Public Education and PR

I’ve noticed that the post on my blog getting the most traffic is Substitute Relationships; so, I decided to revisit the subject as it’s a popular one

I mentioned in my previous post how schools and substitute teachers need to form positive relationships since the school districts rely on the subs to help educate students. To put that statement into “PR terms,” substitutes are one of the key publics for a school district.

As it turns out, a whole online community of substitute teachers exists – I discovered this when I found a link to my blog posted on the Substitute Teachers United forum. With that in mind, I started thinking about how schools could connect with substitute teachers using Web 2.0 tools.

So far I have one answer: develop an online social network for subs.

Obviously this requires some work on the schools’ part – it might not even be feasible for each school district to develop a network; but, maybe each county or even each state could. For example, the Stark County Education Service Center could place a link on its Web site to an online network for subs in Stark County.

On this social network subs could share information about various schools, such as where to find the main office or the easiest way to get there, discuss ways to keep control over a classroom, or what to do if the teacher doesn’t leave any lesson plans.

I imagine discussions would also include what schools are best to sub at and even which teachers are better to sub for than others. School officials should also join, monitor, and participate in the network to stay in touch with the subs working in their districts and to understand any problems the substitutes face when coming to work.

Providing substitute teachers a way to connect with one another and to the schools could help start improving relationships.