Many of us check school emails regularly and oftentimes only receive information about school college visits or leadership-run activities. 

Most of us would be much more attentive to subject headlines relating to serious topics that can affect students, such as the fairly common racist incidents that happen on campus. 

In fact, one occurred last week when racist graffiti was found on campus. Students did not receive an email about this.

But guess who did receive an email? And spoiler alert, it’s not who’d you would expect to be affected by a racist incident on campus.

Our parents were notified of this incident just as they have received emails about other important issues in the past. As important as it is to know what happens on their students’ high school campus, it is unlikely that only sending these emails to parents has as much of an impact on students as it should.

How are we expected to have a strong relationship with the school if it fails to provide us with info about vital school-related incidents?

Luckily, this won’t stand for much longer as the San Ramon Valley Unified School District is making changes to how it communicates with students. 

After input from the district’s Student Senate, and in particular student board member Ronit Batra of Monte Vista High School, the district said it will directly communicate with students about vital information they want and must hear.

In early April, the district unveiled a new Instagram account under the username @studentssrvusd, moderated by both students and the district staff. Direct communication with students through social media rather than communication by emailing parents is a very positive change in our school community.

We as students look  forward to being notified whenever pertinent issues arise at Cal and elsewhere in the district.

But the question still remains: Will this new Instagram account replace previous emails sent to parents and actually inform students about important subjects such as racist incidents and threats of violence many schools have experienced? 

Hopefully after gaining more followers than the 138 it had as of Tuesday, April 26, the district’s new Instagram account will achieve this.

With the support of the district attempting better connections with students, we are  headed in the right direction.