Oh, what a difference a season makes. One year ago my college district acquired a lively (and ultimately positive) PR concerns at the end to the school year: a high school college student protest at the administration building. The Timberview employee received notice of the administrative transfer to a middle school in MISD as a teacher and trainer starting in the 2011-12 school year. To day, they are one of 75 Mansfield ISD employees who received such administrative transfers in our carrying on efforts to save lots of careers in the District. The main thing to note is that in this situation is we weren’t amazed by the demonstration.
The students tipped their hands through word of mouth and social press. The rumor-mill revved up over the last week of college about the students being upset that one of the educators was being shifted/fired/replaced/sent away/etc. Thankfully, I got wind flow from it quite early because we aggressively monitor traditional press and public media for mentions, problems, topics related to the District and campuses.
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It wasn’t a long time before the students required to Twitter and Facebook rally support and organize the demonstration. Using Twitter search and Boolean search string with pastas, campus name, the teacher’s name and the ‘OR’ operator, I had a fairly good handle (and free look) into the conversation on that channel. The students also setup a Facebook Page to save lots of the coach and just about left it wide open for anyone to see. This was good because we could notice as well.
When the conversation moved to a genuine organized protest for the last day of college, we were not taken by surprise and could actually anticipate their motions. Originally, they wished to show at the high school, which was a bad idea because in addition to it being the last day of school it was also a finals day.
Naturally, the concern here was a disruption in the educational process particularly for those students not included or interested in this particular demonstration. Since we were monitoring the discussion, we followed the news that the students chose against rallying at the high school and instead were going to assemble and demonstrate at the District administration building.
Great. Again, this is the last day of school but this was a much better situation for all of us since we’re able to contain things from students taking finals. The air station explained they had noticed there have been “300 students gathered at the stadium” to protest. Since we’d anticipated the students’ moves and had verification from District police, I was able to give her the real numbers (approximately 50 kids at that time) and an up to date location of our administrative complex. I told her to have the reporter meet me in the car parking great deal and we’d go from there.
And thus began the media relationships side to this story. As people of the local media began to arrive and get their b-roll of the students marching then coming over to get some interviews I got a chance to show just a little strategic support for the students. I put our student nourishment department deliver situations of bottled water so we’re able to send out among the students during what was quickly becoming a hot Texas day.
