On the heels of yet another unnecessary controversy created by the Springboro School Board and on the precipice of our next educational leadership fiasco comes word that the school board is seeking to spend tax payer money on a contract with a public relations firm to improve their public image – oh and also preparing to spend healthy six figure dollar amounts on attorney fees, an out of state strike management firm, and temp teachers to educate our kids when they force our teachers to strike.
As a voter and a taxpayer I am less than delighted to hear that in the days preceding a potential teacher strike and the months before an election involving our school board President and two other open seats, we the taxpayers will now be subsidizing a messaging campaign to spin the irresponsible actions of this board into some sort of viable option for the future of our schools. The idea that my tax dollars are going to be used to justify this insanity instead of educate my children is incomprehensible and unacceptable.
These self proclaimed champions of financial responsibility and fiscal restraint appear to be more than happy to spend the education dollars they manage on pr, lawyers, strike management firms, political gain and all things unrelated to the quality of our schools and the future of our kids. These tax dollars are not being spent on retaining our teachers or sports or art or music or AP courses or special education instruction, or infrastructure, or any number of other things that could strengthen our schools, but rather they are going to be spent on preserving the image of our board. Why?
Why do they want to spend our money to reassure us the emperor is fully clothed when we can plainly see the naked truth? Why are they wasting time and spending money on this when they could simply behave responsibly, listen to the community, stop using schools as a means for political posturing, and instead focus on getting a contract in place for our teachers, restoring the reputation of our schools, and using every available resource to better prepare our children for the future?
So in an effort to save Springboro taxpayers money, I’ll offer up some Free PR Advice to our school board:
- Be honest.
- Listen.
- Admit you have made some serious mistakes and act to correct them.
- Value your employees.
- Value your community.
- Value our children.
- Don’t try to shout people down or tell people that they’re wrong, stupid, or misguided.
- Stop abusing your power.
- Stop wasting taxpayer money on things like lawyers, pr firms, and strike management groups and instead invest in our educators and our kids.
- Stop with 4 hour school board meetings seemingly every other day.
- Stop with the drama.
- Stop behaving poorly and start acting with integrity.
- Stop making foolish decisions.
- Stop placing your politics before our kids.
- Stop acting like a power hungry oligarchy and start listening to your community.
- Focus on educating our kids and strengthening our schools.
Your image problem is rooted in a lack of trust caused by repeated displays of poor judgment, bad behavior, and a lack or integrity. If you want to fix this situation, don’t spend our money on changing your image or spinning your message, spend your time and our tax dollars on doing the right things for our kids, our teachers, our schools, and our community.
Do you want to offer up your own advice to the school board? I encourage you to email, call, write, attend board meetings, blog, tweet, post on facebook, and make your opinions known to them.
