Dive Brief:
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The top five drivers of school communications crises for K-12 schools are school violence, parent activism, educator misconduct, labor issues and Title IX issues, according to an analysis of school and district administrator interviews, social media and traditional media coverage between 2022 and 2023.
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In 2023, for example, an average of 130 news stories per day on school violence ran in traditional media outlets, which are two to three times more likely to cover violence at schools than similar crimes elsewhere. And 2023 saw a 2,280% increase from prior years in traditional media coverage of educators having accounts on OnlyFans, an internet content subscription site used primarily by sex workers.
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Over the past few years, "the size and scale of issues that distract leaders from serving students continue to grow," according to the report on trends in crisis communications from Comsint Communications. Attention to these issues "distracts significantly from school operations and can cause dramatic spikes in inbound communications," the strategic communications and marketing firm said.
Dive Insight:
While 58% of school communication professionals said in 2022 that crisis communications was one of their top five responsibilities, that represented a decrease from 69% in 2020. At the same time, community relations and public engagement rose to the fourth-highest priority in 2022, according to a survey from the National School Public Relations Association. In 2020, during the height of the pandemic, it ranked seventh, and two years earlier it had been sixth.
School crises consume a large amount of time for school communications experts, said Mellissa Braham, associate director of NSPRA, in an email.
Crises related to school violence, parent activism, educator misconduct, and labor and Title IX issues "are the type you stay up at night worrying about," said Braham.
"But for most schools, the crises they regularly experience look more like bomb threats and students fighting in the hallway, a lockdown for nearby police activity or the Wi-Fi going down during classes, false rumors riling up the community or freezing temperatures closing schools."
According to the NSPRA report released last year, districts are investing more in school communications. For example, the percentage of professionals reporting they are considered a member of their district's leadership team increased from 59% in 2020 to 67% in 2022.
The average communications department size reported by district communication members also increased to up to four people. That's up from a typical one-person communications office in past years.
The new report by Comsint Communications found that "school leaders are increasingly facing matters far beyond pedagogy." The findings reflect issues — many of them politically charged or controversial — that have been impacting districts nationwide and, for some, making the superintendency challenging.
In 2022, a separate report showed that growing political conflict was harming efforts to conduct respectful dialogue in schools and raising hurdles to addressing misinformation, according to the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at the University of California, Los Angeles and the Civic Engagement Research Group at the University of California, Riverside.
And another 2022 report found that superintendent turnover skyrocketed by 46% between 2018-2020 and 2020-2022 in the nation's largest school districts, partly due to stress related to the pandemic, political polarization and school safety. In the 2022-23 school year, superintendent turnover hit slightly more than 20% for the largest school districts, according to ILO Group, an education strategy and policy firm.
School leaders should help stakeholders — including staff, parents and community members — understand the complex issues facing school districts, said Bob Noyed, a communications expert and previous school district communications director, last year at an Association of School Business Officials conference.
This includes maintaining robust websites and embracing the communications aspect of school district leadership.
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