Williamson County Schools board discusses misinformation, partisanship
The Williamson County Schools Board of Education met for its summer retreat earlier this month.
The meeting between the 12 board members and district superintendent lasted over three hours, covering topics like successes and learnings in the face of the challenges of 2020, as well how to better engage with, inform and lead WCS community stakeholders.
Here are four key takeaways from the meeting:
1. Better managing and addressing ‘misinformation’
In the year of the pandemic, school was full of uncertainty, sudden pivots and various new health concerns and rules. Chatter across social media as well as other mediums of communication used by the board, the district and the public sometimes made it a challenge to parse out fact from fiction.
At the retreat, the board brainstormed how to better navigate the dissemination of information come next year.
All agreed that it could be beneficial to communicate every fact as early as possible. And that identifying a mishap in communications as “misinformation” could spread an unintended accusatory message to members of the public.
“The No. 1 way to remove the amount of discussion is to effectively communicate beforehand on everything,” board member Jay Galbreath said. “We know there’s going to be disagreements, but let’s give more information and let the public decide what is misinformation.”
Board member Eric Welch used the rumors surrounding the hiring of WCS’s diversity and inclusion consultants as an example in explaining what is considered misinformation. If members of the public stated the consultants were hired to develop curriculum for the district, that would be false.
“That’s factually not correct, and so we want to say that, because we did not hire a contractor to do that. And so, I think it’s fair to say that that is misinformation,” Welch said.
“I agree,” Galbreath said. “But I think the solution to that is to effectively communicate what they’re doing, not to call out people for producing this information, because I would take that on us and say, ‘Well, we have not effectively told [the public] what they were going to do.'”
Board member Jennifer Aprea suggested turning the current “Rumor Mill” blog posts into a page of facts. The board is taking this suggestion into consideration for potential implementation.
Overall though, WCS superintendent Jason Golden said others in his role across the state are also grappling with how to better address this issue. Some have considered whether to hire a PR firm to better address questions from the public.
He also said those who read and listen to every message disseminated by the district aren’t always the same people asking questions, especially in the midst of vast social media use.
“So we’re constantly working on different media to make sure we get that message across,” Golden said.
Currently in addition to the Rumor Mill in the In Focus newsletter, as well as other announcements that are regularly published on the district’s news site, the district also produces a “Superintendent’s Report” livestream on Facebook and YouTube, as well as a “Across the Board” blog posts following school board meetings.
The WCBOE’s monthly meetings and work sessions are open to the public and are livestreamed on the county’s YouTube page and the schools’ Vimeo page. The board’s policy committee meetings are open to the public, too, but are not streamed online.
Links to agendas and livestreams can be found at https://www.wcs.edu/Page/308.
2. Nonpartisan leadership in a partisan world
“I feel like it’s my job as a board member to meet every family and every student where they are…. Nobody is exactly the same and I’ve always felt like that has helped me focus,” board chair Nancy Garrett said as she introduced the conversation on nonpartisanship.
Members of the board agreed it’s their responsibility to be a voice for constituents. But in being nonpartisan, it’s important to stick to policy and procedure while acknowledging, hearing and respecting constituents’ opinions and thoughts.
Now as the county inches toward returning to normal post pandemic, Galbreath suggested figuring out new ways to solicit feedback and information from community stakeholders.
“From a solution standpoint, I hope we come up with a format to go around to schools and get feedback from people because we struggle with what issues and topics should we actually proactively solicit from stakeholders,” Galbreath said.
In the past board members held events and forums for community members to meet and share feedback with school leaders and staff. But these led to little participation.
Golden was hopeful about re-trying such events, alongside board members who agreed with Galbreath on the need for more face-to-face interaction with constituents.
“Maybe COVID has changed that and there’s an urge to get out and hear. So, I’ll talk to our staff,” he said. “I like the idea of starting these back up and giving it another shot.”
3. Using technology to WCS’s advantage while being conscious of disadvantages
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an expansion of technology capabilities for the district while giving more flexible educational opportunities for families and staff that needed them.
Despite that win though, board members discussed concerns to keep in mind for the next school year.
With online students in the mix, the process of moving students back and forth between virtual and in-person programs in the past year proved to be an intensive task for staff members. Additionally, screen time was heavy both in-person and at home.
Board member Angela Durham said that her child reported using their district-issued Chromebook too often and advocated for the larger incorporation of more traditional teaching and the use of paper instead of a computer in some cases.
“My kids have reported that they’re only on their computers in class,” she said. “There’s really a lot less teaching and a lot less hands-on instruction this year.”
Brad Fiscus added that this matter should also consider age appropriateness. He said that research demonstrates extensive screen time isn’t appropriate for younger students.
“Parents of younger children are concerned about whether when they go back into the classroom, they’re still going to be locked to their computers,” Fiscus said.
4. Building clearer expectations on work with D&I consultants, future vendors
With lots of feedback from the community on the need for a focus on diversity and inclusion, as well as on the district’s work with consultants Fostering Healthy Solutions, board members agreed that they hope to build more structured expectations ahead of seeing their findings in August.
Board members agreed on the importance of owning all data collected by the firm, especially in the hopes of pursuing sustained work on diversity and inclusion even after their work with the consultants concludes.
“I think we have to understand that while we’re doing the work now, this is not a piece of work that’s coming to an end when FHS is done or when we create these policies,” Fiscus said. “We’re going to have to continue to lean into it in the way that we operate.”
Cash expressed concern that the board hadn’t yet gotten a chance to speak with FHS.
Garrett said Cash’s thoughts were in line with other members of the board who expected more of a dialogue with the firm rather than a presentation of recommendations post-contract. So she hopes to take this as a learning experience.
“Going forward, the lesson is we as a board need to need to communicate our expectations about what we want,” she said.
