The Pelham School District enjoys a reputation as a top performer in multiple categories, from academics and extracurriculars to the quality of the teachers and their engagement. Starting three years ago, the district launched an initiative to identify possible problems in another category, communications.

At the Board of Education’s November 5 meeting, district director of communications Alex Wolff gave a 30-minute presentation reviewing some of the problems identified back then, and what the district has been doing to address them since.

In the 2022-23 academic year, the district asked the National School Public Relations Association to conduct an audit of its communications program and its general perception in the community.

Wolff reviewed the results of the audit, which affirmed the high opinion that most parents had of the district’s teachers and academic programs. Then he discussed the problems that the audit revealed, including a lack of focus on communications goals, parent frustration with how the district disseminated information, poor crisis communications, low levels of employee morale and trust, as well as negative publicity from “external sources.”

“One thing I want to note is the audit itself was designed to find challenges,” Wolff said. “We did not go through this process because we wanted a pat on the back. We went through it because we wanted to find out where we could get better.”

In response to the apparent shortcomings, Wolff and the district developed a strategic communications plan, which focused on the schools’ “key audiences” and “provides key messaging that we should consider when we’re speaking to those audiences.”

Crisis communications was another problem area. “We’ve worked very hard at developing our crisis communications plan…building redundancy within our crisis communication structure,” Wolff said. “So if I’m unavailable, somebody knows what their role is, and they’re going to step up and be able to lead communications. Or if I am available, and we have a serious issue going on, we’re able to bring folks in and have conversations around what we need to communicate that wasn’t necessarily happening before.  It would happen in pockets, but now we have some real strategy behind it.”

Another plank to the strategy is a “staff-first” approach to communications, Wolff said.  “We want to make sure that our staff know what needs to be communicated before it goes out to the general public, because we know that our staff are on the front lines, and we want them to be able to answer questions, and, more importantly, be able to help our students through any crisis that that arises. So if we’re having an early dismissal, it’s pretty important that our teachers know that students are going to be sent home before they’re actually sent home.”

Wolff mentioned projects that are already in the works, including using “hard-mailing newsletters” and relying on ParentSquare, a communications app, to allow staff to share positive stories with parents.   

Wolff also called on parents and other residents to fill out a survey, dubbed SCOPE, which would give the district feedback on the quality of its communications. The deadline to fill out the survey is November 17. [Editor’s note: on Monday the district extended the deadline to November 24.]

In other business, the district saluted Nicholas D’Ambroso, a Prospect Hill gym teacher and longtime coach of football and girls basketball, for winning the Elementary School Teacher of the Year award from the New York State Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance.

“He has been known to many of us locally as just an amazing educator, and now he is known to the entire state,” Superintendent Dr. Cheryl Champ said. 

Athletic director Joe Toombs presented D’Ambroso with the award. Reflecting on his arrival at the district and his first impression of D’Ambroso, Toombs said, “His name was really involved in everything and every place I turned.”

Following D’Ambroso’s acceptance of the award, three students from the Pelham Middle School advocated for the formation of a modified tennis team.  Students Liam Cepler, Ethan Krivicka and Macpherson Alderman, all seventh graders at the middle school, said a tennis team would be widely supported, noting that a petition for the team had received upwards of 130 signatures.

“We’ve spoken with many students, and there’s a lot of excitement about joining if a team is created,” said Alderman.