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Friday, February 22, 2013

Ypsilanti Schools Shuts Down Facebook Page

To cut to the chase:

The new Ypsilanti Community Schools Board (the Ypsilanti/Willow Run consolidated school board) current Ypsilanti schools had a facebook page used for sharing information about upcoming events and activities. As you might expect, people commented on it.

When some board members from the new, consolidated school board--which is also functioning as the school boards for Ypsilanti and for Willow Run until the end of June--proposed the (truly idiotic) idea of hiring two superintendents (and yes, the same ones from the old districts), the facebook page came alive with comments. Some ones (I assume, some members of the new school board) didn't like the facebook page criticism and so they took down the page.

[Update: Commenters in annarbor.com say it was Superintendent of the Ypsi Schools Dedrick Martin who made the decision to take down the facebook page. I'm not really sure who did it, but he did say that communication has been a weakness of his. If it was him, that would make sense--communication really is a weakness of his.]

Luckily, an anonymous reader had copied the comments before it was closed down (Thank You!), and I'm posting the comments here. It's worth watching the video--which I hope come through on this site!

Also, some community members have started a new facebook page: Ypsilanti Community Schools Supporters. Feel free to give them a "like."

  • The Board of Education interviewed three candidates for superintendent for Ypsilanti Community Schools. The Board will meet on Monday, February 18, to discuss these interviews.
    20130214 WRCS YCS BOE Sharon Irvine Interview
    "20130214 WRCS YCS BOE Sharon Irvine Interview", a playlist created by WillowRunBoE
  • Meredith SchindlerEric Kasza and Katrina Nembhard like this.
  • Meredith Schindler The interviews were interesting and informative - thanks to YPS for posting this. Enrollment figures released by the district last year, and presented at a board meeting then, were alarming. Enrollment has declined 13% in the last two years, and would have declined even more except for the large school of choice student population that came from Willow Run. With us combining with Willow Run, these numbers will become more alarming unless something different is done to stem this tide.

WR-YPS unified board of education decides more time needed to make superintendent hire decision. Tuesday, Feb. 19 meeting is cancelled.

3 comments:

  1. Hi, Ruth.

    Thanks for turning your attention to the situation in the east!

    One clarification: The old Facebook page was called Ypsilanti Schools and was set up awhile ago. In general, it hosted PR-type postings (e.g., band concerts, student accomplishments) and, more recently, notifications of meetings and such. It is disappointing that the page is down now. I wonder how the district will publicize the many good things that are still happening in Ypsi schools.

    - YpsiAnon

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, I have made the corrections to hopefullly properly reflect what happened--let me know if I still didn't get it quite right.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ruth,

    Thanks for making those changes.

    One seemingly small decision (shut down the Facebook page) has had significant impacts. Now we have the new Facebook page, and the community is using it to not only discuss the political issues, but to publicize our positive events! Also, by liking the page, a lot more people than usual have been made aware of what's going on here.

    I love what the creator(s?) of the new FB page has done by breaking down the interviews and board meetings (and their videos) into bite-size pieces. It's pretty overwhelming to think of wading through hours of video just to see for yourself why there was so much fuss about one particular five-minute statement.

    - YpsiAnon

    ReplyDelete

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