Audiocast: Making the Case: Strategic Communications for State System Leaders Navigating Times of Social Conflict
Natalie Walrond: Hi, my name is Natalie Walrond, and I’m the director of the National Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety at WestEd, funded by the U.S. Department of Education. Over the last five years, our center has had the privilege of working with state and local educational agencies as they create the conditions in which students, families, and educators can thrive, regardless of background, identity, or circumstance. Our work with the field has occurred at a uniquely complex time. System leaders have navigated a global pandemic, all too frequent occurrences of school shootings, a national reckoning with structural and systemic racism, social and political polarization, and enduring disparities in discipline approaches, mental and behavioral well-being, and academic outcomes for young people. Our schools, districts, and state educational systems have been on the front lines of enormous conflict. They’ve turned to our center for support with their strategic communications with their interest holders. These include families, other child- and youth-serving systems, policymakers, and others who share an interest in the young people, families, and educators in their state. It’s important to note that we distinguish strategic communications from general communications. That is, when communications are strategic, they have a specific purpose and intended impact. They’re designed for a specific audience to inspire specific action. This audiocast, the companion listening guide, and the Linktree of resources comprise a portfolio of evidence-based tools and resources on strategic communications. The big idea: effective strategic communications is value-driven and bidirectional. It is fueled by deep listening, persistent patience, and authentic relationships. I had the privilege of talking with Sheila Briggs and Maria Echaveste about these topics. Sheila is currently a principal at Education First as part of the Engaged Students team. Education First is a mission-driven strategy and policy organization dedicated to helping its clients navigate through complexity to create more focused, equitable, and inclusive initiatives, strategies, and organizations. Prior to joining Education First, Sheila served as the assistant state superintendent of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Maria is president and CEO of Opportunity Institute. This organization focuses on three key bodies of work: whole child equity (especially adolescent learning and development), resource equity, and equity indicators. This audiocast includes excerpts from our fireside chat, organized in three themes: balancing courageous and compelling language, cross-sector collaboration as a strategy for strategic communications, and data and storytelling as a strategy. If you use the listening guide with this audiocast, you’ll notice that the content maps to these three themes. Our conversation started first with the big picture. Maria and Sheila, thank you so much for agreeing to do this with us. I’m thrilled that you’re going to be sharing your wisdom and expertise with us. And the first question that I have for you is this one. In this particular moment in time, why does public education matter? What’s your headline?
Sheila Briggs: Thanks for having us today; I’m really looking forward to this. I would say that education is really the place where we teach our youth how to make an educated argument, how to analyze the facts and draw conclusions, how to really interrogate history and learn from it so we don’t make the same mistakes. During a time of social upheaval, I feel like we need these things more than ever.
Maria Echaveste: Thanks for having this conversation. I think these are really important issues. Having an educated population is critical to unleashing human potential and equally important for a thriving democracy. Especially right now, where we’re having a debate about what is true, education helps us build a foundation based on facts, science, and key concepts from which we learn to navigate the world around us.
Natalie Walrond: With that big-picture framing, we turn to the first theme: balancing courageous and compelling language in strategic communications. You’ll hear Maria and Sheila talk about how fear is often at the root of social conflict and how perspective-taking and relational approaches can be powerful strategies in strategic communications. The first big idea that I want to dig into is this idea of balancing courageous and compelling communication. We saw this a lot with the states that we worked with through our Center. The idea was that a lot of state leaders were trying to think about how to balance being courageous in their communication with communication that might feel more compelling to a wider audience. And, of course, there’s trade-offs, so courageous language might vividly articulate your values of equity, excellence, and well-being. But then we know that there’s some audiences in this moment of time who are resistant to those kinds of messages or the language that is often used around those kinds of messages. But then, by contrast, we’ve seen leaders feel that in softening their language to be more compelling to more audiences, they’re compromising the power of the values that they stand for. But it might be more galvanizing for a wider audience. My first question for you guys about this idea is, what’s been root of the kinds of resistance that we’ve seen manifested in schools and local board meetings and state board meetings?
