Athens Teachers' War Against the Board: Public Relations

There was a recent rant going around Facebook about an "incident" at an elementary school in the Athens district. The rant was gaining traction in that it was a beautiful moment for anti-Muslim bigotry to be publicly paraded after the ranter claimed his child was subjected to 20 minutes of Muslim indoctrination and anti-Christian holiday...something. It's not worth really rehashing much at all.

I learned about it only because I was sent a message that a mutual friend on Facebook had posted information from a closed group dedicated to the elementary school's Parent-Teacher Group, a "social media response" to the allegations.

I wondered what the school's official response was; supposedly, according to the ranter, the school received many phone calls from numerous sources after his tirade. You would think there would have been an official response to an incident that had supposedly happened several days previous and had generated phone calls to the superintendent. But as of the time I'm writing this, you'd be wrong. I find nothing on the district's home page, where last year the school board had posted a list of arguments outlining why the teachers are grossly overpaid compared to the constantly toiling school administrators.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Sources within the district say that it's not unusual for administrators to require teachers to address behavior issues of students with parents before administration will become involved. Calming an outraged mob of ill-informed Facebookers is only a stone's throw away from discussing behavior issues with the public if the school doesn't acknowledge the need for consistent handling of these issues through official channels.

Note: there was a newspaper story referring to a district statement. First, that guy's rant and backhanded apology was a story in the local paper?!? Really?!? Second, despite the story's claim, I can't find an official response on the school website, and the quotes in the story mirror the statement posted by the head teacher on the PTG Facebook page. Unless someone corrects me on where this statement came from and who authorized the wording, I'm calling shenanigans.

What struck me about the statement from the PTG Facebook page was how factual it was. It calmly, almost clinically, debunked the same batshit stupid ideas that still are tossed around about schools despite time and time again being denied, such as not saying the Pledge of Allegiance or allowing students to say "Merry Christmas". (Snopes.com needs to strike a deal with Facebook to auto filter that crap...please.)

The tone is much like the rare release from the teacher's Union in their ongoing contract negotiations. If you read what a certain board member characterized as a declaration of war, it was by far one of the most boring and dry declarations of war I've ever read. I mean, though apocryphal, at least John Hancock signed his "screw you" to Britain with such large strokes it could be read without spectacles. The Union's "demands" were tame and deferential. Contrast that with the bombastic tone of the mostly fictional allegations made by the father angry that his kid was learning about another culture, or the hyperbolic tone of the "pillar of the community" board member having a public tantrum and all but declaring war on those greedy, scheming teachers. The Union letter couched itself more heavily than my ten-year-old testing IKEA living room furniture displays.

Everything the Union releases is carefully crafted to be factual and straightforward; nothing is incendiary or opinionated. It's like being lectured by a Vulcan. The school board, on the other hand, has nothing to lose despite characterizing themselves as victims held hostage by their employees for the past three years. They have no problem going public with propaganda painting the non-community-member (and if you listen to them, probably not even really human) teachers as a boogyman army out for community members' wallets while contributing nothing to society--yet, many of the teachers live within the same communities as those they teach.

These recent incidents highlight a fundamental issue for the teachers; they have a serious PR problem. Yes, there are groups like the PTG that distribute information through a special Facebook page, but Facebook, like all social media, is an insular bubble. The very nature of social media means people seek out like-minded people. What do ninety percent of people you "friend" or "follow" in social media do when someone says something you don't like? Unfriend. Unfollow. Mute. Ban. Social media encourages you to pare down what information you're exposed to until these groups are echo chambers and followers hear what reinforces their established beliefs.

