Do you think Leon County School (LCS) Board should stream their meetings on social media to make it more accessible to the public? This is the question that we asked a couple weeks ago. Across many platforms and in many social media groups the answer was “yes” they should.
Many individuals stated that they felt LCS should stream to social media in order to provide better access. In addition to better access, they felt like they would be more involved and more aware of when the meeting are streaming if they streamed on social media.
Two weeks ago LCS published a social media post a couple hours before the start of their meeting with a link to the website and where to watch. While a post is nice to get information out, it lacks the priority in social media that a live feed is given. Some people do not get notified through Facebook of the meeting until a 5-7 days after the meeting has occurred.
In one group of parents, Mothers expressed that they miss the comment section and the ability to comment on the videos. Many felt this was suppressing their speech and wasn’t allowing for a community conversation.
Others speculated about a rumor that LCS removed streaming from social media because of the comments.
LCS Pays Media Consultant
LCS paid a media consultant company $100,000 to make a new logo and rebrand their image. They already have someone on payroll for media relations as well as a marketing coordinator. While it is always nice to have knowledgeable people on your team, it appears they are distracted with lower priority problems.
A recent survey about LCS spending, 850CapitalTea found that 85% of people do not feel that LCS appropriately budgets their tax money. When respondents were asked what they feel defines a School, 91% selected “teachers and staff”. While 0% selected “Marketing”.
In Leon County’s current culture, people feel that they are being left out of the conversations about their children. They feel as if they don’t have a seat at the table, and they feel like they are finding out information about the school board well after the decision has been made.
