better communication between the community and the district

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Keeping in mind that being on the Ossining School Board is a volunteer role and that board members have busy outside lives,  school board meetings should be an inviting, open forum for stakeholders - families, educators and the community at large.  Having attended - and participated in - nearly every school board meeting over the past couple of years, I think there are opportunities to foster more engagement (with a side benefit to board members of more efficient meetings!)

I've studied other district's Board meetings and based on these observations, would offer two specific enhancements:

• Bringing at least one of the public comment periods earlier in the board meetings, so the public doesn't have to wait hours to speak. 
• Including a couple of key highlights from Board meetings in the weekly district e-blasts

I'd also use my marketing and communications background, in close partnership with the district Communications Committee to streamline the district's overall communications efforts, taking into account our bilingual community. The goal here is to help families more fully understand what's going on in our schools.

And I'd also encourage using less jargon, more plain language and templatizing e-mails. This would help our busy teachers and staff.

If elected, I would focus on more engaging two-way communication, supporting families, teachers and staff by advocating for:

• Deeper messaging around what and how our children are learning – and how parents can better support their kids' teachers 
• Developing more robust family-school engagement opportunities.
• Learning sessions that better explain things like report cards and why certain methods of learning have been implemented in our district
• Ensuring that communications which are sent home - and presented during Board meetings - are easy to understand, and are delivered through an appropriate variety of digital and non-digital platforms, both in English and Spanish