The job of public relations being farmed out to teachers is also treated as an afterthought; they're busy with actual schoolwork and busywork mandated by school administrators and state education requirements. But it's also a trap. Anyone who takes on this responsibility of informing the public about things the public is generally ignorant of while also shouldering the blame for backlash that it will inevitably incur is putting their job on the line. School officials tend to dislike situations that put them in a poor light, and there is simply no way to please everyone. Take as exhibit A the Facebook ranter's non-apology (the entire apology was yet another rant that, while technically an apology ["I said I was wrong at the end of these many paragraphs complaining about why the school was still truly at fault for following mandates which I explained through clever use of childish name calling!,"] totally deflected from an actual apology) where he still had numerous messages praising his post. These are people who will never be convinced the teachers (or the school) are not on some campaign to destroy America. Sharing information with the public and taking responsibility for the content is not an enviable position for a teacher when a hostile school board, principal, or acting superintendent is very willing to make an example of any pebble daring to make waves. It's telling that beyond press releases condemning teachers, the school board doesn't seem to work to clarify misunderstandings between the general public and the school, nor have I found a statement attributed to the acting superintendent defending his employees on the matter--only snippets of quotes in a newspaper article.

It does make sense if you look at it in the context of having someone who might do a decent job of clarifying issues while lacking the authority to be the "official" voice of the school; if that person screws up, he or she can be blamed by administrators and will be called to the carpet. It's another case of teachers being asked to do things unofficially; convenient to say this thing that has to get done requires them to step up for yet another thing not contractually required, but won't be recognized in the next argument where the board points out how overpaid teachers are compared to the minimum requirements they are contractually obligated to follow.

True media coverage of what the teachers do of benefit to the community...access to information outside of the insular social media circles...is rare. The politicized environment within the school discourages teachers from speaking because of the previously mentioned pebbles-making-waves problem; having bills to pay necessitates a job, and leadership within the school makes a point of emphasizing that, as one source told me, "There's no law preventing your boss from making your life miserable."

There are a few key moments that encourages coverage of the schools. The first is anything involving taxes. Taxes directly affect community members, and no one likes taxes. So when the community grumbles about paying them, especially (and understandably) people who don't have kids in the school, who better to blame than the schools? (I'll not mention the fact that governments underfund the schools, since people prefer to blame the most immediate and convenient entities to yell at.) School leadership blames teachers for high costs. They fail to mention that teachers make up the largest number of employees and, like in most businesses, employees tend to be the most expensive cost when it comes to expenditures.

The second is that spectacles sell. Everyone loves watching monkeys fling poo at the circus, and seeing articles declaring war on the teachers guarantees sales and clicks. I've mentioned the school board has nothing to lose and it's an open secret that retaliation within the schools happens if you make waves; the net result are the tactful and sanitized Union statements occasionally proffered to the media outlets while board press releases are plastered on the front of the school website.

It's sad that the teachers still do what "needs to be done" with hardly any acknowledgement. Technically they're supposed to be working under "work to rule" where they do exactly what is required by their contracts. It seems logical. "I'll show you how valuable I am with all this extra crap I do," the teacher says as another turd is hurled in his or her direction, missing by inches. "You criticize how little I'm required to do and get paid far too much for doing. I'll start doing only what's required."

But they don't.

If they worked only the time they are mandated to work, papers would never get corrected. Grades would never be entered. The workload they have requires working outside the hours they are paid to work. And if they actually did what the contract obligates, they'd be fired. Ironic.

But that wouldn't garner sympathy from a public who knows the school board justifies their distaste for academic "non-community-member" teachers.

Part of the ranter's tirade brought up the point that this was the same school that threw out lunches if kids couldn't pay. "Whatever happened with that? People were pretty pissed about it..." The school never recanted the policy of no-charging lunches. The same community that feels overburdened by the teaching staff continues to have a "paying for food" problem, sometimes to the tune of several thousand dollars. So the board decided to stop feeding those that continue to charge meals without paying for them.

I don't recall the Union pointing out that the Board was not feeding poor kids as a cost savings measure when the Board was doing what was best for the kids. I also don't recall the Union pointing out that students in schools that don't give peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to those who went without lunch were still getting lunches when they didn't pay because the teachers were paying for them. Yeah. Teachers didn't think it was right, they quietly paid for lunches for kids who can't pay for their own lunches. But I haven't seen that in the newspapers.

