When To Communicate Publicly or Keep Quiet

Focus: Communications

Before the pandemic shut down the whole world, we all had mini-crisis situations that might shut down a school now and then. As schools have begun to reopen, those situations are once again part of our lives.

As communications director in a school district serving nearly 12,000 students, I often get phone calls like this exchange:

Principal: “Nicole, we briefly went on a hold, with our exterior doors locked, because the police were pursuing a bank robbery suspect near our school, but they caught him and everything is fine now. I’m thinking we don’t need to send anything out because everything in the building kept going and it was only 10 minutes long.”

Me: “Actually, since there was a possible danger in the area, we do need to send something out. I’ll help you with the message.”

Or sometimes the conversation resembles this:

Principal: “Nicole, we had a student pull the fire alarm, so we just treated it like a fire drill and dealt with the student. There was no danger, so we don’t need to send anything out, right?”

Me: “Well, was anybody worried?”

Principal: “Actually, we had several students who were a bit scared, but we explained it to them, and they’re fine now.”

Me: “They are likely to talk about it when they get home, and their version is likely to be much more upsetting to their parents than the truth. We do need to send something out. I’ll help you with the message.”