Tuesday, May 30, 2017

About the High School / About Social Media



This community has an awesome high school filled with many gifted, dedicated teachers and coaches and over-filled with about 2,100 teenagers doing many amazing things.  The class of 2017 earned over $1.5 million in scholarships, not counting those whose athletic achievements earned them full or partial rides.  The performing arts excel -  from the 3 time champion Marching Knights to wonderful plays and musicals to incredible vocal programs (sadly I missed the Acapella concert last Monday due to a Board meeting, which I heard was breath-taking, but there’s still time to catch the spring concert on June 1).  Our high school has sent co- and extra-curricular teams across the country competing in their areas of excellence from robotics to business to dance, and more.  Last Thursday evening I met with student leaders of Round Table Robotics (freshly back from their international competition in St. Louis).  A 9th and 11th grade student presented to me their plans, ideas, and questions about how to expand STEM in our district.  They have a short term problem of too many applicants for the First Robotics Team next year, but a long-term vision of how to expand this program vertically (connecting to the lower grades) and horizontally (where can a ‘farmbot’ be sited at OCHS?).  A 9th grader and an 11th grader pitching a strategic vision on how to impact our school and district.  Amazing!
These and many other experiences are what I know of Oak Creek High School Knights.  It is why my heart has ached these past few weeks as the public narrative has tilted negative.  This cropped up a few weeks ago, spawned on Facebook by one or two bad actors, likely upset because they had been disciplined for their behavior, and trying to glorify it.  Their story alarmed some parents, particularly those without students at the high school (at least based on who contacted me most) who began sharing the bad actors’ story further on their social media.  This, of course, reached the mainstream media who further fanned the flames of the “ain’t it awful” narrative.  During this time I posted two public responses. If you did not read them before, I hope you will now.

I am not so naive as to say there are no challenges in managing a school of 2,100 teenagers in this day and age. I know there will be conflict between teens from time to time that escalates unfortunately to visibly verbal or even physical fights. I know children bring whatever is in the community into the schools.  For the most part, this is respect, politeness, and focus on cooperation.  But conflict, racist attitudes, and drugs exist in every community. This has been true since I was a principal in Marysville, Washington, then superintendent in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin and here in Oak Creek.  Every attitude and habit children learn from their families, they bring in their hearts and minds to school, again mostly positive, but from time to time conflicting with peers or a school's efforts to create common standards of conduct. I think the High School administration strives hard to fight back against the anti-social influences that disturb us all.  Students who fight are arrested and suspended and depending on the seriousness, or if there is a  repeated problem, they will be brought up for consideration of expulsion.  And as you read in my previous report to you, we are looking at what more or better we can do to eliminate such conduct, because if learners do not feel safe they will not learn and achieve as well as they might.


However, it breaks my heart when all the good things happening and amazing accomplishments of 99% of our students get overshadowed.  We must not let the most challenging aspects of our job working with all young people let us lose sight of the amazing parts.


A similar cycle of negativity occurred again last week (5/22/17).  There was a fight on Monday during 9th grade lunch.  Three students were arrested and suspended; two additional students were suspended for related misconduct.  They and/or perhaps some of their ‘friends’ were unhappy and took to social media. They planned to take up the conflict after school, off school grounds.  This came to the attention of the administration and Principal Read who, to his credit, went off school grounds to seek to prevent further conflict.  Our close partners, the police, were also contacted.  Further violence was avoided, but several ignorant harassing comments were allegedly made during this parking lot hubbub. The police ended up citing several teens for disorderly conduct.  This is indeed an awful thing which had to be dealt with.


The teenagers, not being done with this, took to social media again.  Using SnapChat for the most part, all sorts of things may (or may not) have been said or not said.  SnapChat allows messages and images to be seen for just an instant unless a screenshot is made.  This makes it challenging for school officials and police to track down facts without the screenshot.  “I remember seeing...” and “I heard... say he saw…”; and “ ...told me” were the presenting issues. In spite of this challenge, the High School administration spent most of Tuesday-  day and evening, Wednesday-  day and evening, and Thursday-  day and evening, trying to figure out who might have been saying what.  They talked to many students and parents, and many student devices were confiscated and searched (which is allowed by our district policy on student use of electronic devices… a whole other issue we have to deal with in this evolving age).  In the very few cases where evidence versus rumors could be substantiated, disciplinary action was taken.  Overall, ignorant and sadly on occasion racial-based and ethnic-based harassing statements were being reported; not always proven.   This appears to have been general hate speech, reflecting the ignorance of the social media posters.  In analyzing this with police, none of the comments reported were credible in terms of threats to the safety of persons or the school.  This is indeed an awful thing which had to be dealt with.


