Establishing Guidelines for Issuing School Statements

A Strategic Approach

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Establishing Guidelines for Issuing School Statements - A Strategic Approach

The conversations I’ve had around school statements have made for an interesting few months. Heads are tired and often feel they can’t win. A number of them feel frustrated and misunderstood. I also think pretty much everyone I’ve talked to is feeling there has to be a better way, given the amount of time both creating and navigating a response can be, and how uniquely draining. And of course, it’s more complicated to navigate anything when you are emotional yourself, dealing with emotional people. There’s a lot going on out there! And emotions are contagious.

So I also understand the desire to establish a policy around when to issue school statements and I understand the questions I’m getting about how to do this. The subtext I perceive is about controlling expectations, particularly from parents, but I’m sure at some schools alums can also be quite vocal in their expectations as well. Heads and schools are stretched thin and there is a need to find ways to tell constituents, with love, that they can’t be all things to all people.

I’d like to pause here and take a minute to define “school statements.” I think this has gone from “when do we issue an official school statements to all constituents establishing a school’s position on a national or international crisis” (i.e. what started to be widespread in 2020 with Covid and the racial reckoning, with many institutions and corporations issuing statements) to “what triggers sending an email letter to all parents (and perhaps alums) outside of our usual communications schedule.” 

In my opinion, the “issuing an all school statement” that is static and issued to all constituents as a standalone communication is a rare event. There is some implication in what is referred to as “an official school statement” that it is a statement for the whole world to read, not just your constituents, so the world can understand your school’s position. Most schools just do not have a big enough footprint for to this either makes sense or even be an appropriate aspiration. It shouldn’t be about position-taking - it should be about connecting with constituents. I understand this line can get hard to parse. So you probably want to establish guidelines as to what triggers that level of statement creation.

The Framing: Guidelines - Flexible and Workable

This Independent School magazine piece is excellent and I’ve linked to it before. As Tracy Sweet explains, Andover established guidelines. Maybe some people will see the difference between “policy” and “guidelines” as semantic but I see guidelines as more flexible and fluid than establishing a policy. I suspect establishing a policy is attractive because it feels durable and sturdy and final, but given the rate of change in the world today, guidelines make more sense.

Part of what you will need to establish is how much off campus constituents - parents and alumnae - figure into the assessment of a need to make a statement. In Tracy’s piece, the first question Andover asks is “what do the students, faculty and staff need from the school?” This is, of course, always the first question. But does your second question need to be, “what does the wider school community need from our school?” 

I would advocate that in a time where your greatest asset is your role as a stable and well loved community whose families are making a significant financial sacrifice to attend, it is in your best interest to consider the parent body as an extension of the community. This is going to manifest  differently whether you are a pre k - 6 day school or a 9-12 boarding school. Do families need to be reassured their students are safe and cared for? Do they need their belief in the school as a steady and supportive community reinforced? Do they need to feel connected to authority figures they trust in a time when so much information out there is considered suspect? 

These are harder questions to answer and it may feel a tad touchy feely for some heads and admin teams but this is a reality and it needs to at least be considered.

Other questions I would add in developing guidelines are around urgency and pervasiveness. Is this an event that every outlet in the country or in the world is featuring as headline news? Is this a rare, confusing, maybe never-before-seen event that creates a pervasive sense of instability? Are we, collectively, trying to make meaning of this event?