Sheila Briggs: Let me jump in first. Having worked in government in Washington, D.C., I’ve been familiar with the kind of polarization. I want to say that I think we should understand that the current attacks on public education are a continuation of an ongoing cultural war, where a part of our society feels very threatened by change, including changes in societal norms, increasing diversity, fear of the future, especially for their children. But let’s also remember that before this current surge, there were communities, especially African American communities, where some felt schools were not always safe spaces, with implicit bias and lowered expectations based on identity, background, and circumstance. There’s different parts to this questioning of public education, but as we’ve said earlier, public education is critical to our country. We have to figure out how to address these different parts of our society, holding true to the ideals on which this country was founded.
Maria Echaveste: Yeah, I could not agree more with that. I do think that fear, as you mentioned, is at the root of this, and I think both the things you described, fear of change, fear of their way of being threatened. But I also think it’s fear that they’re sending your children, such a precious thing to you, off to the schools, and you have to trust them to teach and care for and keep safe and co-raise them with you. And that is a scary thing to do. Then I think there’s a real active misinformation campaign that is seeking to sow that fear and to sow that mistrust by fueling with misinformation. I think that has been fueling some of the issues that we’ve been seeing across the country with local school board meetings and state board meetings and trying to regain control of what’s happening in the schools, whether that fear is based in misinformation or disagreement. I think it’s a very real thing that our school teachers and leaders are trying to navigate in a way that is best for the students that we’re charged with serving.
Natalie Walrond: That’s really helpful, and I feel like you both shared a lot of global and framing ideas. Where have you seen examples of the right balance struck between the courageous and the compelling, and how do you strike that balance? Where have you seen people do a great job of having courageous language that is also an invitation to a broad audience to join the work?
Maria Echaveste: I think where I’ve seen people do a really good job with that is where they’re portraying their message in a way that folks can relate to. That doesn’t mean that you have to compromise on your values. You can communicate in a way that’s expressing your values, but you don’t have to use language that’s real divisive and that is a red flag trigger word for people. And we know there are words out there that are very political and very divisive. I think, when you get under those things and you talk about the language, using language that describes in a human way what you’re trying to do or what you’re trying to say, I think people can hear the message in a way that they can relate to and that they can understand without turning off the message right away because of the language that’s being used. I think the places I’ve seen this really successful, especially in education, is when you’re telling stories about kids. You’re talking about how they’re struggling and how we’re going to support them. You talk about successes that you’ve had with children. I think all of that can be done getting your message across without compromising your values. The final thing is to really realize that human rights are not political. We are there to serve our students and to look out for their best interests. We want to be looking out for the well-being of them. We want to be as inclusive and supportive as we can to make sure they get what they need to succeed, and this really doesn’t have to be controversial. The best way to do that is to tell direct stories about the things that you’re doing that folks can understand in language that makes sense and that they can relate to.
Sheila Briggs: I think it’s really important to imagine yourself in your audience’s shoes, which means you need to know your audience, especially consider parents. First and foremost, they care about their children, which means your words need to convey that their children are also your priority and that you respect their rights as parents. Then on a particular issue, build a shared understanding of the key components of those issues. I’m thinking of a recent example about a school district that changed its student assignment policy for middle school. The district has three school districts. What really struck me, because not surprisingly, as in many communities around the country, there was segregation with one particular middle school, low performing, more representative of low-income families. As I poked around, it turns out that district and district officials really engaged in a process of talking to families, having consultation, and looking at the data of the inequities. It didn’t start with, “We have a segregated school system, and we have to change it,” which kind of puts people on the defensive. But really looked at income, language, academics, sports, so that parents could see that what was there in front of them, which was a segregated system, but do it in a way that really respected and understood and engaged parents and community.
Natalie Walrond: Our second theme is about cross-sector collaboration as a powerful strategy for strategic communications. Sheila and Maria talked about the science of learning and development and how strengths-based ecosystem approaches to strategic communications are aligned with this concept. I’m going to move us to our second theme, which is this idea of cross-sector collaboration as a strategy for strategic communications, taking a broader ecosystem approach to serving the whole person that focuses on how child and youth-serving systems can work in aligned and coherent ways to create the conditions in which young people, their families, their educators, and their communities can thrive. Here’s the next question about that. What are the opportunities of an ecosystem approach at the state level to social and emotional well-being?
