Creating+A+Parent+Forum+-+Our+Experience

Developing a Parent Network - Our Story

Like many schools, our school wanted to find better ways to connect with parents and to seek out their input and feedback on a variety of topics and issues. Most of our communication tools are one way and did not offer the opportunity to create discussions between the parent community and the school or parent to parent communication. Enter the NING... After our initial session in PLP, I developed a parent forum site using NING and asked to post it live. Like many of you are probably thinking right now, there were many questions and concerns about safety, security and confidentiality that almost shut down the idea. However, after some persistence we were allowed to take this risk and the Westmoor Parent Forum went Live last fall. The initial set-up was easy, but we did want to lay down ground rules and have people joining understand the expectations and responsibilities of being a part of our forum. With the help of our school attorney, we developed a terms of use document and put in common sense protections. Each user has to agree to the terms of use and identify the grade level in which they have a child to apply for membership into the forum. The ground rules are simple: no student names, no anonymous posts, no using the site for personal business and abide by general rules of conduct. Anyone in violation of these terms is banned from the network. In the beginning I was nervous about the potential success of a parent NING. Our membership was nothing for a long period of time (a month or so) and no activity was happening. After a period of time more and more people began to join, but still no conversation. I knew this was like an avalanche waiting to happen, we just needed the first stone to tumble and we would be in business. After trying several different topics, we finally found one that was a hot button topic for families. It was a discussion forum about whether people were happy with our recent decision to switch to an all electronic newsletter. From that point on we began to see discussion happening in many different discussion areas. We now have over 80 members in a school with just under 300 students. Each month we add about 4-6 new members and I post discussions as new topics arise. SO...what has this done for us...Well, it has open a new avenue for school discussions. It gives families 24 hour access to the school and holds the potential to become the primary communication tool for the school. It has brought out some of the "parking lot" discussions and allowed us to actually discuss the issues and resolve problems. I also think it has connected families and allowed them to share stories and tips with each other. Despite the infancy of our NING, we have connected families in a new way that holds many opportunities to create meaningful experiences for the Westmoor community. Please let me know if you have questions or want to know more about this aspect of our PLP project.