Canton School District Looks to Increase Social Media Presence

With generally favorable feedback from the school board, the Canton Public School district is discussing a potential increase in its social media presence.

Initiatives for a facebook page and twitter feeds were the focus of at a roundtable discussion at Tuesday night’s Board of Education meeting.

Laurie McKenna reviewed some of the plans discussed by a board subcommittee.

“I think they’re both great avenues,” she said, adding, however, that the idea was to get more feedback from board members. 

Student representatives Justin Fortier and Henry Bonini discussed the ideas and what had been done so far.

Bonini displayed Canton’s initial facebook page and its settings, such as comment moderation. He also reviewed Avon’s facebook page, which that district uses largely for notifications such as bus route changes, delays and meetings.

For twitter, which consists of short, 140-character bursts of information, students recommended that most tweets stand on their own but reiterated that some could link to other stories or facebook posts. 

While there is a reply function, Twitter is generally used to quickly disseminate and organize information.

“I think people sort of see the posts, get the information and move on,” Bonini said. 

Assistant Superintendent Dr. Jordan Grossman said the idea with twitter is for school principals and other administrators to have accounts to post information.

Board members discussed issues such as moderation, workload for administrators and more.

Board vice chair Beth Kandrysawtz said with both avenues that the school should really target its audience and not create a burden for administrators. 

Most members agreed that parents are generally more facebook users while students use twitter.

The board had discussed social media a few years ago and had more concerns but much has changed since then, board chairwoman Leslee Hill said.  

This time around there were a few concerns but the response was generally favorable. 

Member Patti White said social media is a great tool.

“I think it’s great,” said board member Patti White. “Everybody is using it.”

With that and other feedback, Kevin Case said the Communications

Subcommittee will now meet and again to work on an “implementation plan Facebook and/or Twitter.”