Livin and Lovin as a Kenoshan!

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In the past the school district has came under fire repeatedly for a lack of effort to communicate with the parents of the district, especially when there are serious or controversial issues involved. There has always been the rumors that the administration does this on purpose because they don't like the parents to know. According to this long lasting rumor it is a simple technique used to maintain their unquestionable authority. This rumor is usually partially confirmed when they quietly push a referendum through hoping that no one but their supporters notice till its to late. In reality this lack of communication causes many problems, especially when there are millions of dollars on the line.

The resentment caused by this perception has caused groups in the past to demand an increase of communication with the district, and actively promote awareness among the taxpayers and parents. I have participated in one of these groups in the past. The Kenosha parents union, addressed some very important issues and made a real difference in the community, but was short lived.

I don't think this is a Kenosha issue as much as its a American issue. its not unusual to hear community's from around the country complain about their school districts. The administration of our school districts seems to be very controversial by nature. This is not surprising because they are responsible for our children's education, and if you ever wanted to get under someone's skin, just mess with their child's future. They tend to get real upset, even to the point of expressing irrational emotions.

In many cases this is not necessary the school districts fault, because they have made the attempt to communicate with the public, we just haven't been paying attention. I recently noticed one of their attempts to communicate with us that I had not noticed before. This prompted me to write this post.

Just a few days ago, while updating my desktop RSS feeds (real simple syndication). I happened across a feed from the school district. At first I was delighted, then it occurred to me that even with a hundred or more feeds, I had somehow missed this one. This caused me to reevaluate my perception of school district communications. here I could have been getting the information sent right to my desktop all along. I find fault with myself for not knowing this feed existed. As a former news site owner for the Kenosha area, I should have most definitely known, but I didn't.

Kenosha's school district RSS feed can be found here

or you can copy and paste this into your reader. http://www.kusd.edu/rss/news/rss.xml

Now I wonder, how many other computer literate parents out there could be receiving a news feed from their own school districts. The knowledge of these feeds would greatly facilitate communications between society and the district.’Maybe even stop misunderstandings caused by lack of information, before they start. That would be great, school districts have enough controversy without misunderstandings.

Having said all that, I would encourage everyone. Find out for yourselves if your district has a website, and if it has a RSS feed. Then you will be able to receive the information ASAP from the administration. If for some reason the site doesn't get updated regularly, that's another issue. Perhaps if they knew people were actually paying attention to it, they would ensure that it got updated regularly.

so now I have found my issue for the moment, it gives me something to rant about this week, or till another issue takes it place.

Hey, why don't you have a RSS feed to the school district set up yet! now you cant tell me that you didn't know. I just told you about it.