Port Townsend Schools Superintendent John Polm wouldn’t mind receiving more guests for his next Coffee Chat with the Superintendent night, even though he and Assistant Superintendent Sandy Gessner had no shortage of topics to discuss during their Jan. 24 meeting. The two were joined by Carol Light, a former teacher at the OCEAN program at Blue Heron Middle School, and her husband, Richard Kenney, a University of Washington professor who recently worked at UW’s branch campus in Rome. The couple was catching up on changes to Port Townsend’s schools while they were away, including the shifting of the fourth and fifth grades from Blue Heron to Salish Coast Elementary. Kenney and Light expressed some big-picture concerns and wondered how the school district might be addressing issues with a global impact. Kenney cited news stories about the possible influence of the internet on the 2016 presidential election as he wondered aloud how social media might be affecting students. Polm acknowledged online harassment and intimidation are valid concerns in a digitally connected world, and he pointed to the digital literacy efforts of instructors such as Ben Dow, in his Contemporary World Problems class, and librarian Joy Wentzel in her library lessons. Gessner cited the social media policy approved by the school board Jan. 17, which codifies the district’s goals of remaining up-to-date and compliant with existing laws governing social media, and to balance student rights and freedom of expression with the prohibition of harassment, intimidation and bullying. “This is why critical-thinking skills are so important,” Gessner said. “We all need to discern legitimate sources of information, but that’s one of the limitations of the internet.” From there, the discussion expanded as the school district officials and their guests agreed education itself has evolved beyond memorization of facts into evaluation of data. “If we can teach how our brains work to avoid things like confirmation bias we can become better consumers of information,” Gessner said. Polm hopes to draw more attendees to the next coffee chat so they can cover more topics. “I enjoy opportunities to hear from parents and other community members,” he said. The next coffee chat is from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Jan. 31 at the Gael Stuart Building, 1610 Blaine St., in the School Board Room S-11. For more information, call Katy Gaffney, assistant to the superintendent, at 360-379-4501.