No other time in history have we had some much information available to us, virtually at our fingertips, and in many cases we do not take advantage of that availability.  Please forgive me for venting, however sometimes I feel as though we threw a party and no one came.  The Board of Education has allocated a number of resources to insure we are communicating with our parents.  These resources include ConnectED, the automated phone calling system – now expanded to include e-mail, in addition over the past four years we have added voice-over IP, the automated phone service and voice mail to allow parents to access the school 24/7 and most recently we revamped and now have a dynamic web site.  All of these tools make it very difficult to NOT know what is happening at your school.  However I feel many parents are not taking advantage of these tools.  In writing the column this week, I remember a rather “smart-aleck” comment I made as a young assistant principal several years ago.  I was in a frustrating conversation with a parent who claimed to have not been informed about a particular deadline relevant to their son’s education.  In this particular situation a letter had been sent home with the boy, but low and behold the letter never made it home.  My comment was “we can’t pick up the phone and call every parent that would be virtually impossible”, however today that is exactly what we do.  We call each home to alert of our weekly News & Notes and/or any other pertinent information or announcement.  The phone call will provide immediate information or direct you to our web site where we have weekly articles and announcements.  Also on the web site is the school calendar and access to everything you would ever care to know about Richland School District 88A.  Just posted last week is the 2009-2010 2^nd Quarter Newsletter, designed to give you a thumbnail overview of what happened at each grade level and/or what is coming up.  Click the link on the left,after all it will only cost you a few moments of time.

Speaking of being informed, I received some information from LTHS 205 that the next LTHS Summit for the purpose of discussing overcrowding at the high school will be held on Thursday February 11, 2010 at Homer Council Chambers, 14917 South Founders Crossing in Homer Glen at 7:00 PM.  All interested parties are invited to attend and those in attendance will be allowed to ask questions and/or share concerns.

Have a great weekend.

Dr. Early