Leon County Schools was faced with a hard decision at the end of this week. Close the Schools for a Florida storm or remain open.
The last time the Schools closed for a storm, the storm was minor. Parents were angry that the schools closed for seemingly no reason. However, the opposite occurred on Friday morning. This was a storm that produced tornadoes which Leon County and Tallahassee haven’t seen before.
Buildings ripped to shreds, cars buried under trees and thrown on houses. Power loss to over 60,000 people the school board finally decided to close the schools for the day around 10am. However, many teachers, students, parents had already braved the weather and arrived at school. One teacher it took two hours through the debris and finding a clear route to get there.
The Dirty Delete
Many of our neighbors believe this choice should have been made sooner. For the Administration at Leon County Schools, it was. They were told to stay home as early as 7:30am on social media.
This post was “dirty deleted” after posting and receiving community backlash. FloridaCapitalTea was able to read some of our neighbors responses. Most responses expressed outrage that administration would be told to stay home and not also the students and teachers. Several comments explained how this makes the community feel like the School Board does not actually care for or protect the kids.
While the School Board will argue this was not their intent, we always look at the impact. Parents and teachers feel like their safety is not as high a concern for the School Board. A swift dirty delete of the post is also deleting the parents and teachers concerns. The hurtful impact this has on the community is felt and seen throughout other comments sections across multiple posts.
We read many stories of parents driving their kids to school to take their AP exams. Teachers not even able to access their schools. Kids stranded on the buses for hours. Other kids waiting at bus stops when a tornado touched down. There was an argument made for the school board that it is not the School’s responsibility and ultimately it is the parents.
Whose Responsibility Is It?
FloridaCapitalTea considers why the parents made the choice to brave the storms. One reason is that parents have to juggle work and school and life. They aren’t experts in weather and they rely on the school board making the safe choice. Families were not notified that the important AP test would be rescheduled until after kids were at the schools.
But more than that, Leon County Schools was pushing a campaign to increase attendance at the beginning of the year. While encouraging families to not miss school is great in theory, this particular campaign bordered on eliciting guilt and shame as the driving force.
This is considered an unintended consequence of that campaign. We need to consider that this may be a contributing factor. Parents that fear reprimand or consequences for unexcused absences may have endangered themselves and children to avoid negativity from the schools. Prior to the excused absence notification, many children were already on school grounds. This caused parents to have to go back out on blocked roads to retrieve them.
The Biggest Obstacles For Families To Attend School
FloridaCapitalTea has run several surveys about Schools since the beginning of the year. Our most recent survey on restructuring school has 76 participants and we ran the survey for about one week. One question we asked is: What is your family’s biggest obstacles with attending public school?
Common responses from participants included too much testing and in classroom time with a lack of hands on learning and creativity. Lack of personalized teaching and attention. Lack of consistency. Drop off/ pick up times. School hours. Lack of resources. Not conducive to working parents. Too large of classroom sizes. Too much homework. Bullying. Reliable transportation.
However, the most common response we received is Poor communication from administration and receiving information last minute.
Hard Decision
School Superintendent Rocky Hanna made a statement on social media following the storm. He begins by thanking parents for their patience and understanding in this situation. Hanna continued by explaining how the school board contacted National Weather Service (NWS) the night prior to the storm and was assured that Leon County would not be greatly affected.
You can watch it here: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1083638102729118
However, parents are in the comments expressing that by 9pm, NWS had updated their website to include Leon County. That other local news stations were predicting tornadoes the day prior. They also wanted to see notifications by five or six that morning.
Many people of our community also are providing suggestions, such as a delayed start time. This would allow for parents to plan to take off work the morning part and allows the schools more time to assess the severity of the storm.
Many parents and teachers anger is stemming from the lack of communication from the School Board. Teachers drove to the building putting themselves at risk. Parents also put themselves at risk or were stagnant in planning their work schedule and childcare. Our school community is expressing outraged that communication came through social media. Parents repeatedly state that there are many other ways the school should have communicated.
The School Board also appears to contradict what other local governments were recommending residents to do: Stay off the roads. This creates confusion in the public and low confidence in our leadership collaborating with one another.
A Hard Decision Becomes A Future Lesson
FloridaCapitalTea believes that in every situation we can ask ourselves three questions. What did we do well? What can we do better? How do we plan on doing better?
While we are unable to change the past, we can change the future. We, the people of Tallahassee, have been saying repeatedly what we need from our leadership. A great leader’s character is determined by how they respond to criticism.
“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.”
-Winston Churchill
