Whipping Posts

School listservs have become the primary means of communication between schools and parents—and among parents themselves. But sometimes things get out of control

By Julie Rasicot

When parent Paula Bienenfeld received a letter in late August from Walter Johnson High School saying she needed to purchase a workbook for her son’s advanced placement foreign language course, she decided enough was enough. So she typed an e-mail to the school’s Internet listserv, expressing annoyance that she was supposed to pay for materials that the Montgomery County school system was required to provide under state law.

When she hit “send,” she ignited a cyberspace debate that ranged from postings of outrage over the fees to postings that chastised the quibbling of parents in such a wealthy community over paying for school materials.

Bienenfeld, who frequently posts on the listserv, was not surprised. “Some things really hit people’s buttons, and they flare up and take on a life of their own,” says Bienenfeld, whose son, David, is a sophomore at Walter Johnson.

Welcome to the world of school listservs, where information that parents used to share at bus stops and at PTA meetings now flies around a school community with just the tap of a computer key.

Parents and school officials praise the ease and immediacy of communication provided by listservs, especially when it comes to postings about school announcements and activities. The ability to share information helps build community, they say, and it can help make connections between people that can lead to action offline. “It’s like the measles—in a very good way,” Bienenfeld says.

But there’s also plenty of apprehension over the misuse of listservs, especially when a perception of anonymity entices users to write words that they might not say in public, generating a frenzy over a contentious issue.

“It’s a real Wild West. People get on there and they have a bad day and they peck away and they hit send,” says Tom Murphy, president of the Walter Johnson PTSA, who would like to see clear rules governing the use of listservs. “You can’t make policy on a listserv.”

Adds Kathie Weinberg, former PTSA president at Walt Whitman High School: “The fatal flaw is that people push that ‘send’ button and say things they would never say to a person’s face.”

Usually run by PTAs and PTSAs, listservs are communication tools that adapt to fit the needs of school communities. Some are solely for postings about school announcements and PTSA events, while others encompass topics that may have little to do with school issues. Some don’t allow ongoing discussion; others are more free-wheeling, occasionally generating passionate chatter on a variety of issues.

BCCnet, the listserv for Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, has a reputation as one of the most liberal in the area because users can post items that have nothing to do with school as long as they label it OT, or off-topic. Someone, for example, recently posted a notice looking for nit-pickers to pick the lice out of family members’ hair.

B-CC parent Pam Dahill, whose son, Luke, is a freshman, says she enjoyed learning about the school through the listserv, which she joined while Luke was in eighth grade at Westland Middle School last year. “You feel like there’s a good support group there. It did prepare me somewhat” for her son’s entrance into high school, she says.  But Dahill says she does get tired of the OT postings, which she must scroll through to find relevant school news. “You don’t want to miss what’s pertinent to the school, so you have to wade through the OT stuff,” she says.

For B-CC Principal Sean Bulson, the listserv helps him keep in touch with the school community. If after-school activities are cancelled, he posts the news immediately on the listserv. He also posts major school announcements on such issues as pedestrian safety, “so if parents want to continue to process that message with [students], there it is.”

“Our listserv works very well,” he says. “It’s really the only communication tool I have that I can get information out to a big group of people.”

Bulson also can deliver that information quickly when necessary, such as when Educational Facilities Officer John Witherspoon was injured by a falling tree limb last school year. “If someone drives by and they see three emergency vehicles out in front of the school, they want to know who got hurt. They want to know if their children are safe,” Bulson says. “I put out the information right away. That also keeps rumors from growing.”

Tapping into knowledge
Parents say they love the real-time nature of listservs. Because they can check the listserv and print out announcements, they no longer have to search for a missing flyer that was supposed to come home in their kid’s backpack. And there’s this sense of tapping into a vast font of knowledge accumulated by veteran parents, especially on such issues as entering high school or preparing for college.

“I just found it really helpful,” says Candice Haaga, who turned to the listserv for Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville to gather information on driver education programs for her son, Kevin, a junior. “You just have this problem that you know some parents are going to know something about.”

School and PTA officials note, however, that listservs often don’t have the full participation of a school community since some people may not have access to a computer, and that not all schools have interactive listservs. That’s why listservs are not expected to replace traditional forms of communication, such as newsletters and flyers.

