School and district newsletters

Question: What happened to the district newsletter, as well as each schools newsletters? I looked forward to them every month but have not seen any updates since last year.

Answer: Thank you for your question! My colleagues and I in the district communications office are glad you’re interested in reading about events happening in B-P schools.

Several times over the past few years, we’ve surveyed parents and other residents about how they access B-P news and how they’d like to receive school and district news. Based on results from those surveys, we’ve chosen to shift our efforts more toward our digital communications channels — the district website, Facebook page, Twitter feed, YouTube channel, mass emails/SMS text messages/phone calls, and the mobile app — since the vast majority of parents (nearly 90% on one survey) said they’d rather receive information that way.

As with anything we do, putting together a well-written, good-looking newsletter takes time — several days or more per newsletter, depending on length. Rather than spend several days each month producing four school newsletters that we learned many parents were not reading, we’re choosing to use that time to publish district, school and classroom news more frequently through our online channels. We are also continuing to share news and information with our local mass media outlets, including the Gloversville Leader-Herald, Amsterdam Recorder and Sacandaga Express.

That being said, the communications team hasn’t completely abandoned paper. We will continue to publish and mail the annual budget newsletter to all homes in the district each spring, and we will continue to produce a 12-month wall calendar each summer that is distributed to students and made available to other residents at the school and district offices, as well as NBT Bank in Vails Mills, in late August.

I hope you are able to find the B-P news and information you’re looking for online. If not, please call my office at 954-2640 so we can talk about how the communications office can better meet your needs.

- answered by Michele Kelley, communications specialist