In this era of school reform, school district watch groups serve an important purpose. They can be a godsend to the otherwise uninformed parent and public. However, they must be ready to give an unbiased and informed opinion.
They call themselves the District Watch Group (DWG). They are influential amongst parents and teachers and they meet every week to discuss the Agenda for the upcoming BOE meeting; to catch up on “news” from folks in the trenches; and to plan their “problem solving” for presentation at the next BOE meeting.The founders of the DWG, "Sherry" (Sharon&Terry) are retired District 150 teachers and they are well known throughout the community. At the BOE meetings, when they step up to the podium, you can visibly see BOE members bristling (some more than others).
After they are finished speaking, they want immediate feedback from the Superintendent and BOE members. If every issue raised is not addressed (and even when they are), the real talk begins on the blogs and the issues not directly addressed at the BOE meeting, seem to instantly become fact.
Lately, the Superintendent and BOE members appear to be doing some push back on the negativity. However, when BOE members comment on the blogs, all it appears to do is open up a new can of worms. Civility is sparse, condescension is rampant, the answers never appear to be enough and the rumors continue to morph.
One of the founders of the District Watch Group, recently posted here that Dr. Lathan, District 150's Superintendent, has placed a personal call to her. Apparently, Dr. Lathan has even pulled other top level Administrators in on a conference call, in an effort to address DWG issues and to put a stop to the negative information that is circulating, but unfortunately, the answers never appear to be enough.
Watch Groups are nothing new and they really can serve a purpose of keeping citizens informed and officials on their toes. What is new are blogs. Blogs bring a whole new level for folks to get their message across. Unfortunately, the message is all to often off putting and in many cases nothing short of bullying of whatever official, or issue that may be on the "Agenda".
What should the District and BOE do? Can they afford to not publically respond to mis-information that may be circulating on blogs? If the District and BOE does publicly respond, how exactly should they do that, without appearing to be susceptible, when their answers simply won't suffice? At what point should they just throw up their hands and let it go?