Released every month, the Lambert Connected Podcast chronicles the updates and announcements for the entire Lambert community. Intending to be a more accessible way for parents to hear what is happening around the school, it tackles topics that help students at Lambert. This includes discussions about getting involved at Lambert with activities, gaining insight on the registration process, shifting testing culture at Lambert, talking about important voting topics like E-SPLOST and transitioning from middle school to high school.
Most parents have other commitments, balancing work and their children’s school and extracurricular activities, which have lowered attendance during parent information nights. To be able to reach those parents, Principal Thrower and the team came up with the idea for the podcast.
“If we did a series of podcasts that were super convenient, they could listen to them on their way to work,” Thrower stated. “We could get information to them in a more accessible way.”
The podcast aims to include a variety of perspectives from Forsyth County Schools Board of Education members, Lambert Student Council’s president, counselors, administrators and even the principals of feeder schools. Having such a diverse group of people brought different perspectives to the table for parents at home to listen to. While students hear information during the advisement period and from teachers throughout the day, the podcast acted as a great way to address the specific concerns that parents may have.
However, behind the scenes, there is more than what meets the eye of the listeners, including coming up with an outline of questions, recording and editing. During the summer, the Local School Councils (LSCs) from Brookwood Elementary, Johns Creek Elementary, Settles Bridge Elementary, Sharon Elementary, Riverwatch Middle and South Forsyth Middle schools worked together to discuss a set list of topics that should be addressed on the podcast.
“Ms. Bucherati helps coordinate and we have a general outline of questions and things that we follow,” Thrower explained. “She and I work collaboratively to create those for each one.”
One of the biggest episodes was about the Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (E-SPLOST), with Dr. Dugan, from the Forsyth County School Communications Department, and Ms. Hoyes and Mr. Valdes, from the Forsyth County Board of Education. It showed the significance of the E-SPLOST vote, a one-penny sales tax intended to improve current Forsyth County Schools facilities for students and expand current building projects.
“There was a lot of misinformation on social media about E-SPLOST: that it was increasing taxes for families, which wasn’t true,” Thrower emphasized. “We just wanted [parents] to know, before they went to vote, what they were actually voting on and how it would benefit their children.”
For Lambert, the money from E-SPLOST would help with the removal of the Learning Cottages and increase the blueprint of the actual school, allowing all students and staff to be within the footprint of the building. Fortunately, the vote passed during the Forsyth County Special Election, highlighting the role of the podcast to educate voters.
The Lambert Connected podcast includes ways to stay productive during the summer, information on Lambert camps and healthy advice about testing anxiety, focused on the stress of the End-of-Course and Advanced Placement testing season, emphasizing topics that feeder schools and counselors deem important. Primarily, the podcast considers the perspectives of the entire kindergarten through twelfth grade community surrounding Lambert and continues to provide much needed support to children and parents.
