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A SCHOOL’S CRISIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY AS WELL AS A THREAT by James Darley
The reality that no schools are immune from unexpected threats to their reputation is all too often given an unwelcome reminder when another sorry tale about alleged bullying, drugs, sexual abuse or another fall from professional grace gives newspapers a tilt at those they like to suggest should know better. And of course it is right that exposure and criticism should be the consequence of gross failure to uphold standards of care where children are concerned.
A judge's decision earlier this year to allow the hearing of a claim for damages after 33 years could have serious implications for any school.
It opens the way for new or revived historic cases – from long before a current headship – where the traditional time bar now looks unreliable as protection.
Records lost, staff deceased, a school long closed – none provide safeguards:
all feature in a current £5m claim against former governors.
This underlines how difficult it is for any school even to assess risks it may face.
There are two areas of potential damage facing a school:
financial loss, and loss of reputation.
Damage can result whatever the outcome of a claim or a prosecution.
Mud sticks.
Reputation is everything.
And it is fragile.
The experience of several prominent independent schools shows that advice and hands-on support available in acute issues and crises can add real value to their own resources.
The external role is to manage media relations, mitigate the damage to reputation and assist its recovery, and help preserve relationships with important stakeholder groups.
The value of the original emergency assignment may be recognised in a longer-term business relationship, in which a PR programme will move from the responsive to the active. My firm has accordingly worked closely with one school for well over 15 years, advising on a very broad range of policy, positioning, marketing support, crisis and issues management, stakeholder communications and media relations matters.
A firm offering specialist advice and capabilities, and a media buffer, will be found to be particularly helpful in creating the conditions for good communications, reputation management and the maintenance of positive perceptions, while enabling the management of a school to continue to function without serious distraction.
Schools may not readily accept such help, and the middle of a crisis is not the best time to be selecting new advisers. But observing acute situations, I worry about a school relying on its solicitors to articulate its position: lawyers know about the law, not about public relations. I watch how media approaches are reacted to with a mix of panic, irritation, stonewalling and careless improvisation. When police are involved, I wish schools would not gratefully let them handle the messages, as if their agenda and the school's were the same. And I wonder what a school may or may not be doing, speedily to inform and reassure its other constituencies, in particular parents, prospects, staff and feeder school heads, among others.
It is a fundamental of good crisis management to take control of the information flow, to become the prime authoritative source. I rarely see this happening.
Crises should never be completely unexpected. They happen even to the best-run organisations.
They should be regarded as inevitable, and appropriate planning put in place as if they were anticipated:
resources and facilities, preparation of materials, development of contact lists and check lists – all can be done in advance and are difficult to do in mid-crisis.
The result is a system, kept live, not a manual, gathering dust;
and applicable to any event, not the likeliest scenarios.
The real challenge to reputation, and the test of competence, lies more in how an organisation responds than in the fact the crisis arose in the first place. The achievable goal is to emerge from crisis with a reputation not merely intact, but actually enhanced.
View the article on The Independent Schools Magazine website (opens a new browser window), or view the text of the article by clicking here.
