PR position: Just putting lipstick on a pig

So the BOE has taken the first step by admitting the system has some weaknesses that need to be fixed. And the four main areas the board discussed are on target. The system needs to fix its low graduation rate; its special education achievement levels; its declining post-secondary participation; and most significantly, its weak math curriculum and instruction.
Some of those things will require a community effort in addition to a school effort. Keeping kids in school isn’t just the responsibility of the school system; it’s also the responsibility of families to keep students from dropping out. But in families where education isn’t valued, it’s difficult for a school system to do very much.
The same is true for post-secondary education. If a family isn’t interested in a child attending vocational school or college (or doesn’t have the money,) it’s difficult for a school to make that happen. School counseling, of course, can help a student make better choices, but without home support, it doesn’t make much difference. One hopes the system’s new career academy will make a difference in that. (What the BCSS also needs to study is how successful or unsuccessful their graduates are in a post-secondary school; how many, for example, need remedial classes. That data is available for the University of Georgia System.)
Helping special education kids perform better is a very tough challenge. Those students get different tests and more attempts at testing than regular education students, but often none of that makes a difference. It’s a very sad situation for these students who have handicaps that prevent them from achieving academic success even on a moderate level. And again, without family support, the school won’t be able to make much of a difference in those test scores.
The one area where the school could make a big difference quickly, however, is in its math curriculum and instruction. Especially at the high school level, Barrow’s poor showing in math year after year has been mostly because of poor curriculum or poor teaching. Those same students have often done much better in other subjects on standardized testing, but fall off the cliff in math. It’s not that the students are dumb, but rather they’re not being taught correctly.

At another recent meeting, the Barrow BOE also said it wanted to improve its communication with the superintendent and the community. In response to that effort, superintendent Wanda Creel last week proposed that the board create a highly-paid PR position for the school system.
But if system leaders think simply adding a PR person will improve the image of the school system, they are mistaken. In a meeting last week, system officials said they wanted the position to deal with the media; to lobby political officials; and to “ensure” positive news.
All of which is poppycock.
For one thing, lobbying is not something a PR person should do. State legislators want to talk directly to school superintendents or the school board chairmen in their districts, not some perky PR hack.
And the same holds true with those of us in the media that cover school systems. We don’t want to talk to a PR spin-doctor. If there is a question about test scores, we want to talk directly to the person in the system that oversees testing. Ditto for infrastructure projects or other specific issues.
Barrow did have a PR person a few years ago and she did a very good job of trying to spin bad news. She would send out long news releases about test score results that would totally obliterate the real information. We never published that puffery.
When it comes to school system test score data, we want the raw numbers and we will do our own story based on that data. And we want to talk to school leaders directly and ask questions about the results, not some go-between.
So if school officials think they can get “positive” news by hiring someone to spin the data, that won’t work with this newspaper. We report the results as they are, not as some PR person presents it.

This proposal to hire a school PR hack apparently comes in part from superintendent Creel’s lack of acumen at dealing with local reporters. A few weeks ago, a reporter for the Journal contacted Creel by email on a Wednesday morning to get a comment about a controversial letter we had just received which accused Creel of mismanagement in the ROTC program. But rather than being appreciative that we gave her a chance to comment before publishing anything, Creel was upset that the reporter had emailed her and interrupted her “very important meeting.”
Well, we all have meetings and deadlines. The superintendent didn’t have to answer our email if her meeting was so “very important.” We were just trying to do the right thing and allow her to comment. Hiring a PR person won’t solve that kind of attitude problem.

And none of that is to mention the terrible PR problem the BOE would create for itself if it paid a high salary to a PR hack in this down economy. Barrow has cut its school year to 160 days and made a number of other financial cutbacks. In that environment, to hire a $90,000 locally-funded central office paper-pusher to run interference for the superintendent would not generate much enthusiasm among teachers or taxpayers. If the system has an extra $90,000 lying around, there are other ways those funds could be used to actually help students.
Still, it’s a good thing that the Barrow BOE is talking about the system’s problems, including the lack of clear communication between the school system and the community. Some of that is the fault of the school system.
But it’s not all the system’s fault. Also to blame is a community culture that has for many years undervalued education and which doesn’t pay attention to the schools unless it involves their own schedule (the recent bussing fiasco, for example.)
Because of that, many local citizens who do care about the quality of education for their children have voted with their feet. They homeschool, or send their children to a private school, or travel out of the county and pay tuition to attend another public school. Many parents who really care have been leaving the system, a brain drain of both students and supportive parents.

Nothing is more important to the future of Barrow County than to move its school system out of the ranks of the “mediocre” and into the ranks of excellence. By creating a high quality school system, the county’s real estate values would go up and its attractiveness to potential industry would increase — not to mention the most important aspect — its students would be better served.
The BCSS test results in the spring of 2013 will be vitally important to what happens in the future. If those scores remain in the doldrums, then some major changes in leadership need to be made. But if those scores see some dramatic improvement, then it will be a sign that perhaps the system has turned the corner and is finally striving toward excellence.
That would be the best public relations for the school system of all. Results matter over spin.
The BOE can hire all the high dollar PR people it wants, but unless the system shows improvement in student achievement, the BOE will be just putting some very expensive lipstick on a pig.

Mike Buffington is co-publisher of the Barrow Journal. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.