Thursday, February 23, 2012

Is the Kuna school district ready to start sharing information with the public? It doesn't look like it

In discussing the Kuna school district's request to be among the first in the state to receive mobile computing devices, a lot of issues came up about parental controls and personal software. I think a lot of these issues could be worked out over the next year-and-a-half.
School district technology director Devan DeLashmutt said that’s it’s going to have to be community dialogue with a lot of input from the community.
Which leads me to my biggest concern: There was still no agenda for the Feb. 14 board meeting posted on the school’s website before the meeting. If you wanted to know what the school board was going to talk about and vote on, you had to go to the Post Office bulletin board or the library foyer to find out what was on the agenda. Is this the sign of a district that’s technologically ready and willing to share information with and receive feedback from taxpayers? They can’t even put the agenda online let alone post all of the associated documents.
I found it interesting that about a dozen parents from Indian Creek Elementary School attended the meeting because they feared the school board was going to vote to close the school. To the contrary, the school board is looking at investing $100,000 or more to keep the school open for another five years.
But, as I’ve always said, secrecy breeds suspicion. Without an agenda or supporting documents, what else are patrons supposed to think? They’re going to think that you’re trying to hide something, whether you are or not.
School board, get it done.

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