Q & A: Mike Falick, school board member, Spring Branch, Texas

Local school board member Mike Falick was elected in May 2004 in the Spring Branch Independent School District on the west side of Houston, and re-elected unopposed in 2007. He is well into his third year of blogging, and claims 100,000 page views. "I think people in our community like the information I provide," he says. The school district serves a broadly diverse student population of 32,000 students.

What inspired you to begin blogging? I began blogging in August 2005. The reason I began blogging was that I see the blog as a very effective communication vehicle for providing real-time information about our district to the community. Initially, as the board's legislative liaison, my idea was to provide the community with information concerning legislation that might impact our district. Over time, the scope of the blog has broadened to include board related items, including a recap of all of our board meetings, and items of general educational interest.

What do you see are the benefits to your blogging? With the blog, I can rapidly disseminate important information to the community. In addition, I have found educational resources on the internet that are being utilized in our district. I have also been able to post information about issues in a timely manner concerning legislative issues that affect our district's finances and educational programming.

What have been the challenges, or the negatives? There really have not been any challenges or negatives.

What do your constituents think of your blog? I have received a great deal of very positive feedback from my constituents concerning the blog. I think people in our community like the information I provide. I also send out a weekly email newsletter through Constant Contact to over 1,000 people with links to updates from the blog.

What do your fellow board members think? I think my fellow board members like the blog. Indeed, one of the other board members has started her own blog.

What advice would you give other school board members who would consider blogging about their work? I would give four pieces of advice.

First, use a blogging service that makes posting, adding hyperlinks, and uploading pictures and documents easy. There are a lot of choices, out there. I use TypePad which I have found to be very user friendly.

Second, make sure you are willing to post with some regularity. I posted for almost a month before I let people know about the blog to test that I would actually post.

Third, I have found it useful to email my blog posts to people on a regular basis. As I said above, I use Constant Contact.

Finally, add a counter to you blog and use a service that allows you to see where your hits are coming from and what people are reading on your blog. I use Statcounter and I know Google has its own blogging analytics.

More helpful information can be found in this American School Board Journal article from the September 2007 issue (pdf).