Speaking to your constituents. Messaging

After being elected to a school board many newly elected school board members get a bounty of “advice”.  This advice should be viewed with a sceptic’s ear.

After being elected to a school board, many newly elected members get “advice”.  This advice should be viewed with a sceptic's eye.

What you may hear:

“You speak with one voice”.

“If a community member, staff or student reaches out to you, send the message to your superintendent or treasurer”.

“Even if you disagree with a vote, you must support it after the vote is taken".

“Don’t air dirty laundry”.

“Remember: you are there to be a cheerleader for your district”.

“Do what the superintendent and treasurer tell you; you hired them, now you have to trust them”.

“You can ask your questions prior to a meeting so the meeting goes smoothly”.

Your life will be easier if you just show up and say yes to everything on the agenda and ask no questions. However, you must act with your principles and your conscience in mind.

Priorities:

Why were you elected?

• To bring oversight to the district to which you were elected
• To communicate with your community all issues related to your district
• To ensure district academic and financial accountability, and transparency with all stakeholders
• Understand and respect the proper roles of the parents, community, and district personnel
• To insist on corrections of the academic and financial failures found inside your district, and report the deficiencies as well as the action plans to correct or improve the problems inside your district
• Protect the students from political ideologies, while insisting they get the best academic experience
• Protect students’ rights to privacy, fairness and safety
• Protect parental rights

Messaging

When offering information, be aware of the way the message will be received, used and abused.  You will want to message in ways that it is impossible to disagree.

Example: the district is making the case that more staff is needed.

You found out (see our videos on finding district financials - VIEW THE VIDEO) that enrollment has been declining for a few years so the rationale for more staff does not make sense to you. Perhaps an enrollment study is in order.

Message to rest of the board and superintendent.

“I need more information about what these new staff members would do that is not already being done”.

“Perhaps this administration can consider rolling other tasks onto current positions”. “Consolidations may be in order”. “Please explain in detail why we need more staff”.

“Perhaps we should consider reducing staff that are more directly related to the declining enrollment so we can free up positions”.

“Since we have increased administrative staff while we have had declining enrollment, we should look into a staffing audit done by an independent organization”.

Use facts with emotions – Examples

“Our community is suffering with the enormous increase in gas prices, inflation and chaos in our government, I think we should be mindful of the sacrifices they make to keep us so generously funded now and hope they see it to keep us funded to this magnitude in the future”.

“So many families are struggling to feed their family, to pay their mortgage and to keep their transportation running, it is important that we keep in mind the sacrifices they make to keep this district generously funded. We need to respect our communities sacrifices by being as streamlined and efficient as they have had to be in their home budgets”.

Message to community- give them the facts, enrollment, increasing admin staff while experiencing declining enrollment or a increased % rate of admin versus a % change in enrollment.  In the consideration of being the fiduciary agent your tasked with further analysis and investigations.  Remember, your job is to be honest, clear and factual and to stop the district use of school speak to hide the facts.  Your narrative must use common words.

Step raises- automatic annual raises that exceed the rate of inflation.

Base raises- are added to this automatic step raise and bumps the whole step schedule by a percentage.

In Ohio, when a district says we agreed to a 2% raise they omit the fact that this 2% is added to the automatic step raises that average 4% per year.

You must message that the district gave 6% raises in the last contract while the community household incomes increased _______% on average over the last ______ years.  All while the community households were not able to keep up with inflation (2.5%/yr) – actually losing the ability to sustain their lifestyle. Ask if that is fair?

You can go on to ask for community benefits packages and to compare them to the district funded benefit.  Ask if that is fair.

“How can the community be told to fund lifestyles they cannot afford for themselves”

“We have a community with households struggling to survive yet we have been generously funded with their property taxes and income taxes at the state and federal level, it is time to say thank you and we understand the pain you are going through”.

“Perhaps we should put the union contract on the ballot next time since 85% of our budget is for the faculty and staff pay and benefits. Whereas only 15% of our budget is used for materials and supplies, transportation, buildings, utilities, books, food, maintenance and so on”.

During negotiations, we were offering less raises than the union wanted so the union president wrote us a letter.  This letter used the emotional ploy they are very practiced at.  The letter said, “what am I going to tell the single mom with four children who lives in a one-bedroom apartment”?

You see the emotional think is effective for many.  My thoughts were, “tell her congratulations, this community is able to fund her salary and benefits at the current level without the reductions they saw in their own household incomes”.

