With the departure of our former VP (and one of my personal friends and mentors), Gary Gallant – famous for the Antarctic expedition / student collaborative project a few years back – to another school, I have kind of inherited the duties of webmaster for our school website. It is a great site that includes a school blog embedded in the front page, allowing administrators to keep the page current with easy postings through Google’s blogger service.

As I have been picking at updating the staff directory, team news/homework blogs, etc. over the past week I have been consulting with admin to get their ideas. One of the links on the page – entitled “Contact NMS” – opens an email that is sent to a contact person within the school. It used to be Gary. I dropped by the Principal’s office to see where he wanted this to be sent. I figured it should go to the school secretary, but admin was worried about her workload already.

One of the suggestions was to simply can the link. It was argued that parents can come to the school or call if they want information. I quickly pointed out that this was a valuable link, a portal to our school, similar to our front door. In fact, many parents find it difficult to get to the school at all, and given the limited times during the day that our phones are answered this also hinders communication.

With new types of work and crazy schedules, many parents only find time to contact the school later in the evening. I can tell you, the phone won’t be answered and the doors will be locked.

Web-based communication will prove to be an ever-increasing component of our links with our community. The busier, the better. It just proves that it is needed and it works.

To their credit, admin quickly “got it” and the link remained. Uncertain about how much traffic came through this “door”, I was asked to be the virtual bellhop for now. I’ll be monitoring traffic and hopefully, if we can work it into her workplan, the secretary will take it over shortly. In the meantime, virtual visitors to Nasis Middle will be greeted by this old guy!

“May I help you?”

tags: whipple, technology, education, school

Photo credit: whip62 (me); Eliot School, Boston; posted at flickr.com