4
Blurring the lines: Connecting with your community
By Superintendent Dr. Ehren Jarrett
Rockford District 205
In three years, I have gone from being a principal
of a school with 2,200 students and 200 employees
to running a school
district with 29,000
students and 3,800
employees.
I
went
from
knowing
every
employee by name to
struggling with the
names of our 47
school buildings in the
Rockford
Public
Schools.
To navigate this
brave new world, I put
the highest value on
communication. And I
don’t mean the kind of
communication
steeped in strategy
and buzzwords.
Even when I didn’t
know exactly what
kind of leader I wanted
to be, I knew what I
didn’t want. I didn’t want to be a caricature. I wanted
to be real and authentic, as opposed to that person
who turns up every Tuesday night on the public
access channel.
As Peter Drucker said: “Culture eats strategy for
breakfast.” Your most brilliant plan will be foiled
unless your employees believe you genuinely want to
listen and are committed to frequent and honest
communication.
I have been very open with my staff and the
public about turnover in the top job and how that
works against building a culture of collaboration and
engagement. The Rockford Park District has had
seven leaders in 100 years. The school district, in
contrast, has had seven in barely more than 10 years.
None of us can go back, but we can go forward.
These have been my go-to tools as we do that:
A weekly Update newsletter is sent
electronically to board members and key
administrative employees. The information is aimed
at giving leaders a heads-up before they get a phone
call from a reporter.
A few days after the Update is distributed to the
board and leaders, it is edited and sent to the district
staff. It’s my way to directly communicate with
employees in a way an internal newsletter could not.
We
redesigned
our
st fall so it’s more
visually appealing and easier
to navigate. It’s also a place
to highlight our success
stories.
I will visit all of our school
buildings
and
district
departments over the next
year. These are informal
Q&A sessions, not a time to
be “on-message.” My chief of
communications comes along
so he knows the areas we are
doing well or falling short.
Our Superintendent’s
Student Advisory Council is
made up of students from
every high school. These
students are visible and
active.
I have a steady diet
of speaking
engagements
.
The groups I speak to run the gamut in size, from
Kiwanis clubs to business districts to the group that
ran our successful building referendum campaign in
November 2012. We keep in touch with these groups
even – and especially – when we don’t need anything
from them. And we meet them at times and locations
convenient for
them
.
We hold regular focus groups for
employees, parents, students and the community.
I encourage my Cabinet and other members
of the leadership team to be visible in the
community as well. Nearly a dozen administrators
are signed up to write for our Rockford Public
Schools blog.
If I have one driving principle of communication,
it’s this (borrowed from visual storyteller Nancy
Duarte): Let your audience be the hero. You have a
story to tell, but your audience must see themselves
in your story.
Once you make that connection, the lines
between “central office,” students, teachers, parents
and the community seem to blur. Even if I don’t know
all their names – yet.
Dr. Ehren Jarrett became
Rockford Public Schools
superintendent in July 2013.
He joined the district’s
leadership team in June 2011
as an assistant
superintendent. Before that,
he was principal at
Hononegah Community High
School in Rockton for four
years. During that time, Newsweek Magazine and
the Washington Post recognized Hononegah as one
of the top schools in the country. Jarrett earned his
doctorate in Educational Leadership from Northern
Illinois University. He serves as chairman of the
Alignment Rockford Governing Board and is
education chairman of the United Way Annual
Campaign. He is also a member of the Discovery
Center Board of Directors, the Joint Institute of
Technology Education-Aerospace and the Rockford
Area Economic Development Council Education
Committee.
Outreach
