Framingham School Committee Announces Communications Task Force

The Framingham School Committee is forming a Communications and Public Relatiions Task Force.

The Task force was announced at the School Committee meeting last night, Dec. 9.

School Committee Chair Beverly Hugo, who will serve on the task force, said it will tackle misconceptions about the Framingham Public Schools posted on social media, including Facebook.

Hugo said three members of the 7-member elected School Committee will serve on the task force.

She said she was seeking community involvement.

Members of the community, including parents, who would like to be on the task force may submit a letter to the School Committee through its newly-hired administrative assistant.

“We are looking for looking for positive, constructive members on this committee,” said Hugo.

She said the task force will focus to “decrease misconceptions that are evident in social media.”

Hugo did not say how many members total will serve on the task force.

During the Tuesday night meeting, communications - and the need for the School Committee, the Superintendent of Schools and his administration to be better at it, was a consistent theme.

Superintendent of Schools Stacy Scott said he has narrowed down applicants for a part-time public relations position. He said he hopes to announce a candidate by January. In October, he said he had 8 finalists.

Despite a glowing review of the Superintendent of Schools by the School Committee, the Committee has continuously said Scott needs to do better at communicating with the community, parents, staff, and the media.

Hugo, and a couple of other School Committee members, said at the meeting, they attended the Massachusetts Association of School Committee convention in Hyannis last month.

Hugo said she attended a session on social media and took lots of notes. She said she plans to start blogging and Tweeting soon.

School Committee member Don Taggart also said he attended communications sessions at the convention, and specifically discussed a book that had some great ideas on how to communicate better.

Hugo told Framingham Patch last week she has seen posts on a closed Facebook board known as “Chat About the Framingham Public Schools” that has misinformation in them.

Hugo told Patch she even tracked down a parent, who posted about something on Facebook, to talk to her about it.

The Facebook group “Chat about the Framingham Public Schools,” has almost 1,300 members.

It was started by parent Cheryl Gordon, when former Superinetdent of Schools Steven Hiersche was seriously considering re-organizing the elementary schools into K-2 and 3-5 models.

Editor’s Note: At that time I was PTO President at McCarthy Elementary School and joined the chat group on Facebook. I am still a member of the group.

Gordon, who is a McCarthy Elementary and Fuller Middle school parent, has continued the site since then. Posts are not open to the public, only members can see them.

The Framingham Public Schools administration trolls the Facebook chat sites about the schools noting comments by parents and teachers.

Superintendent of Schools Scott, at a listening tour stop at the Framingham Public Library in October, told audience members that his staff reads the comments and reports back to him.

Recently, a second Facebook group called “Open And Honest Discourse About The Framingham, MA Schools” formed this fall. It has about 350 members. It too is a closed site, and only members can see posts.

In the past month, School Committee members - including Eric Silverman and Jim Stockless, have begun responding to parents post on those closed Facebook groups.

Silverman mentioned one of the posts he responded to at the School Committee meeting Tuesday night.

The post was by a parent discussing “dirty” bathrooms at Framingham High.

The mother posted -- “My daughter has been complaining that stall doors don’t lock, soap dispensers don’t work well and have water in them, people don’t flush, that there is always paper towels and toilet paper all over the floors etc. I know we can’t control each kid flushing each time, but working locks and working soap dispensers seem like an easy fix (and important given germ season.) My daughter generally uses the bathroom on the other side of the school, because she says it’s not as bad. I am a bit of a germophobe myself, so I thought she was exaggerating a little, but some of her friends have said they actually don’t use the school bathrooms because of these issues, and wait until they go home!”

Silverman posted he would bring the issue to the School Committee - which he did Tuesday night.

He also posted on the “Chat About the Framingham School” Facebook group parents can log complaints about the schools via the School Committee policy located at http://z2policy.ctspublish.com/masc/Z2Browser2.html.

If you are interested in serving on the new Communications task force, you can submit a letter to the Framingham School Committee at psimeone@framingham.k12.ma.us