Communications committee plans PTO and community outreach, reviews newsletter and website changes

At the March 6 meeting the Weston Public Schools communications committee agreed to take the district's bricks‑and‑mortar summary to community touchpoints and to pursue interactive, in‑person outreach opportunities.

The committee discussed a plan for three communications committee members to attend PTO meetings (assigning middle‑school and high‑school PTO outreach among members), and to tap existing community gatherings such as Kiwanis and the League of Women Voters. Committee member (S3) urged a mix of "touch points" and at least two in‑person community sessions where residents could ask questions directly rather than rely solely on standard Board of Ed public comment rules.

"We've got to do community buy‑in on this thing," Committee member (S3) said, arguing for interactive sessions beyond passive board presentations. The committee discussed whether interactive sessions could be hosted by the communications committee or framed as informal executive‑board touchpoints to avoid the constraints of a formal board meeting.

District communications staff (S1) reported analytics for the bricks‑and‑mortar distribution: about 3,375 total views, with 3,331 credited to the mass notification system, 18 via direct email, and 17 via the website; average read time was roughly four minutes and mobile devices accounted for about 68% of views. Staff also proposed a calendar display tweak to improve accessibility on iPads and iPhones by adding an "upcoming meetings" list while preserving PDF calendar links.

Members asked staff to explore a wording change for the calendar link from "view full calendar" to something like "calendar details" to make the link more intuitive for users on small screens. They also agreed that communications committee members would reach out to PTO presidents and confirm opportunities to present — the March 21 League of Women Voters event was mentioned as a potential venue.

The committee set follow‑up tasks to schedule outreach, revise the newsletter summary language per earlier discussion, and circulate the revised draft before the next communications committee meeting on April 2.