Open Letter to Toledo School Board Candidates

Before I left Toledo, I had a conversation with a long-time community leader who talked with me about the Toledo Public Schools communications position. I told him that I felt the school district time and time again misses countless opportunities to promote itself and put itself in a positive light in the media, leaving bad news as the only news the general public often hears. As a long-time journalist in Toledo, numerous experiences with TPS have been very good, but other times where painfully challenging where I was met with skepticism and indifference (and I was working on "positive stories.")

There are a lot of good things Toledo Public Schools have going for it. The school district, though, faces significant challenges as well. The Indianapolis Public School District announced this week that it was closing nine schools and virtually eliminating nearly all of its middle schools because of strinking enrollment to charter schools and the suburbs. The battle for students is a national problem facing every urban district in the country. Not a single urban district is immune.

My question with Toledo Public School board candidates would be what are you prepared to do to change the perception of the district with the media and how you communicate with the public? Is it a problem? I can only speak about my experience with Toledo Public Schools. Most of the people I've worked with have been very good. TPS has one communications person and from I see the workload simply not enough for one person. If school board candidates want to make a solid investment that could bring solid return in the community, it should look at hiring another person and create a media team that would initiate a plan to work with media outlets, web sites, bloggers, and others on a daily basis. Right now, a consistent plan with the media is something that's sorely missing. I look at the TPS web site and while it's nice, so much more can be done with it to engage the media and community. How many parents know TPS even has a web site?

As an organization of African-American communicators, I hope this issue can be addressed at one of the debates or at the very least the NOBMA debate on Nov. 3. How the school district honestly communicates its goals to the community could go a long way bringing people to the table to help stem the tide of students leaving. I realize there are meatier issues on the table, but I think this is something that has its place for discussion.

This discussion should not take place only when a levy is under consideration. (That's another discussion for another blog.) NOBMA and its members stand ready to assist if the school board truly wants to talk about its messages to the media and the community. The place I'm working now takes communication to the community to an entirely different level and it's been an incredible learning experience even in my short time here. Thanks for letting me rant. Please let me know if you agree or disagree.

Clyde Hughes, president
NOBMA