Albuquerque Public Schools
Going the Extra Mile for Our Community
In her weekly message, Superintendent Blakey discusses the new Let's Talk platform and efforts to make APS more responsive.
The fall season is almost here, bringing cooler temperatures, the aroma of roasting green chile, and the State Fair. And the Balloon Fiesta is around the corner. It’s a great time of year in Albuquerque!
It always amazes me how time just seems to fly once the school year starts. We’re already a month into the first semester, and everyone has settled into a routine.
Part of my routine since being selected to lead Albuquerque Public Schools has been visiting schools and speaking to students and staff about what’s going well and where we, at the district level, could be doing a better job. I’ve also been meeting with community organizations like the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce and the Hispano Chamber of Commerce and posing similar questions to their members.
So far, I’ve visited nearly two dozen schools, with many more scheduled in the coming weeks. I’ve also met with more than a dozen community organizations, not counting the many groups that attended the recent State of the District event. I’m just getting started.
My listening tours have generated lots of feedback, and one of the themes I’ve been hearing regularly is that we need to do a better job of communicating with schools and the community. I completely agree, which is why we’re launching Let’s Talk.
Let’s Talk is a communications platform that is making us more responsive to our students, families, community, and staff. The online customer service tool makes it easier for our constituents to ask questions, request information, or share feedback about district operations. It tracks how long it takes us to respond—our goal is two business days. And it solicits feedback from those who reach out to us to gauge how we’re doing.
We’ve rolled out Let’s Talk in phases at the district level and at almost all our schools. It’s not a fad. We are committed to making it work.
I’ll be the first to acknowledge that no platform is going to magically fix a problem. I recognize that a tool is only as good as the people who monitor the feedback we’re getting – and take action. But it can help us get to where we want to be.
Let’s Talk allows us to track how responsive we are to those we serve, giving us the data we need to intervene when a department is falling short. I look at the data regularly, and I routinely question my leadership team during Cabinet meetings when we’re failing to meet our two-business-day target of responding to those who reach out to us.
The tool is already having a positive effect. Earlier this year it helped us recognize that we needed to temporarily assign more people to respond to registration questions from families in the weeks leading up to the school year because the staffers who typically handle those calls were overwhelmed during those peak periods.
I want to stress that my goal in bringing Let’s Talk to APS is to make our district more responsive to our community. When parents, students, staff members, and members of the community reach out to us with a question or concern, they deserve a response, and they should get that response in a timely manner. I’m hoping this tool will reinforce the importance of getting back to those who reach out to us.
Of course, that doesn’t mean everyone will be happy with our responses. That’s OK as long as we’re being honest.
Have a great weekend.