Substitute Relationships

February 29, 2008 at 8:47 pm | In Education, relationships, substitute teachers | 4 Comments
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While I was looking around the education blogosphere trying to find inspiration for this post, I stumbled across a blog called, Just a Substitute Teacher. I’ve since added it to my blogroll because it was a fun read – the writer, KauaiMark, has a humorous voice. This post was a compilation of all the things that have gone wrong in his subbing experience over the years.

It’s a fairly long list – 15 bullet points – but two in particular stood out to me. The first was that one day when he was subbing there were no lesson plans left for him. When the absent teacher finally e-mailed the school’s secretary with the plans, they were printed in such a small font he couldn’t read them. In another instance he hadn’t been informed of the teacher’s schedule and didn’t know he was responsible for yard duty. He found out later when a teacher said she had to cover for him.

After reading those two points, it got me thinking about the relationship schools have with their substitute teachers.

According to this article there’s a growing demand for substitute teachers and the responsibilities of subs have increased, due, in part, to teachers attending more professional development workshops and conferences.

Obviously the relationship between schools and substitute teachers needs to be positive since schools are reliant on them to help educate students. Not taking the time to prepare materials for a sub or being understanding of the fact that he or she is unfamiliar with particular programs or policies doesn’t seem like a good way to develop a relationship.

As this article states most substitutes want to feel respect from school officials and other teachers, as well as a sense of appreciation. The article goes on to mention one woman who substituted for 15 years and only had one administrator thank her.

If a school can’t put the effort into developing a good relationship with substitutes, they might have to get used to more subs doing what KauaiMark mentioned in his last bullet point – he told a school district he would no longer sub there.

photo courtesy of www.lawrence.com

Where’s the (recalled) Beef?

February 23, 2008 at 11:01 am | In Education & Health | Leave a Comment
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By now you’ve probably heard or read something about the beef recall. The story seems to be everywhere – television, newspapers, and blogs. I thought it was only appropriate to write a post about the topic because, from the 143 million pounds of recalled beef, 37 million was sent to schools for lunches and nutritional programs.

Of course, the recalled beef wasn’t just sent to schools – it was also eaten. According to US Department of Agriculture administrator, Ron Vogel, most of that recalled beef has already been consumed.

Kind of puts a new meaning behind the idea of mystery meat, doesn’t it?

It should be pointed out that the recall is a Class II, meaning it isn’t likely serious health risks will occur from eating the beef. But I wonder what the schools would have done if the recall had been a Class I, indicating serious health consequences (even death) could occur? Would they have some sort of crisis plan in place to deal with such a situation?

Usually when I think about a school having a crisis plan, I think of a plan for a school shooting, a bomb threat, or a fire – not recalled food. But, part of having a crisis plan means being prepared for the unexpected – such as a mass beef recall.

According to The Education Report, Oakland school district stopped serving the beef after the first allegations about animal abuse came out against the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company.

The school district definitely took the correct action – to immediately stop serving beef when word first spread about the company using downer cows. As it turns out, none of the school district’s beef was part of the recall.

Hopefully schools that had the recalled beef took immediate action to guarantee it wouldn’t be served to children. I also hope it has been communicated clearly to parents that it was a Class II recall.

Having a crisis plan for all situations is crucial for schools (and any organization, for that matter). Knowing what action to take and what responsibility everyone has can mean not only the difference of surviving a crisis or not, but ensuring everyone’s health and safety.

Too Little, Too Late?

February 17, 2008 at 7:11 pm | In Education | Leave a Comment
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My post last week ended on the topic of schools and school levies – and it’s a topic I want to continue discussing. In approximately two weeks, many voters in the state of Ohio will be faced with voting for or against a school levy; this is a big issue in particular for schools in Stark County.

One Stark Country school district that’s receiving attention in the media is Marlington Local. According to one news article, the school district must pass a $6 million levy on March 4, or will be forced to implement several cost-saving measures. Money will be saved by eliminating teacher positions, canceling home football games and not permitting public use of the buildings or gym facilities after the school day ends. The school district is also considering the possibility of offering early retirement incentives, which you can read about here.

For the last month, the school has offered weekly town hall meetings to talk with voters and hear their concerns. Although the meetings are one way to connect with the school district’s home-owners, I can’t help but think a public relations campaign should have been implemented months before March 4. Rather than relying on one month of weekly meetings to help pass the levy, the school should have researched voters’ attitudes and concerns and built a campaign around those results.

Although the campaign would be dependent on research, I would suggest several other tactics in addition to the town hall meetings. First, several of the schools in the district have their own newsletter that goes home with students – informative articles about the levy and what its money would be used for should be included in those newsletters. After all, parents should have a stake in the levy because of their children.

Articles should also be written for the local newspaper. Similar to the newsletter articles, these could explain how public schools are funded in Ohio and what Marlington will do with the levy money. Perhaps a high school English class could write essays for the paper about the levy or an elementary class could write what they would buy for the school.

Finally, another face-to-face tactic should be used. Before sporting events, band concerts, choir concerts, etc. a school official should remind those in the audience that the levy will be on the ballot. People attending school functions will probably have an interest in the levy.

If the district lacks the expertise to organize a campaign, the school could always take advantage of seminars like the one Mount Union College, also located in Stark County, offered. The seminar was free for participants and offered advice on creating successful school levy campaigns.

If the levy is so critical to the school’s existence and success, shouldn’t school officials put forth the effort of developing a successful campaign and discussing the levy with voters well in advance?

Stark County picture courtesy of www.ohiohistorycentral.org

Kick-Off!

February 10, 2008 at 1:59 pm | In Education | Leave a Comment
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Well, here goes my foray into the blogosphere. I created this blog for a class I’m taking at Kent State this semester – Public Relations Online Tactics. We can write about anything we want as long as it’s related to PR. This blog focuses on public education and how it uses (or doesn’t use) public relations.

So what is PR? Heather Yaxley blogged about the challenge of trying to answer that very question – it seems the answers vary depending who is asked. For my educational career, I’ve been taught to use the definition from the book, Effective Public Relations, which describes PR as a management function that builds and maintains relationships with the publics that an organization’s success and failures depend on. In other words, it’s relationship building – something that is critical to an organization’s success.

For public schools, relationships have to be built with many groups – teachers, students, parents, community members, etc. It takes time, effort, and energy to build those relationships. The subtitle for this blog is “more than just a winning football team.” For schools (and other organizations) just relying on your students (or employees) to be outstanding isn’t enough to develop a relationship.

For example, look at Louisville High School in Stark County. Last year the school received an “excellent” rating from the state of Ohio; that’s the highest rating a school can receive. But, despite that rating, the community still failed to pass Louisville’s levy.

Doing one thing well doesn’t automatically guarantee a relationship will be built. Communication, trust, and honesty are all key.

Photo courtesy of Louisville City Schools.

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