At a panel discussion titled "Building Positive Relationships with the Community," a school principal, a central office administrator, and a school board member shared advice on using communications to build confidence in schools. The panel's moderator was Anne Meek of the Educational Statistics Services Institute in Washington, D.C.
Carolyn Garrett, principal of Arrowhead Elementary School in Virginia Beach, Va., emphasized the importance of getting good news out to the media. "We have a media liaison program in the building, and we are constantly bombarding the [media] with good things that are going on in the school," she explained. "In the last year, I've had 75 positive `hits' in the newspaper and on TV. Now, some of that is the little stuff in the Sunday journal that says Arrowhead is having a luncheon on Tuesday for parents. But you'd be amazed at how much difference that makes to people in your community." The constant stream of good news builds credibility for her school in the public's eyes, Garrett noted. "Hopefully they will remember the positive when the negative surely comes."
Deborah Jewell-Sherman, associate superintendent for instruction and accountability for the Richmond (Va.) Public Schools, spoke of the importance of multiple voices. "The news is not always good, but we in education can't be the only ones to put it in perspective. We often need influential people in the community to come forward and explain it," she said. "When you can get groups like the Chamber of Commerce, the PTA, and the teacher associations to explain test scores that aren't where you want them to be, or lobby for standards that are fair to all children," then the public is more likely to hear the message.
Recently, when some fights and thefts occurred at an alternative school in her district, Board members began to waver in their support for the school, Jewell-Sherman said. "We had been working with the editor of [a local] newspaper, which was most fortuitous," she said. "He took the information that we gave him, and he came out with an editorial that supported the alternative school. For this rather conservative newspaper to come out and say, `This is a good initiative'—saying that in that venue emboldened our school board members and has allowed us to go forward."
Earl Rickman, a veteran school board member from Mount Clemens, Mich., stressed the importance of listening to parents. When a mandatory, districtwide uniform policy was proposed recently, the Board asked each school to survey its staff, parents, and students about the proposed policy. The survey results were illuminating.
"There was little or no support for uniforms at the high school level," Rickman said. At the middle school level, there was "marginal" support from teachers and parents, "but 98 percent of the students were adamantly opposed." At the elementary level, by contrast, "we had overwhelming support from parents, because it would cut down on the time needed to dress kids in the morning," and from staff.
If the Board had simply adopted the proposal, "we would have implemented a uniform policy that three-quarters of the school district opposed," Rickman pointed out. "We would have created a lot of problems for the district, and that would have made front-page news. So this is one example of how you engage your community by communication and listen to what they say."