Where to Message

Your school district will provide you with an e mail address. Remember that your written messages may be a public record if they discuss district business. Remember that your district can and does review your emails, can filter incoming messages, and will, without warning, send your private emails to others in fulfillment of a public records request.  The searches of your emails by the district to answer public records requests can send the requester emails that do not meet the public request, they will claim, in an effort to be “helpful”.

We suggest that you start an email address of your own district contacts where people can contact you without being screened or filtered out.  This school email is also subject to open records act and you must find and submit any records of your discussions of district business to the requester.  You will need to determine if the request for your emails is for a valid, specific and time framed subject.  If you find personal, private or protected information contained in an email for either a student or community member be sure to consult with a legal authority to see if you need to redact that private information before you send the record to the requester.

Your texts, e mails, voice mails and any other documents shared with others that contain district business are subject to public records requests.  However, your discussions about your family, neighborhood, vacation etc.… are not district business so are not subject to records requests.

Responding to the news outlets

Never put in writing what you would not want on the front page of the newspaper.

When the newspaper calls you for an interview, tell them to send you their questions in an email and that you will respond in an email.  You want to document what they asked and what you said.  The newspapers often get your verbal statements wrong then say they will write a correction- I’ve never seen the corrections. Write your response then have a trusted friend review it before you submit.

Shut down your candidate face book page

During your campaign, you likely had a candidate face book page that you used to communicate with your community.  You may have notice that trolls and haters could come onto it and take over you’re messaging.  During your campaign you can delete and ban the nasty gram posters to control your message but once you are elected, they may claim you are infringing on their rights to redress their government. A few court cases have ruled against an elected representative that banned or deleted posters they disagreed with. It is easiest to shut it down. If someone contacts you on your personal page just message them that they can reach you at (give them your email address). Your personal page should have no district business on it or again they may claim you deleted or banned them.

Your website

We strongly suggest you have a very simple website where you can post your comments about the district.  Remember, do not post anything you would not want on the front page of the newspaper.  Never allow distasteful information on your page unless you are showing the objectionable content of district curriculum, library holdings or messages from inside the district.

Having your own website allows you to communicate with the masses in your community without having to allow anyone to comment.  You should always give your email address so anyone who wants to contact you can.  Make sure you mention your website address at every meeting so you can stay in touch with your community.

Sections on a website:

1. Put your bio, your principles that are a match the community you serve, call it “about us”. Include, your statements about respecting the students, parents and community as well as the district personnel.
2. Current and emerging issues:
3. Announce the next meeting time, dates, and location. As soon as you get it, post the upcoming agenda.
4. Post the agenda with how you voted. Give the vote count.
5. If you voted different from the rest of the board or there was a split vote – message why you voted the way you did. Feel free to use facts and your emotions.
6. Ask for community and parent input on upcoming decisions.

Who are you messaging to?

Community members versus stake holders

Who is in your “community” and who are “stakeholders”? Your board policy may define who can speak at board meetings.  Board policies often limit speaking at board meetings to those who live in the community.  The claim is that those that live in the community are the only stakeholders because they pay the local property taxes and might have children in the school district.  It is important to note that this ideology may be challenged in the courts, and we believe that the district will lose this case.  Local property taxes are only one of several revenue streams school districts use to fund the district.  More than likely, your district operates predominately on State and Federal funds more than local property taxes.  Using this insight to determine who gets the right to speak at board meetings means that the district should consider anyone who pays state and federal taxes as stakeholders as well.  The board can invite anyone they wish to bring information to the board at and during a school board meeting.

For example, I invited a stellar historian to speak about why teaching true American history is imperative.  His name is Larry Schweikart, historian, and retired Professor of History at University of Dayton.  Mr. Schweikart authored several American History books.  Find them here. 

Can a community member yield their time to a designee? The answer is yes.

If your school board does not allow a citizen or a board member to give their speaking time to someone that they invite to speak for them we have confirmation that there are lawyers who will take that case. We believe that the board can not filter what is said or who speaks at their board meetings if they allow public comment at board meetings.

Court case where the school district was sued for not letting someone speak.

In Ohio the school board was sued and lost when they restricted a person speaking at a school board meeting. View The Case

Watch this and see that the speakers has every right to say whatever she wants and this school board member is violating the speakers first amendment rights.  This speakers has a great case against this board of education. 

