SMSD Communication Reform

On Aug. 15, Shawnee Mission South experienced smoke throughout their building after construction workers accidentally caught roofing material on fire. As students were being filed out of the building, local news channel helicopters and reporters began to create their next breaking news piece.

But before the news could be broken to the public from KCTV 5, the district’s communication team sent out a mass email to all staff and parents in the district explaining the events with assurances that everything was under control. Directly releasing district news to the community before any other news platform can is just one way the district’s administrative offices are trying to create a stronger communication system for its families.

After hearing complaints from teachers, administrators, parents and students about the lack of communication between the district and the rest of the community last year, new Superintendent Mike Fulton is making it his goal to bridge the communication gap between the two groups.

“I want to begin to address some of the concerns that community members had about a lack of transparency [in the district],” Fulton said. “When things happen we want to make sure that [the community is] hearing the news from us first.”

Together, Fulton, newly hired Chief Communications Officer David Smith and the rest of the district communications department are moving toward a more open communication with the public. In doing so, they hope to mend the relationship between the district community members who felt there wasn’t enough transparency of information coming from the administrative offices.

There have already been changes to the district’s communications procedures after just four weeks of school. After the board meeting on Aug. 13, a detailed recap of the entire meeting was emailed out to staff members and parents. Smith said the idea behind this was to ensure that members of the community who can’t attend the meetings still have a chance to be informed on what is happening in the district.

“I like to think of public schools as our most public institution,” Smith said. “With public schools, we need support in terms of voting for bond issues and referendums. We need volunteers in our schools. We need places for kids to go as they transition towards work experiences. There are so many things where we need the public and if the public doesn’t know, it is really hard for them to be engaged.”

The second change that Fulton and Smith have made is more philosophical than the first. Smith learned early on in his career as KCK spokesman that being honest with the school community is important because public trust of the district leads to more widespread support. Their goal is to make sure that all major district news reaches the eyes of the community directly from the district and not other news sources.

One way they hope to ensure that they get important information out first is by offering school principals the option to send all communication needs to Smith and the communications team. This will allow principals to focus on the issues at hand, while the district quickly takes care of sharing important information with the community.

“There will be times where we make mistakes,” Smith said.  “We have to be able to be open and honest about that. When we make mistakes, we will just have to claim those… That helps to build trust. That trust helps to build relationship. That relationship is what we need to be an excellent district that works well for all kids.”

Openness about the decision making process at the district level was a source of contention for the public toward the district last year. The district’s communications department became understaffed when the Chief Communications Officer, Erin Little, resigned from her position last December. The district decided not to fill Little’s position until Fulton was able to make hiring decisions.

Liz Meitl, UNITED facilitator for SMSD, said communication in the district has been secretive in the past. The district saw community members seeking information as a challenge to the system according to Meitl.

“They wanted to keep people as far away from the decision making process as they could,” Meitl said. “When I say people, I am talking about students, staff, parents, outside organizations, all the stakeholders were kept at an arm’s length. They were secretive about things and they held their information close.”

On June 25, the district decided to hire Smith, former Kansas City, Kansas School District spokesman ,to take over Little’s position. Smith, who is starting his 15th year leading a communications department for a large district, spent four years researching relationships between school districts and their public.

“In many places [this relationship] has been severely damaged, but there are a lot of efforts that are going on to rebuild that and reconstitute it,” Smith said. “If you are going to trust us as a school district, you need to know what’s going on and you need to feel like the institution is open.”

While Fulton wants to make sure he is constantly communicating with the public, he also wants to work on getting parents, students and teachers in the district communicating with the district as well. He has plans to create a “strategic plan” — one that will determine the district’s academic goals and how they help every student in the district achieve those goals. Fulton wants to give every student, parent, staff member and community member the opportunity to help create the collective themes of the plan, whether that’s serving on a board committee or answering any survey they send out.

“If any school is going to be high performing, then we need to be clear about the academic outcomes that we are trying to achieve,” Fulton said. “We want to bring in the community to the strategic planning process that is inclusive of a lot of voices but also make sure that we have a clear focus on the academic outcomes that we are trying to achieve for all students. This [strategic plan] should not be my vision. It ought to be a shared vision of where we are going to go together.”

This type of inclusivity of all community members is what Meitl explains in her idea of a “perfect communication world.” She believes that Fulton and Smith have the ability to create a stronger system of communicating with the public if they are willing to be more transparent with the district as a whole.

“Transparency isn’t just about talking more,” Meitl said. “It is about being more forthcoming with the values that are driving a decision. It means creating space for people to share their values and to let those values form decisions.