As the parent of an 8th Grade student at Ardsley Middle School, I am well aware of the history behind this week's events. Before passing judgment on the actions or non-actions of the Administration and Board leading up to this week, I'd like to hear what they have to say at Monday night's forum meeting in the Middle School Auditorium. Like many Ardsley parents, I'll be there listening intently.
Moving past the past and into the present, I don't take issue with the hour to hour, day to day actions taken by the School and District Administration, starting with their actions on Monday morning and continuing throughout the week. They acted decisively, and they clearly kept the safety of the students as their to priority when taking action.
But, now that some time has elapsed and I've been able to reflect on the events of the week, here's something that's been evident. The policies and, particularly, the procedures that were considered effective -- and maybe even "airtight", even five years ago -- have been surpassed by recent developments and need to be reviewed and revised as they are woefully out of date.
In the last few years, the explosion of communications technologies has outmoded any thought that the District Administration can control a situation by attempting to control the flow of information. We now live in a connected world, 24/7. With laptops, Blackberries, and iPhones, parents are no more than seconds away from being able to connect, communicate and caucus. Meanwhile, an army of Envys, Chocolates and Razrs, backed up by continuously running IM clients, Facebook and Twitter, makes our children are even more connected than we are.
The flow of information can no longer be centrally controlled. When the Middle School was being evacuated on Tuesday morning, it took minutes for our children to dial their phones and let us know that something very serious was going on. And what did we do? We jumped in our cars and headed to the Middle School -- the very last thing that the Administration wanted or needed to ensure a quick and orderly evacuation during a tense and rapidly evolving situation.
The Administration deserves credit for trying to implement a communications system that utilizes email and text messaging to get the word out quickly. But on Tuesday, it wasn't quick enough. We were already at the Middle School clogging up the roads with other parents before the first "blast" ever arrived.
Additionally, the Email blast is inherently a one-way communications mechanism. In this day and age, that is no longer good enough. In the absence of a communications channel back to the School District, parents took matters into their own hands, showing up for impromptu meetings (News12 described it as parents "storming the school") that, it seemed, the Administration was not necessarily ready to hold.
Much of the stress of the past week could have been avoided had the School District been prepared to communicate quickly and clearly with parents and students. It's 2008. That means transparency is not only expected, it's mandatory.
- What should we think when we get more useful information from emails that were forwarded from the Chief of the Greenburgh Police Department to Paul Feiner to Mayor Leon to an unofficial message board hosted by Yahoo! than we get from the official email blasts of the School District itself?
- What should we think when News12 does two days worth of stories on matters in our school district before a single Administration member ever appears on screen to make a comment?
- How should we help our children deal with the rumors that arrive non-stop through emails, IMs and text messages?
I don't have the definitive answers to these questions, but I implore the School Board, Administration and parents to think about them before the next set of events overwhelms us. Uncontrollable events will happen. What we can control is how we react to them.
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