Superintendent of Schools Joseph V. Erardi, Jr, conducted his first Parent/Community Forum September 18 in a packed lecture hall at Newtown High School. The evening’s topic was a question brimming with engagement and hope: What must take place for your son/daughter to have their absolute best school year? Our initial response to the question was not a direct answer but a general observation: How far we have come in how we communicate with our school officials over the past three years.

In the summer of 2011, then-superintendent Janet Robinson felt she had to hire a public relations consultant to help her better “communicate” with the people of Newtown, who at the time were hopping mad at a decision by school administrators and the Board of Education to abandon the traditional owner-operator school bus transportation system in the district. The new consultant was hired with the complicity of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education (CABE), which at the time was counseling school boards to be careful what they said because “people listen.” As often happens when it becomes clear to people that they are being patronized and manipulated by too-slick PR campaigns, the PR consultant herself became an embarrassing public relations problem for the school district.

Fast forward through Dr Robinson’s predictable departure from Newtown, through Interim Superintendent John Reed’s capable stewardship, to last Thursday night’s forum. A school superintendent stood before a crowd of parents not to spin information but to solicit it. His motivation? “I think it is really essential that the most important partnership for any district that is going to claim to be a district of distinction — and that is what this district could be — has to be a very strong partnership with parents.” Apparently this is not just so much happy talk. Dr Erardi is at the office early every weekday at 6:30 am for an open hour of listening to whomever wants his ear.

Last week’s Parent/Community Forum was a good start. But it lasted just an hour — hardly enough time for substantive discussions on the topics essential for an “absolute best school year.” That is supposed to come later, engaging not only the Board of Education, but students as well. If that is, in fact, how the process unfolds, that in itself will identify Newtown’s school system as a “district of distinction.” It seems a simple thing in this time of facile communication to have elected and appointed leaders tap the rich resource of their constituencies for guidance and inspiration. While it may be simple, unfortunately it is also becoming increasingly rare.