21st Century School-Home Communication (S1E5)

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For this episode, special guest Dr. Chad Stevens joins our host from Science Safety. This episode explores 21st century school and community engagement. Particularly how K12 schools communicate and advise parents and community stakeholders about the connection between technology and school safety. 

What Does Engagement Look Like in the 21st Century School? 

The conversation begins by exploring what communication looks like in contemporary school districts. As Dr. Stevens and James discuss, the school, community, and household landscapes have all changed drastically over the past several years. These factors have led to a set of unique challenges for educators and administrators concerning community communication and engagement. In the first part of this conversation, Dr. Stevens explores some strategies and factors of engagement success. 

4 Keys to Community Engagement in the 21st Century School

In his work, Dr. Stevens has found several strategies extremely effective to gauge and increase community interest, involvement, and investment in the schools and school district. 

Tracking data – You should use analytics and data to support your understanding of parent engagement. As Dr. Stevens shares, community engagement is not just about sending communication. It’s about engaging the community to actively participate in the school system’s ongoings. 

Accessibility & Humanization—Many times, school districts present themselves as organizations rather than the people behind them. Dr. Stevens challenges the framework of ‘the district.’ People serving the community need to be humanized and connectable. Doing so gives the community someone to communicate with rather than a faceless entity to receive information.

Consistency & ease – ensuring that communication comes from a single funnel is essential. You must make information accessible to parents and community members. If all of your essential communication comes from one place, it makes it easier for your district to communicate effectively in case of an emergency. 

Media relations – building relationships with the local media is essential for community engagement, particularly in personalizing your approach and humanizing ‘the district.’ 

Consistency in Privacy & Security 

In the second part of the episode, the duo focuses on the security and privacy of information and technology in schools. When implementing tools for security and privacy, Dr. Stevens shares that there are three critical components to program success: people, process, and technology. Often schools focus on the technology piece when in actuality, the people and process are much more difficult to orchestrate. 

Dr. Stevens mentions a particularly successful resource for administrators selecting consistent vendors is the K-12CVAT: K-12 Community Vendor Assessment Tool by CoSN which standardizes the process and makes it more accessible for educators. 

The episode ends with a discussion of Dr. Stevens’ role as a leader in the K12 and EdTech communities. A main takeaway from the conversation is that community engagement, communications, and leadership should be human-led and technology-assisted. 

Overall this conversation is a must-listen for technology and communications professionals in the K12 and EdTech world. 

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