Nor have I seen the "dress down days" making headlines in the paper. Teachers get the opportunity to pay for the privilege of wearing a more comfortable outfit once a week and in exchange part of their salaries to a charity or cause. Unless there is a specific cause, it goes into funding a scholarship fund, but much of the funding goes to local charities such as Food for Thought, The Bridge or The Children's House. When a student, employee, or alumnus encounters a traumatic life-changing event, it's not unusual for the dress down day funds to go towards easing financial burdens for those in need.  Over the course of a school year, it is not uncommon for each building in the Athens district to raise thousands of dollars or to donate goods and services. Does the paper cover these donations? Rarely, unless it is submitted to the paper by those heading a particular cause.

Perhaps this lack of public relations is a result of what happens when there's little to no accountability in the school system, which is ironic given that the most hated mandates by the public...No Child Left Behind, Common Core, etc...are the result of a public crying for accountability in the school system. Teachers end up being the target for the accountability crosshairs since years of experience has taught them that administration doesn't believe in the idea that good managers shield their employees from issues not directly part of their jobs as teachers. Teachers are targeted under the guise of accountability for everything from how their students behave to what parents are upset over, things they have little actual control over. It's no wonder they are skittish in the face of public assaults from people who have no accountability for poo-flinging.

I think what the teachers need is a reporter who cares about the state of teaching in his or her community. I know that reporters typically care only about things that grab headlines for being outrageous or are so directly relevant to the paper's readers that a 5 year old wouldn't need the importance explained to them and I also understand that much of the importance of proper education doesn't become evident until little Bobby grows up and leaves because there are few jobs in the area that make a promising career...education is about investment in the future, after all, and most people are more concerned over the next weekend's football game or this years's school tax burden.

The public appreciates spectacle over substance. Of course reporters would pay attention to stories about poo-flinging over boring things like helping the needy in their own community. Newspapers love stories about people who seem to become mentally unhinged; it generates sales.

What the system needs, though, is a reporter willing to put a journalism degree to actual journalism use and dig in to figure out the facts behind the hyperbole when a board member declares war on his own employees. The community could really benefit from this theoretical journalist presenting the facts in small, simple, digestible chunks that even the community members ostensibly charged with holding administrators accountable for their actions would understand without using a dictionary. Sort of like an education-system version of Steven Brill, the journalist who exposed the utter insanity of our healthcare system with a great article that turned into a great book.

The teachers are already trapped within a system that won't allow for frank discussion. An outside journalist with a small column on the other hand could give information in local newspapers; a medium that is favored by people who often don't get news from insular social media groups, but could still inject information into those same groups. Best of all, as an outsider, that person would be as accountable as...well, most other community members who aren't under threat of losing his or her job if facts made an administrator or board member glow in a poor light.

The other option would be for the system to change, where teachers could talk to the public without fear of retribution. But judging from what I've seen and heard from others, there's little chance of that happening in any near-term timeframe. The field is too heavily skewed away from teachers having a voice of any significance; the Union, a body that is supposed to prevent just this kind of imbalance, is effectively gutted from legal erosion of Union power that is not just a problem for the local teacher's Union but Unions across the US and across multiple fields (it's not a coincidence that the loss of the middle class and growth of income inequality coincides with the loss of Union influence in America...)

Which is more likely? Probably neither. Most likely this fight, where poo is flung from one side and dodged on the other, where schools are generically blamed for rising taxes while the implicit reason is the greed of teachers taking priority over an economically depressed community, and the argument continues in the backdrop of a community where most new jobs are coming not from innovative markets but chain stores and chain restaurants...this fight will be won through attrition. Eventually one side will grow too weary to continue and the education system will continue to erode. But this could be the cynic in me speaking.

What do you think? How are the teachers perceived, in contrast to the school board? Does the community make distinctions among the administration, teachers, and board? Do you think the teachers have a public relations, and public image, problem?

I should add that all of this is my own opinion, my own point of view, I speak for myself and only myself, etc. etc...not that I should have to add disclaimers, but I know if I don't someone will come up with some stupid ideas that I frankly don't feel like addressing beyond this disclaimer.