County School Board Candidate Rates Local Districts' Web Presence

A Santa Ana man running for the Orange County School Board's Area One seat, which includes both the Fountain Valley and Garden Grove School Districts, gives those district's websites grades of B- and C respectively for their effectiveness in communicating with parents.

Art Pedroza rated the websites for all five of the school districts in Area 1 on the basis of access to email addresses for key administrators and elected officials, social media outreach and efforts to communicate effectively with parents who are not native English speakers.

The Tustin School District received the highest marks in Pedroza's findings, while Garden Grove was at the bottom. Fountain Valley was ranked fourth. In both cases, Pedroza suggested the districts set up Facebook pages and Twitter feeds.

"As far as Mr. Pedroza’s comments go, we have not used Facebook or Twitter since we restrict access to those sites for students for obvious reasons," said Steve McMahon, assistant superintendent of business for the Fountain Valley School District. "We are dealing with kindergarten through eight grade students and try to take a protective approach. We will take Mr. Pedroza’s other comments under consideration as we do try and make communication to all a priority in our district."

Emails to the Garden Grove School District were not immediately returned.