With board member Charles Burdell-Williams presiding, the Communications Committee convened over Zoom for its monthly meeting on Thursday, Oct. 22. Other board members in attendance included Joel Fishbein and Jenny Lowman. Staff present included Superintendent Dr. Wagner Marseille and Communications team members Kevin Kaufman and Dana Walker and IT director Chris Barone. The agenda included four items: Reopening communications; communications analytics; translation request from student body; and teacher / student activities social media accounts. 

Dr. Marseille opened the meeting with a recap of his Oct. 13 presentation to the board about reopening, in which he discussed reconvening the reopening committees, remote learning survey results, and guiding data from the Pennsylvania Department of Health. Mr. Kaufman discussed communications analytics across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Across the board, numbers were flat if not decreased, which Mr. Kaufman attributed to less building-level activities because of virtual learning. Though he did mention the team was working on new means of engagement with its constituents. Mr. Kaufman highlighted the district’s new instagram “highlights” section. With regard to translation services, Mr. Kaufman has investigated some general solutions such as Google Translate or using the translation option on the district website, but it was agreed upon that those solutions only showed the most general translation, bypassing any local dialects or other linguistic nuances. Mr. Kaufman will follow up with student services and Norristown School District to gather more information about translations. Finally, Mr. Kaufman spoke briefly about the uptick in school-associated social media sites for specials and student activities. 

The next Communications Committee meeting will be held on Nov. 19 at 7 p.m.