Today's guest blog is written by Douglas W. Huntley Ed.D., the superintendent of Queensbury Union Free School District in Queensbury, N.Y. He has served as a superintendent for New York schools for more than 20 years. As a researcher and practitioner in the area of public engagement and social media in public schools, he is a regular presenter at professional conferences and lecturer on college campuses.

School budget season is in full swing but is your community fully engaged in your budget conversation? While some districts are riding a strong tide of public support built on year-round, two-way communication with their communities via tools like social media, others are only pushing out one-way messages via the time honored, but highly ineffective annual budget newsletter. The dichotomy between these two different approaches to public engagement is as real as it is extreme.

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One of the most urgent issues facing educational leaders today is their communities' expectations for quick, accurate and timely information, provided instantly. Newsletters, brochures, fliers, letters, and backpack stuffers are slow, inefficient, costly and increasingly obsolete by today's communication standards. Even school leaders who also use email and school websites are failing to fully satisfy public expectations for fast, open and interactive communication. Strong community engagement can be reached in a number of different ways, but none is more instantly effective than adding the use of social media to a school district's communication plan.

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