In the interest of creating a heightened sense of security, at our request, the police added a second School Resource Officer on site Thursday and Friday and will continue to do so if we request.  They also agreed to have their street patrols increase circuits of the site to keep an eye on surrounding properties.  While there was no credible threat, we felt this was prudent given the rising crescendo of rumors.  As you know, I visit a different school for a day each week.  May 25 happened to be the day I was scheduled to be at OCHS all day.  The day started and ended with a staff meeting where the High School administration attempted to bring staff on board with the rumor situation and alert them to be extra watchful and immediately report anything out of the ordinary.  They sent a message home to parents the evening of the 25th letting them know it was a “peaceful and productive day” and there were no credible safety risks.  I visited many classes and two lunches and did not sense anything other than peace and productivity.  However, the SnapChats flashed by a few bad actors were being talked about and, just like in the ‘telephone game’, the messages were ‘morphing’ more and more wildly.  A parent called to say her student had texted her that a firearm had been confiscated during 2nd period.  Totally untrue; but it became part of the ‘ain't it awful’ narrative.  Another parent called and said she was told the National Guard had been mobilized to support the school.  Totally untrue; but it became part of the ‘ain't it awful’  narrative.  Another parent called (us and the OCPD) to ask why the FBI had been called in to investigate.  Well, there was an FBI agent at school on Friday as a guest speaker in a social studies class, scheduled long ago; so a half truth I suppose; but it became part of the ‘ain't it awful’ narrative. Then a rumor began that this was all a senior (or freshman in some versions) hoax to see if they could shut down school on Friday; we have no evidence this is true.  The belief was that the message to parents on Thursday would assist them in assisting their students to understand there were no credible threats in this rumor-filled situation.  This seemed to work partially, but not fully; I know there were some parents who permitted their child to stay home because of all the rumors (it's a bit complicated to figure this out with clarity as it was the day before a 3 day weekend).  However, an opportunity for improvement I observed is that we should have used advisory or some other method on Thursday to directly communicate with students, not just their parents.  We also need to more systematically engage our student leaders in the rapidly evolving strategy sessions as we are able; they would likely use their social media in support of what is true.  We need to communicate with all stakeholders more nimbly.  We will add these to our toolkit the next time a bad actor tries to use social media to disrupt school, to be used as appropriate given the circumstances.


Even while we learn the short term lessons of this social media crescendo that caused a great deal of stress and glorified a few students who made bad choices, I want you to know we will be convening a longer term action planning team this summer to see how else we can improve our disciplinary system and perhaps most importantly our communication systems and procedures at OCHS (and all schools for that matter).  We must find better processes to ensure all stakeholders are fully on board as rapidly possible so social media does not get the upper hand. This is doubly important as we open the 9th Grade Center at OCHS - the added space will bring much relief, but we have to ensure best practice in communication.  If you have ideas or suggestions for opportunities of improvement based on your experience, please email them to the Principal at m.read@ocfsd.org  and the Assistant Superintendent at d.unertl@ocfsd.org so we can collect them for consideration and review.

A lot of faculty, staff, and administrators have been working really hard to maintain the sense of goodness and achievement that is Oak Creek High School.  I believe everything possible has been done to keep students and staff physically safe.  I am angry and saddened we temporarily lost control of the narrative, initially to some bad actors, then to the rumor fields. My mantra is that we must strive to get better at getting better. There are some awful things we have to deal with and we can get better at that.  Please know that the facts are that the vast majority of our students are doing amazing things, and we must not let the shadow of the challenges tarnish in any way our pride in all these great young people.

Thank you for reading this long message.  Now, I have three things to ask of you;

  1. If something is wrong (or right for that matter) please tell us right away. We have procedures for assuring that every concern & suggestion is addressed (visit the Contact Us page of our website).
  2. The best experience of all is to call the High School and make an appointment and walk the halls for an hour or for lunch, or a half day or a day.  You will be amazed given that there are 2,100 teenagers, in a space way too small, how polite and well behaved the public spaces are.
  3. Last but not least, a little summer homework:  Please consider reading two or more of the links provided below so you can help/support/control your teen’s use of social media.  It will make his or her life better (though perhaps they might not initially think so), your life better, and the lives of all his or her classmates better.  I recommend reading the last article first to understand why this assignment is so important.


Thank you for all you do to support your student and our community's schools.

Tim Culver
Teens share the positive and negative impacts SnapChat has on their health and wellbeing in this study. 
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