Pencader has established a collective email address for their board of directors. This address was posted by the former school leader's son to the website yesterday. On the surface, the collective address seems to be a positive method for providing access to the full board for constituents. But, commenters on Kilroy has raised questions about the practice. http://kilroysdelaware.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/is-pencader-school-board-members-e-mails-being-censored/
The collective email address fails to allow constituents to interact with any one particular board member. It also impedes a constituents ability to maintain anonymity when sharing concerns. A member of the school or community may be more comfortable with one board member over another resulting in a positive rapport. The collective email method is thus a hindrance to building mutual trust.
But, I will take my interpretation one step further. Bloggers have received emails written by board members and some of these emails have been published. I am always hesitant to publish emails that could be construed as confidential and I have my own litmus test. I can say that frequently these emails travel through a third or fourth party before they reach bloggers, same for oral rumors. Each blogger engages in their own effort to verify what they receive. When verification can't be attained, bloggers frequently publish insinuation to push the information out to the public for debate. Again, every blogger has their process for determining what they publish and the tone in which they present it.
In looking at Pencader's efforts to sure up communication, I am cautious. This collective email address is not on the state server platform. Furthermore, it impedes a board member's ability to personally and confidentially respond to a constituent. Lastly, if each board member is privy to the account, each board member can open the SENT FILE and see with whom their peers are communicating and what that communication entails.
Furthermore, who can ensure that this email account can't be hacked or intercepted by a third party? It's not on the state server. Who is going to ensure the security of the confidential documents that may travel through this account? Finally, who is paying for the comcast account?
In contrast, for years Christina used a courier to send weekly documents in sealed envelopes to board members. The content of this information did not contain documents that required executive privilege. In fact, those documents were not disseminated to the board until the board was in a live executive session to ensure confidentiality was never breached. Even today, We had grave concerns about sending confidential documents over the Internet, even when using the secure state server. Precaution was our guiding factor in determining our communication methods.
Last year, Christina moved to a paperless system. With the implementation of boarddocs, like some of our fellow districts, we can now access an extremely secure deposit of information allowing for us to eliminate the cost of the courier service. Boarddocs also provided our board with the ability to take our meetings online, reducing paper usage and labor to a tune of approx. $30,000 annually. Boarddocs included the use of Ipads to facilitate our meetings and access the repository. (These are loaner Ipads and must be returned to the district upon the end of one's service.) The Ipads have also increased board member accessibility - even when I travel, (I don't have a smart phone and the district does not provide cells phones to board members) I can now check in and respond when needed.
When I look at Pencader's latest efforts in comparison to what school districts are doing to maximize confidentiality and accessibility, I have great concerns. What I see is an email address that is ripe for issues, easy to infect and/or hack into, and likely being used as a means to police individual board members interaction with their constituents.
For shame. One step forward, Two step's back!
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