A Page of My Own One board member's personal web site By David N. Kurtz Just the other day, it seems, only those brave souls with technical knowledge and expensive PCs ventured into cyberspace. But now, just about everyone is online -- even erstwhile computer-phobes. The Internet is rapidly becoming a popular and accepted vehicle for the acquisition of knowledge. Eventually, it will become the standard method by which everyone can access information of interest to them. The Internet also offers advantages to school board members who want to explore new ways to discuss education issues. Having your own web site is really just another way to communicate with your constituents. It allows you to express your viewpoint on items of local interest, using your own words. On your own web site, you're not misquoted or limited to the reporting of the news media or special-interest groups. And on your own site, you can provide detailed explanations that would never fit into a typical sound bite. A board member web site is different from an official school district site in important ways. A board member web site can get into the political ramifications of board actions. For example, on an official district web site, it would not be appropriate to discuss the vote on the superintendent's salary (though the outcome, of course, is public information). But because it is of prime interest to the tax-paying public, my web site can discuss and explain the rationale for the decision. As elected officials, we board members have a duty to communicate with (and educate) our constituents. The Internet provides an ideal vehicle. Because most of us are also elected officials, a web site can provide the background information constituents want to know about their representatives. A web site can work like an electronic campaign brochure (even after election day), providing information regarding our qualifications and our basic outlook on education. As elected representatives of the people, we are expected to have our own viewpoints and to communicate them. If you have a web site, your letter to the editor, your speech to the chamber of commerce, or your testimony to the state legislature can all become permanent reference items, available to anyone at any time. Those of us who write such documents put a lot of effort into them, so it's appropriate that they be allowed to circulate beyond the original audience. Launching my site I don't consider myself a "techie," but last year, I finally signed up with an Internet service provider and began venturing onto the Internet. I soon was convinced that a personal web site would be useful, but I was afraid to try to learn the HTML programming necessary to create such a page. Once I gave it a try, though, I quickly realized that with a simple freeware HTML editor and file transfer program, creating a web site was much easier than I had realized. Much of the source material for my web site (biography, letters, speeches, etc.) already existed in electronic format on my home computer. My web site is not fancy. It is much more text-heavy than most web design experts recommend. However, I think it serves its purpose as a reference site for those interested in the issues I face as a school board member. The people who visit my site -- school employees, local citizens, and news reporters -- are usually there to learn more about a specific issue. I try to make it easy for them to understand what board members are facing and what we have done. I made sure to differentiate my site from the official Wood County Schools web site. I think any visitor can easily tell that mine is a personal site -- after all, the home page shows me on my motorcycle. I informed my fellow board members of my plans ahead of time and gave them hard copy when I created the site. As I am the only one of our five members with access to the Internet, they had no problem with my plan. Two catalysts helped push me to create the site. The first was when one of our two teacher unions circulated a newsletter to all employees that gave a one-sided view of a particular board decision. I used my web site as an outlet for the other side of the issue. Referring teachers to my site helped counter the union's impact. Second, I realized a web site could be helpful to other board members. As an officer in our state school boards association, I was assigned to help orient newly elected board members before they took office in July. I wanted to have my web site up and running in time to use it as a reference in the training. I included links to informational sites that have helped me understand education issues and added a list of accomplishments by our board in the hope that some of these good ideas would spread. The list of accomplishments was important for our constituents as well. Many people quickly forget the good things that happen, while anything negative stays in their memory for a long time. When you take the time to list all your board's accomplishments, you might be pleasantly surprised at the progress that has been made over the years. I also included a page of basic information about our school system but tried not to duplicate the official county web site. For example, I posted our school calendar because people frequently ask me questions such as, "When does school start?" or "When is spring break?" This page also carries information such as our hotline phone number, legal requirements, and ways to volunteer. Finally, I created my own e-mail discussion group. Visitors to my web page can choose to sign up for this service and keep up with issues facing education. A number of teachers and administrators have signed up, as well as a number of interested local citizens, including past (and future?) political candidates. There are even subscribers outside our county. Using this e-mail discussion group, I now write a summary of each board meeting, with special emphasis on those items that didn't make it into the newspaper. (I find that reporters often ignore substantive issues in favor of minor controversies.) In addition, I alert people to interesting newspaper articles that my electronic clipping service finds for me. (Isn't technology wonderful -- my own clipping service!) Sometimes I also distribute interesting messages that I receive from the School Board of Tomorrow e-mail discussion group for board members maintained by the National School Boards Association. I have learned a lot from this forum and highly recommend it. Details, details If you're interested in launching your own web site, you'll be glad to know that mine didn't cost anything. My Internet service provider, like many others, includes free web-site hosting with membership. Even if your provider does not, several free web-site hosting options are available on the Internet. The only catch with free web sites is that you won't get an easy-to-remember address. You have to pay for that privilege. Creating my web site didn't require buying special equipment, either: I used my home PC, which is an old 486-66 MHz machine with a 33.6 modem. I don't own a scanner or a digital camera, but I did get a couple of digital photos made for use on the site (including one picture which I downloaded from the official Wood County Schools web site). Everything I used in creating the site was free, from the HTML text editor and file transfer software, to the guestbook for my homepage. I even found freeware that allowed me to run a pop-up survey on my homepage regarding the outcome of our levy election. (I've listed some of the programs I used on my homepage.) Creating and maintaining your own web site is not difficult or expensive. In fact, it turned out to be easy -- even for a relative novice like me. I firmly believe board members should have a presence on the Internet. After all, a web site is just another way to communicate, and communication is essential for understanding and progress -- and for serving your constituency as an elected official. David N. Kurtz is a school board member in Wood County, W. Va.

