Kelso School District is tweeting.

The district launched Twitter and Facebook pages this month to better connect with parents, students and community, said Kelso School Superintendent Glenys Hill.

“We need to reach out to our community in different ways,” she said Tuesday.

The sites will provide updates and notices of school events, closures or late starts, said Mike Watters, who set up the sites and is responsible for updatting them.

Parents can have Twitter updates sent as text messages to their cell phones, he said, and Facebook updates will appear on participants newsfeeds.

“It’s an easy, free way to communicate with community members and parents,” said Watters, who works for Education Service District 112.

Watters has started similar pages this year for school districts in Ridgefield, Camas and Washougal.

It appears Kelso is the first school district in Cowlitz County to join Twitter and Facebook. Longview School officials said they don’t have plans in the works to start either pages.

So far, Kelso has just over 140 fans on Facebook and 29 Twitter followers. The web sites are a great way to connect with a new generation of tech-savvy parents, Hill said.

“We want to get them information in a way that works for them,” she said.

Websites: www.twitter.com/kelso_schools.  

Kelso School District’s Facebook page can be found by logging on to Facebook and searching for “Kelso School District.”