More Coffee, Please

By now, it’s probably only those on the far side of the moon who haven’t received some word about the tuberculosis at MRHS. It’s hardly any news at all.

Which, when you stop and think about it, is the news.

Communication is the backbone of everything that happens in education. At its most obvious, when communication isn’t clear students don’t hear the teacher, parents don’t hear what they need about their child—and there’s a whole host of other examples of the same.

As basic as it is, it’s one of the hardest things to do. The Monadnock district has been a tough place for good, clear communication for years now—without the commitment or the resources to make certain it occurred.

But that’s been changing all year long. From the start of the year, there’s been a commitment to better communication—some of it visible outside the school, some of it internal. Some has been from the vice-principals—when there’s been a schedule change, Mr. Stewart or Ms. Alexander have made fantastic efforts to make sure that everyone knew about it well ahead of time, to take into account everyone’s scheduling needs as much as possible, and in general to communicate what’s really happening.

A large part of it has been from Brian Pickering. Aside from starting up the principal’s blog¹, we’re talking about an individual who sends out his schedule for the week on Sunday mornings—regularly enough and early enough some of us are setting our watches by it, and enough that he gets picked on if he’s late.

For the students, there was an assembly to let the students know what’s happened for test scores—and to emphasize that doing well, working hard, achieving and learning are the vital goals.

That’s great communication inside the building. It’s a great example to set, and there are ways that smaller units in the building could easily follow those footsteps—if they’re not doing so already.

But what’s harder is communication outside the building—and we’ve seen that as well. With the TB, there could have been a lot of worry, and there could have been a great deal of fear—and there really wasn’t. There was timely communication to the staff, the use of newspaper, phone, and technology to let the community know—it was quick, it was concise, and the right message was sent.

More importantly, it’s been continuous. There was communication Friday. There was communication over the weekend. There’s a letter going home with every student today. Tomorrow the Sentinel will be at MRHS to meet with people about it, and there will be more communication. Nobody is keeping secrets—and more impressively, it appears nobody is keeping secrets.

There were things that could be better—I didn’t like the fact that the ill student’s name is being thrown around the building—but that came from the kids, and is the result of 1300 people crammed into a small space. It’s hard to have a coherent conversation with the same message to all of them at once, it’s hard to coach them all about proper behavior—which is why smaller schools have an advantage.

But that’s a pretty small example of a problem—and would need some serious thinking to address how that could be fixed—more than can be done in an afternoon. What we’re seeing, and what should be applauded, is that the community and the school are communicating, and trying to work together—and that’s very cool.

1 Admittedly, something I would like to see kept up more… but then, I’m far less busy than Mr. Pickering, and I don’t keep up on my writing as much as I would like… it’s hard work. I’d consider outsourcing to India. ↺

Technorati Tags:
Education, Monadnock Community Connections School, Monadnock Regional School District, School Change

Gregarious

Share This