A community member, former school board member tells the school board about citizen rights to speak freely.

New York Times versus Sullivan

US Supreme court ruled that our government does not have to like what we say to them but we have every right to say it to them.

Practice your messaging

In this video, Ohio Gun Owners, Chris Dorr uses rebuttals to a radio interview and program.

Notice how he rebuts with clear, concise narrative. You should not use profanity.

He uses his followers, Ohio gun owners, and not himself as the entity asking the questions.

He always represents himself as the representative to the OGO membership.

Practice This

– You are the representative of your community, always speak as just that.

– Speak about what your students deserve, have earned and are being funded to receive.

– Speak about how generous and supportive your community has been. Speak for the tens of thousands of citizens who are struggling to make ends meet in their own households while paying taxes that never stop growing at enormous rates.

– Speak about how your households rightfully expect your district to protect “CHILDREN” from influences that deprive them of their childhood, that victimizes them and uses abusive socio emotional concepts as standard curriculum.

– Speak about why you were elected and that you take this job very seriously. In doing your homework you are finding more and more pediatricians, social workers, teachers, and child psychologists warning that this woke curriculum is causing children trauma. That you will do your best to expose it and protect children with its removal.

Write up your messages and practice them so you can accurately convey your message to your community, your district staff, and students.

Ohio Department of Education Transparency

The Ohio Department of Education has become the greatest source of proof that our Ohio government is hiding information from taxpayers. Before Ohio public school districts go on the ballot, important information about them is no longer available on our government websites.  INTERESTING accident?

Just one example.  Kenston School district is on the ballot for new money, but somehow taxpayers can no longer see their report card data.

Kenston report cards

Compare the 2016-2017 Ohio report cards with 2017-2018 report cards.  Interesting that back in 2016 -2017 and all years prior, ODE had far more information on their website about each district’s performance.  While so called Republican Governors have been in charge, the amount of data and facts about your district’s performance has been drastically reduced.  WHY???  What happened to transparency?

When a school district suddenly begins getting A’s and B’s after consistently getting far lower grades you’d like to understand what changed. But the data behind the report card is no longer published by the Ohio Department of Education. Are the facts being hidden? Why?

Let’s look at an example.

 2016 -2017 Report card

This report includes the data and the grades (scroll down to see all important information).

Now notice the drastic improvement on the 2017-2018 Report Card in just one year? Really? It normally takes several years to improve curriculum and train teachers before a district sees their scores improve. 

Again, in 2018 -2019 no details for us to see exactly how the grades were assigned.

Does our Governor and the Ohio Department of Education not want you to see the data? If they presented the actual test scores, would they show that the bar was lowered so more schools could get As and Bs?

When report cards were introduced, they contained a plethora of test, demographic, salary, staffing, and financial data. Over the years much of that has been omitted and much transparency has been lost.  Again, WHY?

And now there is a total blackout. There are no report cards at all for the 2019-2020 school year.

Ohio Department of Education Transparency

The Ohio Department of Education has become the greatest source of proof that our Ohio government is hiding information from taxpayers. Before Ohio public school districts go on the ballot, important information about them is no longer available on our government websites.  INTERESTING accident?

Just one example.  Kenston School district is on the ballot for new money, but somehow taxpayers can no longer see their report card data.

Kenston report cards

Compare the 2016-2017 Ohio report cards with 2017-2018 report cards.  Interesting that back in 2016 -2017 and all years prior, ODE had far more information on their website about each district’s performance.  While so called Republican Governors have been in charge, the amount of data and facts about your district’s performance has been drastically reduced.  WHY???  What happened to transparency?

When a school district suddenly begins getting A’s and B’s after consistently getting far lower grades you’d like to understand what changed. But the data behind the report card is no longer published by the Ohio Department of Education. Are the facts being hidden? Why?

Let’s look at an example.

 2016 -2017 Report card

This report includes the data and the grades (scroll down to see all important information).

Now notice the drastic improvement on the 2017-2018 Report Card in just one year? Really? It normally takes several years to improve curriculum and train teachers before a district sees their scores improve. 

Again, in 2018 -2019 no details for us to see exactly how the grades were assigned.

Does our Governor and the Ohio Department of Education not want you to see the data? If they presented the actual test scores, would they show that the bar was lowered so more schools could get As and Bs?