“It doesn’t really matter what community you’re in, there’s still a digital divide,” says Jane de Winter, president of the Montgomery County Council of Parent-Teacher Associations. “Everywhere, there is some percentage of parents who don’t have easy access.”

Among the schools that don’t have interactive listservs is the Winston Churchill High School cluster, which includes two middle schools and five elementary schools. Janis Sartucci, who served as PTSA coordinator for the cluster from 2002-2006, believes that the lack of listservs stifles dissent and prevents parents from gathering information about important issues. She points to the recent Walter Johnson listserv debate over paying for textbooks, an issue that has been simmering for several years at Churchill and has garnered media attention for both schools this fall.

“We are like the shut-up and go-away listserv,” she says. “Parents just have to talk to each other. There is no neighborhood communication tool.”

Karin Leszczynski, vice president of the Winston Churchill PTSA, says the group doesn’t have an interactive listserv out of concern that it could become a source of incorrect information. The PTSA does offer a weekly e-mail newsletter of school news and announcements, and some school departments, such as the music department, have their own listservs, she says.

Leszczynski says the PTSA has “no plans” for an interactive listserv and advises people with questions and issues to approach the group or school officials directly. “We certainly welcome any and all people who have concerns to contact us,” she says.

‘You can’t call it back’
Listserv guidelines outlining appropriate topics and governing discussions vary from school to school. Solicitations for business, advocating for political candidates and posting information about individual situations, such as complaints about a teacher, usually are not tolerated.

At Thomas W. Pyle Middle School in Bethesda, the listserv is used primarily to inform parents about school news, says Principal Michael Zarchin. A parent monitors the listserv to make sure users stick to sharing information about school. “I don’t see it as a place to vent for parents,” Zarchin says.

He says the listserv helps coordinate the community on such issues as school events. For example, by posting the school calendar on the listserv, school officials can act quickly if a number of parents have conflicts with the date of a particular event, Zarchin says.

Some listservs are moderated, which means that messages aren’t posted until they’ve been reviewed. Most are more informally monitored, like the listserv at Walter Johnson High School, where there’s “no 10-second delay” and occasionally a post from a school administrator or PTA official is needed to end a discussion that’s run amok, says Murphy, the school’s PTSA president.

“Usually the deviations have to do with taking a shot at someone out there, which would be inappropriate,” Murphy says, adding that he has to remind users “to keep in mind that anything you send is in the public domain. That’s rule number one. Rule number two: it’s etched in stone and you can’t call it back.”

Murphy recalls a situation last winter where some users were posting comments about the quality of the school’s math classes. The discussion became controversial after postings named specific teachers, so the PTSA held a panel discussion in February to discuss the issues. “Something very positive did come out of it,” he says. “We had a plus and a minus. There were definitely hurt feelings because public attacks have no place on the PTSA listserv.”

Whitman High School has two listservs: Whitnet, for PTSA and school announcements only; and Whitcom, which is interactive and often freewheeling. Like many school listservs that are casually monitored, Whitcom has been the scene of squabbles between users over the appropriateness of postings.

A few years ago, a free-for-all broke out on Whitcom when the school announced that military recruiters would be available to meet with students in the cafeteria, a practice that had been going on for years. “Some people had the attitude that we don’t want our kids approached by military recruiters,” says Weinberg, the former PTSA president. “People let it all hang out about how anti-war they were. It was offensive to people with family members in the military.”

Listserv moderators say they try to move quickly to remove inappropriate or irresponsible messages. A message posted recently on a discussion listserv for North Bethesda Middle School passed along rumors about students having oral sex in the hallways. The message was swiftly renounced by PTSA President Tom Kenton, who chastised the sender for not checking with school Principal Alton Sumner to determine whether the rumors were true. “I am very much concerned that, as a parent, you did not see fit to contact Mr. Sumner as soon as you heard of the incident so that it could have been investigated as to whether or not it actually occurred,” wrote Kenton, who noted that Sumner told him there were no reports of such incidents. “Consequently, I am now asking you to present Mr. Sumner with any truthful facts that you have and to have your neighbor ask the teacher having knowledge of the incident to contact him also.” 

Principal Meredith Casper of Pine Crest Elementary School in Silver Spring also had to step in when an issue churning on the PTSA listserv was dividing the school community. In April 2006, some parents were angry after learning that one of the fourth-grade teachers in the school’s highly gifted program had arranged for her class to travel privately to Puerto Rico over spring break on an educational trip.

