Photo by The Climate Reality Project used under the Unsplash License.
Here’s why it should be and how to do it right
Part 1 – Why covering school boards is important
This three-part blog has it all: an explanation of the need for good coverage of school board issues, the legal and ethical concerns for this reporting, and the writing skills to effectively tell your audience what it should know.
Part 2: What makes it challenging legally and ethically
Part 3: How students can cover school boards like the pros
Let’s start from the beginning. What groups are most likely to make decisions that impact high school students’ daily lives? And what local groups are often least likely to get any kind of media coverage about the decisions they make?
If you guessed “school boards,” you’re right on both counts. The lack of coverage often stems from two problems: Many small towns and rural areas have lost their community newspapers and become media “deserts.” Bigger towns and cities frequently don’t have as many reporters as they once did and often have a hard time covering all the schools in their area.
So, the daily lives of students, and the wallets of local taxpayers can face big changes they don’t even see coming if reporting about school boards is weak or non-existent.
That’s where student journalists should step up. School boards make decisions about everything from the books students can use to the presence or absence of cell phones, from hiring and firing teachers or administrators to the length of the school day. Also, consider the money they handle and their decisions about how it’s spent to benefit students. These are all things that have tremendous impact — things students often know something about first-hand, but often don’t know all the details or don’t have anyone ask their opinions.
- For instance, an article about Montgomery County (Maryland) school board preparing to vote on a new hate speech policy and the funds to hire four retired law enforcement officers to improve school security (salaries and benefits for them and for guns and training – $280,000).
- An article in the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch about how city schools will handle a new “bathroom law” that Ohio state legislators passed and that goes into effect a month from the reported board meeting. One parent said her to children who attend school there find it “terrifying.”
- An Associated Press report about concerns at school districts with high immigrant populations that students would avoid schools to avoid deportation, and how school boards were trying to prevent this. Sources include school superintendents and a UCLA professor of law, but, like the first two examples, no students were interviewed.
- And new to school boards’ challenges, a New York Times article reporting that President Trump has recently signed executive orders that seek “to prevent schools from recognizing transgender identities or teaching about concepts such as structural racism, ‘white privilege’ and ‘unconscious bias,’ by threatening their federal funding.
This last is uncharted territory as the U.S. has been uniquely a country where school control comes at the local level. Attempts to follow a national conservative approach have only been successful in a few states, notably Florida, but others have restricted the teaching of American history, gender and race.
All of these seem to be the kinds of topics that need citizen input – and student input as well. They can’t use their voices to impact changes if they don’t have the details. And just whining about it doesn’t help.
Because almost all school board decisions make a difference in student education, it just makes sense to seek student input. This means student journalists should explore any school board topics and actions thoroughly for their own media or they should become some of the sources in local commercial media.
What will it take to convince student journalists they could and should be willing to tackle this? As a starting point to covering this beat, consider trying this:
Using copies of recent agendas from your school board or, if available, articles about the meetings from your local newspaper, make a list of the topics that have been/will be discussed. Frame them in a way to show how they might impact your students. Example: Next fall’s school schedule. Possible changes might be:
- Earlier start time or release time
- What does that do to student sleep schedules?
- Could it make a difference in bus schedules for elementary and middle schools?
- How will that affect sports practices? Competitions at other schools?
- What will that mean to student after-school jobs?
- Change in required textbooks for U.S. history classes
- Will there be a difference in content covered? If so, what will students be losing or gaining?
- Who is encouraging the Board to approve the new text?
- Will there be a cost increase? How much? To the school or to individuals?
- What do the current history teachers say about the two texts?
- What does an educational group like the National Council for the Social Studies say about the texts or about how to choose a good text?
- Replacing the local “lunchroom ladies” and director with a company that operates school cafeterias nationwide
- Will the food be better or worse?
- Will it cost more or less for the students? For the district? If more for the latter, where will the money come from?
- What do other districts use? Do any of them use one of the companies your district is considering?
- Will students still be allowed to leave campus for lunch?
Of course, the list of past or possible future topics is endless. That’s the point your journalism students need to see. Using one of these ideas or another from your own school board agendas, discuss as a class why these school board decisions can make a big difference in your readers’ lives.
At this point, you’re ready for the next two blog posts, scheduled for Feb. 13 and 20. Part 2 will cover what legal and ethical issues you need to understand to cover the school board beat, and Part 3 will give you tips for gathering and then writing about your topics. Student readers will be interested, but so will the rest of your community, especially if you have no commercial media covering the school board.
Written By: Candace Bowen, MJE