When report cards were introduced, they contained a plethora of test, demographic, salary, staffing, and financial data. Over the years much of that has been omitted and much transparency has been lost.  Again, WHY?

And now there is a total blackout. There are no report cards at all for the 2019-2020 school year.

Ohio Department of Education Transparency

The Ohio Department of Education has become the greatest source of proof that our Ohio government is hiding information from taxpayers. Before Ohio public school districts go on the ballot, important information about them is no longer available on our government websites.  INTERESTING accident?

Just one example.  Kenston School district is on the ballot for new money, but somehow taxpayers can no longer see their report card data.

Kenston report cards

Compare the 2016-2017 Ohio report cards with 2017-2018 report cards.  Interesting that back in 2016 -2017 and all years prior, ODE had far more information on their website about each district’s performance.  While so called Republican Governors have been in charge, the amount of data and facts about your district’s performance has been drastically reduced.  WHY???  What happened to transparency?

When a school district suddenly begins getting A’s and B’s after consistently getting far lower grades you’d like to understand what changed. But the data behind the report card is no longer published by the Ohio Department of Education. Are the facts being hidden? Why?

Let’s look at an example.

 2016 -2017 Report card

This report includes the data and the grades (scroll down to see all important information).

Now notice the drastic improvement on the 2017-2018 Report Card in just one year? Really? It normally takes several years to improve curriculum and train teachers before a district sees their scores improve. 

Again, in 2018 -2019 no details for us to see exactly how the grades were assigned.

Does our Governor and the Ohio Department of Education not want you to see the data? If they presented the actual test scores, would they show that the bar was lowered so more schools could get As and Bs?

When report cards were introduced, they contained a plethora of test, demographic, salary, staffing, and financial data. Over the years much of that has been omitted and much transparency has been lost.  Again, WHY?

And now there is a total blackout. There are no report cards at all for the 2019-2020 school year.

Ohio Department of Education Transparency

The Ohio Department of Education has become the greatest source of proof that our Ohio government is hiding information from taxpayers. Before Ohio public school districts go on the ballot, important information about them is no longer available on our government websites.  INTERESTING accident?

Just one example.  Kenston School district is on the ballot for new money, but somehow taxpayers can no longer see their report card data.

Kenston report cards

Compare the 2016-2017 Ohio report cards with 2017-2018 report cards.  Interesting that back in 2016 -2017 and all years prior, ODE had far more information on their website about each district’s performance.  While so called Republican Governors have been in charge, the amount of data and facts about your district’s performance has been drastically reduced.  WHY???  What happened to transparency?

When a school district suddenly begins getting A’s and B’s after consistently getting far lower grades you’d like to understand what changed. But the data behind the report card is no longer published by the Ohio Department of Education. Are the facts being hidden? Why?

Let’s look at an example.

 2016 -2017 Report card

This report includes the data and the grades (scroll down to see all important information).

Now notice the drastic improvement on the 2017-2018 Report Card in just one year? Really? It normally takes several years to improve curriculum and train teachers before a district sees their scores improve. 

Again, in 2018 -2019 no details for us to see exactly how the grades were assigned.

Does our Governor and the Ohio Department of Education not want you to see the data? If they presented the actual test scores, would they show that the bar was lowered so more schools could get As and Bs?

When report cards were introduced, they contained a plethora of test, demographic, salary, staffing, and financial data. Over the years much of that has been omitted and much transparency has been lost.  Again, WHY?

And now there is a total blackout. There are no report cards at all for the 2019-2020 school year.

Ohio Department of Education Transparency

The Ohio Department of Education has become the greatest source of proof that our Ohio government is hiding information from taxpayers. Before Ohio public school districts go on the ballot, important information about them is no longer available on our government websites.  INTERESTING accident?

Just one example.  Kenston School district is on the ballot for new money, but somehow taxpayers can no longer see their report card data.

Kenston report cards

Compare the 2016-2017 Ohio report cards with 2017-2018 report cards.  Interesting that back in 2016 -2017 and all years prior, ODE had far more information on their website about each district’s performance.  While so called Republican Governors have been in charge, the amount of data and facts about your district’s performance has been drastically reduced.  WHY???  What happened to transparency?

When a school district suddenly begins getting A’s and B’s after consistently getting far lower grades you’d like to understand what changed. But the data behind the report card is no longer published by the Ohio Department of Education. Are the facts being hidden? Why?

Let’s look at an example.

