Dealing with Public Anger: New Approaches to an Old Problem

The Power of Community Education: Connecting with People Who Are Disconnected

A Media Mugging: What It’s Like on the Inside

Survivor PR -- How to Outwit, Outplay and Outlast Our Critics

They Just Don’t Understand

Image Is Everything in Today’s Marketplace

I was disappointed this morning because my first choice was canceled: Getting Better Coverage than You Deserve. But I was fortunate because my second choice probably covered much of the same ground. The seminar was titled "Bribing" Your Critics and Other Unusual Community Involvement Strategies from a Former Political Consultant, and was conducted by David G. Clohessy, director of community services for Riverview Gardens Schools in St. Louis, Missouri. Clohessy is bright and personable, and he needs to be, because his superintendent described her "best professional day" as "the day we passed our 99-cent tax increase bond issue." Clohessy offered attendees over 20 specific ideas for trading goods or services from the school district in exchange for good fellowship from community groups and citizens. For example, he advised feeding people at community meetings to get them to attend. He suggested offering the district’s printing services, photography, layout and computer publishing skills, use of facilities and staff, and newsletter space for community activities and information.

Clohessy also volunteered the indirect use of the district staff for political purposes. When a community association wanted to prevent a pawn shop from opening in the neighborhood, Clohessy passed a petition around the office for staffers to sign. This saved the community association a lot of signature-gathering work. The pawn shop didn’t open.

Clohessy spoke a little more freely than he should have, at one time flippantly referring to one community group as "the old farts from Glasgow Village" before adding "No, no! We love them all!" At another point, while discussing his district’s practice of giving out monthly awards or certificates to community members at district meetings, he said, "Since this won’t go outside this room -- we don’t necessarily pick the people who are most deserving. We choose someone from those communities where we need the most support." Sorry, dude, you’re busted.

The next session I attended also led to disappointment, but for a different reason. Dr. Joe Nathan, director of the Center for School Change in Minneapolis, talked about "Choice and Change in Today’s Schools." In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I have known and admired Joe for a long time. He is a tireless supporter of public school choice (he opposes vouchers) and his work is so pervasive and important it was cited in the just released report of the NEA Special Committee on Charter Schools. But in a ballroom set up for 350 people, Joe addressed an audience of 12. That’s too bad, because not only did he talk about the concept of choice, but also provided good advice for PR professionals, including the idea of meeting with their local real estate agents. The perception that realtors have of the public schools has a direct effect on newcomers to the area and of prospective residents, who might end up settling elsewhere instead.

The good news is that the dozen people who attended were there because, as Deborah Oyama, an assistant superintendent from Hawaii said, "we can’t be ostriches about this." The number of charter schools in Hawaii may triple this year. Even if they are a small minority in this group, there are some district officials who see choice as an opportunity for their schools, not an attack. They should be encouraged because they can do more good than 1,000 activists outside the public schools.

The NSPRA conference ended with a whimper with a panel called "PR Crossfire." It was entirely unlike CNN’s Crossfire in that all five panelists agreed with each other on every issue. Lew Armistead, president of LA Communications in Reston, Virginia, inadvertently provided the sum total of the school PR philosophy during this panel. Asked a question about strategies to use when a crisis hits your school district, Armistead advised PR officers to be the first one to discuss the crisis with the press and the public, because "then you control the communications agenda."

And so it ended. My final thoughts: I’m impressed with the savvy of these school district public relations officers, and their private sector experience helps bring some much needed perspective to district operations that are mostly run by career public sector employees. At the same time, their private sector experience is often inappropriate for the jobs they now hold. The public doesn’t want anyone to "control the communications agenda" when it comes to their schools. While their job titles contain the words "communication," "information" or "relations," their day-to-day actions often omit key attributes of those words. "Communication" is two-way, not one-way. "Information" may include facts detrimental to the image of the district. "Relations" involve trust. The general thrust of school PR officers appears to be marketing and advertising. No one wants to deny school districts the opportunity to boast of their accomplishments. But marketing and advertising belong to the realm of private commerce. Communication, information and relations belong to the public world. That’s the price you pay for public funding and immunity from the invisible hand of market economics.

EIA Summer School will resume on Saturday, July 14, from its next secret location. Until then, arrivederci.

+ Quote of the Day #1. "We didn’t want people stirring up emotions we’re afraid will make us lose control of the message." -- Mary Louise Scheid, director of the office of school and community relations for the Indianapolis Public Schools, explaining why she uses a facilitated small group discussion format for community meetings, rather than a panel with questions from the audience.