conversations with friends and neighbors also carried a lot of weight.
“I found this concerning, because like a game of telephone, when I say something, it goes back,” Mascolo said, referring to the game in which information becomes muddled as it passes from one person to the other.
However, Mascolo pointed out that word-of-mouth could also be good, if the information passed is correct.
“Mr. Rick Belden (the assistant superintendent of finance and operations) says if they have the right information this could work in our favor,” Mascolo said.
Budget Message
When it comes to the budget process, most parents said they prefer information through emails and meetings.
Again, information on the school Web site scored the lowest as a preferred means of getting information out.
The Board of Education has started talking about how to get a positive message out to voters about the schools budget, to encourage more people to vote in favor of it come May.
Last year, it took four tries to pass a budget — and the subsequent cuts to the proposal left the district with the same funding as last year.
Reasons
Some parents said they don’t use the district website because they lack the access to computers.
“I have no computer at home, must use the library, and (it is) usually busy,” one anonymous parent wrote in the survey.
Another anonymous parent, from Bungay school, said the Web sites should be upgraded, user friendly and up-to-date.
“The town and district Web sites need upgrading,” the parent wrote. “If this is done, you will have more hits and info is current and easy to find and access. This would be great.”