A number of parents posted their support for the teacher, but others were incensed that the trip wasn’t available to all students in the program. As the issue simmered, one parent got fed up with the discussion, which generated more postings that April and May than any months for the previous two years: “Enough already with the unwarranted criticism.  It really reflects poorly on those who are doing it. You know who you are. You obviously have some deep-seated anger. However, I doubt that your level of hostility could all be related to this trip. Kick your dog if you want, but leave [the teacher] alone.”

It was this sort of vitriol that caused Casper to post a message saying the discussion was dividing the school and requesting that it be terminated. In response, some users asked that she be removed from the listserv.

“I actually was quite offended when they wanted me removed,” the principal says.

But Casper sees value in the ability to quickly inform parents when issues start to percolate, such as the discussion before school began this year over the serving of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the school cafeteria. Some parents were worried about students allergic to nuts being exposed to the sandwiches.

Instead of having to wait until school began on Monday to provide the facts, Casper posted a message on the listserv that Saturday clearing up the issue. “It really allows you to have a pulse on what’s happening,” she says.

For regular users, listservs have revolutionized the way schools and parents communicate—and there’s no turning back. “If you didn’t have a listserv, I guess I’d be making 100 phone calls,” says Haaga, who is publicity chairwoman for the Richard Montgomery PTSA. “Who has time for that?” 

Lice, spiders and other interesting posts
Although most postings on school listservs are mundane, occasionally they are passionate or unusual. Here are some recent postings from Bethesda-area school listservs.

From BCCnet:

“My friend and neighbor, a Westland parent, has reached the point of desperation due to a stubborn case of head lice in her family. She is looking for someone who can pick the nits out of their hair. If you know of someone, please e-mail.”

“We just obtained a car from my brother, who is a smoker. We have tried garden-variety cleaning efforts to remove the lingering smoke smell and they have not worked. We are looking for a good industrial-strength auto detailer who can remove the stink once and for all. Any suggestions out there?”

“We have some old rocket-making materials and literature from one of my son’s middle school science experiments. I can’t vouch for how well they’ll work now, but I’d be happy if a potential rocket scientist could get some use from them. Two grocery bags to be picked up. Please respond directly at ….”

“We’ve got two cages with a cockatiel in one and two parakeets in another cage. They sit side by side, and we’d like for them to be adopted together. They’re healthy and a lot of fun. But, unfortunately, our kids haven’t bonded with them. The birds come with a good supply of food. For those who have never had birds, the maintenance is minimal...”

“We have a 2-year-old hamster, Mrs. Einstein, who needs a new home by this weekend. We are relocating overseas next week and cannot take her with us… If you would like to adopt a hamster please contact me as soon as possible!”

“I have a slightly overwhelmed daughter who is new to B-CC and in the 10th grade. Any mothers of 10th-grade girls who think their daughters wouldn’t mind taking her under their wing and offer friendship during these first few weeks of school, please e-mail me back. She is somewhat quiet, likes alternative rock music, an ‘Urban Outfitters’-type girl!”

From the Walter Johnson listserv regarding the furor over fees for class materials:

“Two of the wealthiest sections of the county (Potomac and Rockville/Bethesda) and the parents are complaining about a relatively small cost (to most of us) in terms of fees. Stop by the Starbucks at Wildwood and you will see students lined up before school to get their double whip, no foam, extra sugar, double shot whatever. Some simple math says: $5 a day for coffee, 5 days a week, is roughly $100/month. Yet we quibble over an academic workbook for $25 for the school year?”

From the Richard Montgomery listserv concerning the materials fees:

“I know I’ve been asked over the years to purchase various workbooks and supplemental texts for my child at RM (this year too!), but are we really supposed to do so? Churchill parents have won their battle against the textbook tax—so why are we asked to pay?”

From the North Bethesda Middle School discussion listserv:

“Now, what about spiders?  Yesterday, my seventh-grader was bitten twice by a spider.  He didn’t notice the bites as they occurred, but he did notice a big spider crawling on the floor… The reason I mention it is in case some kids are allergic to spider bites, because this seems to have been a pretty serious spider.”

Julie Rasicot is a Silver Spring freelance writer who also writes for the Washington Post and other publications.