Board approves pilot of ThoughtExchange to ask residents how they prefer to receive communications

At the meeting administrators presented a plan to pilot a ThoughtExchange prompt asking residents how they want the district board to communicate with them. The recommended prompt submitted for board review was: "What are the most effective ways the Hendrick Hudson Central School District Board of Education can communicate with you?" — and staff emphasized that ThoughtExchange allows open responses and crowd-source rating of ideas rather than limiting respondents to a short checklist.

The rollout plan includes electronic distribution via ParentSquare and the superintendent’s weekly update, translations for non-English speakers, printed flyers and a small postcard mailer to reach households not active online, and options to support non-tech-savvy respondents (paper responses could be entered into the platform by staff). Josh Thompson (BOCES PR specialist) assisted with mockups and turnaround planning. Administrators said ThoughtExchange will be open about two weeks, analysts will help code themes, and the results would be presented to the board at the Feb. 4 meeting.

Board members discussed wording, reach and whether the prompt should be expanded into a two-part question later; several members urged a simple first question focused on how residents want to receive communications (email, text, paper, in-person). The board agreed to proceed with the pilot and to use reminders and a postcard mailing to broaden participation.

Next steps: administration will launch the exchange, monitor participation and return with analytic results and suggested next actions at the February meeting.