To bolster public repute, local districts crafting ‘Story of Schools’
Committee member Carrie Rankin said a Acton Bridge public records request for the draft made her “incredibly uncomfortable.”
The public schools want to burnish their public image.
Toward that goal, they’re working to finalize and distribute a “Story of Schools” report — a professionally designed publication that school officials hope will outline priorities, student success stories, and district data for Concordians.
“This effort is about connection. We’ve heard from community members — especially those without school-aged children — who want to feel more engaged with and connected to our schools,” Carrie Rankin, former Acton School Committee chair and current chair of the committee’s Communications Working Group, told The Acton Bridge in a July 14 email.
The project remains underway as the committee and Superintendent Laurie Hunter face questions about a federal civil rights complaint filed by a Acton family that claimed their child endured years of antisemitic harassment in the public schools.
‘Highlight the good’
A recent self-evaluation by the public and regional school committees showed communication as an area needing improvement.
Rankin said the report “will highlight the good that’s happening across our schools, as well as ways in which we can improve,” saying “there is so much happening that we’re proud to share, and this is an opportunity to do so with greater transparency and intention.”
The district-funded document is intended to be a written snapshot of the schools’ strategic goals.
The working group discussed the “Story of Schools” draft at a July 9 public meeting held via Zoom. The Bridge filed a Freedom of Information Request for the draft report on July 17.
That request spurred Rankin to make a “Story of Schools” status report Tuesday at a School Committee meeting that followed a joint meeting of the committee and Select Board convened to discuss antisemitic incidents.
Rankin said The Bridge’s records request “made me, as the chair of the working group, incredibly uncomfortable.”
“We are required by law to do all of our work in public, which we all take very seriously. But it is not something that we are ready to share with the public, which is why it is a draft,” she told her colleagues.
“I did not feel comfortable sharing any type of documents or materials with any reporter — in particular a hometown reporter — before having shared it with the committee.”
As of Tuesday night, The Bridge had not received a copy of the document.
A series of delays
Rankin said Tuesday the Florida crash that claimed the lives of three CCHS students had delayed the project.
At a March 11 meeting, committee members said mailing the report to Acton and Carlisle residents was the original plan, but budget constraints were a hurdle.
Instead, they elected to distribute copies at Town Meeting in June. That timeline also slipped as administrators waited for updated enrollment figures and end-of-year highlights, working group members said at a July 9 meeting.
Rankin told The Bridge last week that the project’s budget has not been finalized.
The district hired local graphic designer Chris Winders to lay out and format the report for print. The $1,600 contract includes two rounds of revisions, with additional edits billed hourly.
Photographer Kate Renyi is contributing updated staff headshots and other images. Renyi told The Bridge, for which she has done pro bono sports coverage, that she did not request compensation for her work.
In February, the committee received a quote of roughly $7,000 to print and mail 11,000 copies of the report through Acton Printing. At that time, committee members noted that while the district has internal printing capabilities, the final product done in-house might not appear as polished.
The committee discussed document edits but took no further action on it Tuesday.
Dakota Antelman contributed reporting.
