Mom Started E-Mail Groups to Get Information From Schools to Home

BY ANDREA SCHOELLKOPF Journal Staff Writer

    In the West Side's virtual world, she's known simply as CherylABQ@aol.com. Cheryl Jorgensen— her real name— is the voice for seven different school Web sites, alerting more than 2,800 combined subscribers to the latest happenings at their schools: from parent-teacher conferences to how to get tickets to a Cibola High football game to when to register students for the ACT.
    "I was tired of making phone calls, and I've had America Online since 1994," said Jorgensen, a stay-at-home mom. "I thought there was a better way (to get the message out) than calling people."
    It was 2001 and two of Jorgensen's three children were enrolled at Marie Hughes Elementary and another at Lyndon B. Johnson Middle School. When her son Brian moved on to Cibola the next year, so did a new listserve for that school.
    LBJ principal Marcie Johnson said she was a bit skeptical when Jorgensen first suggested a listserve for the middle school in 2001.
    "I just kept thinking, 'I wonder if we have enough parents who have computers who will find this to be useful,' '' Johnson said. "We got great parent response from this. Now it seems they have come to expect we have this kind of communication, but at the time it seemed very cutting edge."
   
Saving the day
    It has revolutionized the way parents can stay involved at middle schools, she said.
    "Middle-schoolers are pretty notorious for not taking information home," said Johnson, who communicates three to four times a week with Jorgensen via e-mail.
    Jorgensen also began adding listserves for other West Side schools, but letting parent volunteers or school employees moderate the list if she didn't have children there. There are now about 10 different moderators in the Cibola High cluster.
    When Lyndon B. Johnson forgot to get word out that students didn't need to wear uniforms the next day, Johnson asked Jorgensen to let parents know.
    When James Monroe Middle School had a lockdown recently, Jorgensen and the Monroe moderator Andrea White worked together to let parents know what the situation was and to ask them to stay at home.
    "The police wanted us to tell people not to come," Jorgensen said. "It was making it harder for them to do their job."
    She said the principals have also used the listserve to get their message out to parents about such issues as the state Adequate Yearly Progress reports or to rebut rumors.
   
Multiple sources
    Jorgensen, who has a degree in communications advertising from Brigham Young University and has worked in trade magazine publishing, does some reporting work to investigate the details.
    She says the information she uses for the listserve comes not just from the notes that go home in the backpacks, but what her children tell her.
    "This e-mail group keeps busy parents connected with the school and sends home important notices that are not communicated through our kids," said Suzanne Frazier, who remembered being warned at LBJ five years ago about the middle school communication gap.
    A divorced parent said the e-mails help him stay apprised of school information on non custody days. Others said they were able to participate in the naming and boundary process of Volcano Vista.
    A native of Southern California, Jorgensen and her husband, Greg, a Rio Rancho orthodontist, have lived in Albuquerque since 1991.
    Son Brent, 16, was a receiver on the Cibola football team this season, and she has been careful to balance her support for the school sports program with other activities such as school plays and fundraisers.
    Daughter Brooke, 11, is a sixth-grader at LBJ.
    Brian, meanwhile, is married and attending the University of Utah— a school for which she jokingly said she doesn't have plans for a listserve.
   
Getting things done
    Jorgensen is also one of the key West Side school activists, part of a group that has advocated for the creation of new West Side high school and gone door-to-door as the "Bubble Gum Brigade" to raise support for school bond elections. She also heads up the Cibola PTO and has sat on design, boundary and naming committees for the new Volcano Vista High School.
    "The thing about Cheryl is she puts her time and effort where her beliefs lie, which is the power of public education," Johnson said.
    The upkeep of the listserves can take one to two hours a day, which includes answering e-mails from parents.
    "It's an invaluable service for all of the Cibola community, teachers, parents, students," said Cibola principal Grace Brown, who has worked with Jorgensen for five years. "Any last-minute changes, boy, she gets that out in a hurry."
    Brown said when the school had a sewer backup and had to evacuate students, she hastily called Jorgensen to e-mail parents because news helicopters were circling the school amid rumors of a lockdown.
    The Cibola listserve has grown from 300 to about 850 members.
    Brown also has used Jorgensen's listserve to get parent volunteers for interviewing committees or for a cleanup at the school day.
    "It's a different kind of involvement," Brown said. "As a result of that (listserve), I think we have a lot of parents come in and say they can help."