I worked as director of Communications for St. Louis Public Schools for seven months. I’d gone through the strangest job interview I’d ever had, and I had a first day on the job unlike any other I had had or anyone I knew had had. But I figured that, after that tumultuous first day, things would settle down.
I figured wrong.
Things would never settle down. Every day would be unlike every other day.
One ongoing source of turmoil was the Board of Education itself, the seven people elected by voters to oversee the district’s operations. Four had been elected on a reform slate. Three had not. Most of the turmoil generated by the Board came from those three.
One constantly leaked confidential board information to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, especially if it might embarrass or “expose” the reform members. One day she went further. She showed up at a middle school with reporters in tow, announcing she was firing the principal. I had to drop what I was doing and rush to the school, deal with the reporters, and explain that Board members could not fire staff members. But she got the coverage she wanted on the 6 p.m. news; she wasn’t happy that I did, too.
Another Board member had been a perennial candidate for every elected office in the city of St. Louis and had managed to get on the school board because of a lack of challengers. He called me one day and asked me to set up a press conference; he was going to demand that the acting superintendent resign. I explained I couldn’t do that.
The third was likely the most intelligent member of the board. It was amazing to watch her focus like a laser on misstatements, inconsistencies, and contradictions form the administration. She also didn’t leak to the media; she said whatever she had to say publicly.
But there was a problem. One day, I was sitting in my office when I heard a splash. I saw the board member, who thought she has disguised herself by wearing a baseball cap, rush from my boss’s office next to mine and carrying an empty water pitcher. She had thrown the water on my boss at her desk.
I called security. They responded immediately. So did the police, because the board member had barricaded herself in her small office. The administrative area was evacuated. It took several hours, but the police eventually prevailed and removed her for charging and booking for assault. Yes, I had to hold an impromptu press conference to explain what had happened. I also had to give a witness statement to police. There had been rumors she had a bomb; she didn’t.
It was the reporter for Channel 5 who explained why the Board member had done it. She’d been inspired by a scene in The Wizard of Oz, and she believed my boss had become a witch. The reporter did not make that up. It was true.
A second source of turmoil was the public anger over the district’s restructuring. Downsizing had occurred across the district, with hundreds of people losing their jobs. The third floor of district headquarters in downtown St. Louis had been full of people six months before. Now it was empty and unused, except for the broadcast studio and the Board’s conference room. A major chunk of the second floor, the area adjacent to where I worked, was also empty.
Several schools had been closed, angering parents and teachers like. School bus routes had been consolidated and removed from influence by the Board and top district officers. Food service contracts had been consolidated and removed from political oversight. The nepotism rule was being enforced. Full-time activists were drawn to the turmoil.
All of it would coalesce around Board meetings. Thy were held at a middle school near downtown, because it had been built with the largest auditorium. Every Board meeting saw a filled room – 450 people who were not shy about screaming. Another 500, often more, would be outside in the parking lot.
I had attended school board meetings in my own suburban school district. Feelings might run high at times, but meetings usually stayed calm.
Not with St. Louis Public Schools
I sat next to my boss at the first meeting I attended in October. The room was packed. The crowd had to be continuously warned to calm down or be expelled. Board members yelled at each other, and at members of the crowd. People were often shouted down. It was a circus of noise. One activist charged the stage where the Board was sitting, and was wrestled to the ground by the police, handcuffed, and arrested, literally two feet from where I was sitting.
When the meeting ended, my boss smiled. “You must be a good luck charm. This was a good meeting.”
Shocked, I stared at her. “This was a good meeting?”
She nodded, smiling again. “We only had one arrest.”
The third source of turmoil was the normal workings of an urban school district. All the reporters covering the district had police radios. There would be reports of weapons on campus, gang fights, campus intruders, school bus incidents, and other problems.
Once, I was at a meeting hosted by the school district and held at the high school that specialized in information technology. Hundreds of people were attending a presentation by the State Board of Education. I received a text message – food poisoning at an elementary school near the city’s old and famous food market. The incident was odd because only one class had been affected, and the children had eaten different things in the cafeteria. But the teacher had also been affected, and that moved the situation from possible hysteria to serious issue. The food service vendor was sending people to collect samples and provide a statement to the media.
The vendor’s representatives showed up, collected samples, and promptly slipped out a side door. They would not be providing a statement. Reporters turned to me. I had to invent a response on the spot, explaining what we knew and didn’t know and expressing our surprise that the vendor had not made a statement as promised.
The vendor was not happy with my response. That made us even. I wasn’t happy with their response.
Like I said, no day was like any other day. No such thing as a “typical day” existed. I might try to plan, but I always had to be prepared to junk the plan and go by the seat of my pants. That was the only typical thing about the job.
Related:
The Strangest First Day on the Job I Ever Had.
The Strangest Job Interview I Ever Had.
Top photograph, St. Louis Public Schools headquarters building. All photographs via St. Louis Public Schools.by St. Louis Public Schools.
