How We Coped During Ferguson Unrest … and Shined

My View

It was the Saturday in August 2014 before the start of my second year leading the Riverview Gardens School District in St. Louis, Mo. We believed we were on a roll, coming off the first improvements in our district’s state report card in more than a decade.

I had been hired to turn around the 4,900-student urban district in the northern portion of St. Louis County, where about 98 percent of the students are African American. I experienced a buzz of excitement among students, staff and community over the recent announcement we had received of a 16.8 percent increase in our state-issued annual performance report.

We were proving all students can learn and felt good about our district motto: “It’s a great day to be a Ram.”

Late-Night Vigils

At about 12:40 p.m. on Aug. 9, my iPhone buzzed. It was a text message from my high school principal who had received a message from one of our high school students that an unarmed 18-year-old named Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer on Canfield Drive in Ferguson, which sits within the Riverview Gardens footprint.

The tension between community and law enforcement was rising by the minute, and an explosion seemed imminent. Little did I know this event would require my full attention and the district’s resources for months. Our district, community and world would be changed forever.

What did I do first? Well, let’s just say there are no training manuals on how to deal with a crisis of this magnitude. I assembled a team of professionals who would be able to provide me with the right updates at the right time to ensure our students and staff were as safe as possible.

Our team soon became known as the “Pajama Patrol” because we were up until midnight or later every night for 14 straight days watching the protest movement and brewing developments. We were back up at 2:30 a.m. to watch the law enforcement press conferences outlining the previous night’s events involving the protesters. We had boots on the ground each morning by 4 a.m. to assess the level of threat that might still exist to make a decision on possible school closings.

For the first six weeks of the protests, we had law enforcement and/or district security staff following buses in the protest areas during pickups and drop-offs to ensure safe passage for students.

Contingency Plans

After the first week, with the volatility of the protests increasing, I cancelled classes for two days. During those days, we loaded up our food truck and parked it outside various schools in Riverview Gardens at different times of the day to ensure students and families had access to the free breakfast and lunch the district provides to 100 percent of its students.

We brought our full staff in for a half-day of training on the signs of student, staff and family stress. We disseminated information on additional resources available in the community.

Once we pulled our crisis plan off the shelf, we quickly modified it. We wanted to ensure our actions were precise yet fluid enough to react appropriately to the ever-changing protest movements, the strategies used by outside agitators to gain the upper hand against law enforcement and the community developments that would affect our students’ ability to get to or from school.

The most complicated piece of the crisis plan involved the detailed preparations for deploying our shelter-in-place plan for students and staff, if needed. Weeks later, I wrote to the prosecuting attorney detailing student transportation contingencies should a grand jury announcement about the case be made during the school day.

A Promising Outcome

The question anyone in this position should ask is, “How do you navigate a crisis that doesn’t play by the rules?” The answer, simply, is to use common sense at lightning speed, communicate with one voice, stay on message and include the right professionals on your team, armed with the right information to make the most sound decisions for the safety and well-being of students, staff and families.

Despite the diversions of staff time and district resources to deal with the Ferguson unrest throughout 2014-15, I could not have been prouder when I learned last October that our students’ aggregate performance on state academic measures increased by 33.9 percent. We ranked as the most improved district in Missouri in 2015 and will be eligible this summer for an accreditation upgrade for the first time in more than a decade.