 2016 -2017 Report card

This report includes the data and the grades (scroll down to see all important information).

Now notice the drastic improvement on the 2017-2018 Report Card in just one year? Really? It normally takes several years to improve curriculum and train teachers before a district sees their scores improve. 

Again, in 2018 -2019 no details for us to see exactly how the grades were assigned.

Does our Governor and the Ohio Department of Education not want you to see the data? If they presented the actual test scores, would they show that the bar was lowered so more schools could get As and Bs?

When report cards were introduced, they contained a plethora of test, demographic, salary, staffing, and financial data. Over the years much of that has been omitted and much transparency has been lost.  Again, WHY?

And now there is a total blackout. There are no report cards at all for the 2019-2020 school year.

Ohio Department of Education Transparency

The Ohio Department of Education has become the greatest source of proof that our Ohio government is hiding information from taxpayers. Before Ohio public school districts go on the ballot, important information about them is no longer available on our government websites.  INTERESTING accident?

Just one example.  Kenston School district is on the ballot for new money, but somehow taxpayers can no longer see their report card data.

Kenston report cards

Compare the 2016-2017 Ohio report cards with 2017-2018 report cards.  Interesting that back in 2016 -2017 and all years prior, ODE had far more information on their website about each district’s performance.  While so called Republican Governors have been in charge, the amount of data and facts about your district’s performance has been drastically reduced.  WHY???  What happened to transparency?

When a school district suddenly begins getting A’s and B’s after consistently getting far lower grades you’d like to understand what changed. But the data behind the report card is no longer published by the Ohio Department of Education. Are the facts being hidden? Why?

Let’s look at an example.

 2016 -2017 Report card

This report includes the data and the grades (scroll down to see all important information).

Now notice the drastic improvement on the 2017-2018 Report Card in just one year? Really? It normally takes several years to improve curriculum and train teachers before a district sees their scores improve. 

Again, in 2018 -2019 no details for us to see exactly how the grades were assigned.

Does our Governor and the Ohio Department of Education not want you to see the data? If they presented the actual test scores, would they show that the bar was lowered so more schools could get As and Bs?

When report cards were introduced, they contained a plethora of test, demographic, salary, staffing, and financial data. Over the years much of that has been omitted and much transparency has been lost.  Again, WHY?

And now there is a total blackout. There are no report cards at all for the 2019-2020 school year.

Legal Counsel 

Your goal in choosing your board legal counsel should be to choose one that understands their role of assisting the board in managing, directing and protecting your school board.  School board legal counsels are not all equal.  Some law firms are specialized. Some education law firms specialize in just negotiations, special needs students or suspensions and expelling students.  Some school board firms can handle all of the board's needs. Get a copy of your contract with your legal firms(s) to make sure you can contact them.  Some school boards write a contract with legal counsel that only allows contact with the board president.  If your contract does not specify one contact person, you are allowed to reach out to them to ask questions and get advice. There are numerous law firms that you could consider asking for assistance if the need arises.  We discovered that our legal firm consultant always seemed to advise us in a way that protected and benefitted the staff and not the students so, we interviewed and hired a new firm.  In searching for a new firm, logistics should not be a primary concern because your legal counsel does not need to be onsite often and most issues can be discussed using technology.

School board members are indemnified. Indemnification means that if the district, board or you are sued while in office for something you did, said or enacted as a board member, in your role as a school board member, you are insured. This means that your legal counsel is provided by the district insurance company at no cost to you. If you have any questions about this, please feel free to email your questions to NSBLC4ed@gmail.com

Memberships or attending educational meetings  

At your first meeting of the year, called an organizational meeting, each district board votes to set aside funds for you to purchase memberships to education organizations and to attend meetings that aid you in the duties for your job.  We feel strongly that these tax dollars are intended for the student's education and that if you chose to become a board member you should pay your own expenses for memberships.  School board members are entitled by law to attend educational meetings and conferences with the money they set aside in board funds.  The board may have a policy that specifies that the board must vote to agree with your spending on your chosen events.  If the board does not allow a board member reimbursement for their choice of educational meetings or conferences the board member has the right to sue their board for discrimination. It is unwise for a board to limit reimbursement or payment for a board member's choice to attend meetings or conferences that they deem relevant for the successful conduct of the board members' service. Again, we advise that doing all you can do to learn how to be a productive board member should be your choice and if at all possible, paid for by your personal funds or by a sponsor.