WHEN PERSONAL WEB PAGES BECOME A POLITICAL ISSUE Should school board members have their own web sites? It depends on whom you ask. Proponents say web sites allow board members to explain issues in greater depth and keep in better touch with their constituents through e-mail. Skeptics say web pages might be appropriate sometimes, but they can also be divisive and easily mistaken as official school board sites. "To me, it's the equivalent of a board member having a newspaper," says Gail Ann Greely, a board member for the Alameda (Calif.) Unified School District. "It potentially has a very broad and unknown audience -- with no editor. There's no one to blame if it's misinterpreted." Dave Shearon created his web site last May, when he announced his campaign for the board of the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools. Now a new board member, he uses the site to explore difficult issues that can be tough to explain face-to-face. "For many politicians, there's a tendency to be noncommittal, inoffensive toward anyone you talk to," Shearon says. "[You] don't tell them about the 'yeah, buts' that are running around in your mind." Paul Schlichtman, a board member for the Minuteman Regional Vocational-Technical School District Committee near Boston, says his web site helps him communicate with a constituency that spans 16 communities. "People don't generally come to the meetings. They don't televise the meetings," Schlichtman says. "And so there's no way for people to know what's going on." Schlichtman, of Arlington, Mass., has battled Superintendent Ron Fitzgerald and the board majority on a number of issues, including a funding formula that Schlichtman says overcharges his town. He puts all this information on a web page that is headlined with the district's name and has a link to its official web site. Schlichtman says there is no confusion. "People hitting on [my] site know that it's commentary," he says. Others disagree. "It gives the impression that it is the committee's web page when actually it's not," says board chairman Robert Wiltse. He and Fitzgerald also say the web site contains inaccurate information. Wiltse, of Acton, Mass., also objects to Schlichtman's practice of sending commentary pieces to local newspapers in the various communities. "This is his way to send his message, to undermine my position in the town," Wiltse says. Which raises the question: Is it the medium that critics object to, or the message? Is the problem the web site itself, or what it's used for? Wiltse and Fitzgerald respond by saying they would have no problem with Schlichtman's site if it were more clearly identified and devoid of what they say is inaccurate information. But others say there's an inherent problem with the new medium. "The choice of vernacular can sway a story significantly," says Chet Davis, a board member for the Continental School District in Green Valley, Ariz. "And that's the problem we amateurs on the web have." School board members have "psychological weight," says Greely, quoting the words of a facilitator at a board workshop -- they possess more importance in the minds of the public than they might realize. One member might appear to speak for all. Opinions can be taken for fact. So be careful, Greely says, when putting information and opinions on the web. Regardless of what happens with personal board member sites, Shearon says he would like more information from his entire board put on the Internet -- everything from policy manuals to minutes of recent meetings. "I think all this should be on the schools' web site," he says. "And searchable." -- Lawrence Hardy

Reproduced with permission from the January 1999 issue of Electronic School. Copyright © 1999, National School Boards Association. This article may be saved to disk, printed out for individual use, or reproduced in quantities of less than 100 copies for academic use only, provided this copyright notice remains intact on each copy. This article may not be otherwise transmitted or reproduced without the consent of the Publisher. For more information, call (703) 838-6739.