Maria Echaveste: I think it’s really important to put this question in a frame that recognizes that the science of learning and development has provided ample evidence that out-of-school environment, family circumstances, all of that impact a child’s ability to learn. The neuroscience clearly shows that trauma, poverty can really negatively impact the learning journey, but the neuroscience also tells us that our brains are extremely resilient and malleable. With the right interventions and supports, every child can learn and have positive academic and life outcomes. This means that the last few decades of almost exclusive focus on classroom reform, high-quality teaching, curriculum testing—all of which are important—but they still have not reduced the disparities among racial and income groups. Many of us have come to understand that we really need a whole-child approach, and schools and education system leaders need to work collaboratively across sectors. If you keep the focus on children and families working together, we can collectively do better. This is borne out by the science, but it’s very hard to actually operationalize given the bureaucracies in which we function.
Sheila Briggs: Yeah, great example. The first thing that I thought of in thinking about a really important cross-sector approach is a little bit more of an academic example that I participated in as a state leader. I think I would argue that strong academic instruction, as Maria said, is a key role—not exclusive, but an important role—in our children’s well-being. I’m in 100% agreement we have to take a whole-child approach. I’m going to describe this academic approach. Several years ago, we were starting to really understand and see the importance of not just improving the academic standards that we had available for our districts to build their workaround. We also needed to support them in making sure that the curricular materials that they had access to and that students were exposed to were aligned to those standards and were of really high quality. For those of you that were paying attention during the adoption of new standards several years ago, there was a lot of political involvement and attention being paid to that. Once that settled down, we were very hesitant to do anything that would re-spark that very political debate around something that very few people paid that close of attention to. We knew right from the start that we needed to really use a cross-sector approach to communicating this. We started very small. I started by having individual conversations with all the important stakeholders that we had in Wisconsin to explain what we were doing and why we were going to be doing this. We really tried to build up our stakeholders to be able to talk about this and to be able to spread this message further. Because I think we took that approach and brought people in early and had them be the champions, it not only helped ensure that this was a successful effort across the state, it also ensured that the demand continues to come from the field to ensure that this was happening. I think a lot of times you hear educators talk about things being done to them, things being thrust upon them, and this was something that, because of the way I think we approach it, it became something they were demanding the support for and demanding professional development around. I think that was a really important outcome based on the approach of that cross-sector owning of the initiative that we knew was good for kids, and the outcome was better because we did this not alone but with all of our partners.
Natalie Walrond: Building upon what Sheila shared, what examples of effective state-level, cross-sector approaches to supporting social and emotional well-being for young people have you seen? As you tell those stories, share a little bit about which interest holders were involved and why those strategies worked.
Maria Echaveste: I’m going to jump in, but I want to go back to something that Sheila said. I want to be clear that it’s not just supports and service. It’s not just the environment. It’s “both and.” This is why social–emotional well-being isn’t something separate and apart that goes out that you have PD for. It’s really, how do you attune yourself to the developmental needs of children? A 5th grade child is really different than a 10th grade child, and we need to understand that. With respect to cross-sector approaches, I really think there’s enormous work being done on Children’s Cabinets in Maryland. Harvard EdRedesign is working with a number of communities. Tulsa has really been focused on children but understands that they need to work with other bureaucracies to improve the academic and life outcomes for their students. And community schools is another approach. If done well, if it’s not just about, “Oh, supports and services,” but also improving teaching and learning. We need everything. There is no single silver bullet, which unfortunately too often politicians in particular keep striving for, but anybody who works in education knows there is no silver bullet.
Natalie Walrond: Maria, it’s that there’s no silver bullet and that each of these strategies when integrated reinforces the other.
Maria Echaveste: Absolutely. Absolutely. Or, as I like to say, “There’s plenty of work for all of us.” Let’s know what the North Star is and figure out what piece of it we’re going to work on.
Sheila Briggs: I love that. I’m going to start by describing some of the work that I see that needs to happen in the school, and then I’ll back up and talk a little bit about what the state I think can do to support that. I think it’s critically important in the schools and with the leaders and the district leaders that they really see the community, the families, the community organizations, all as assets that can support the growth and the development of the students in their care. It is a travesty if you do not recognize what families bring to the table in supporting the social–emotional and academic well-being of the students. First of all, just valuing that, recognizing that, soliciting that, and welcoming that, I think is critically important. We often talk about, “Is the only time you talk to the family when there’s an issue at school?” I think it’s actually even important to not even just talk to them about positive things at school. Talk to them about their family. Talk to them about what they care about. Ask them about the vacation they just took. If you are actually building legitimate relationships and partnerships with folks, you should be having conversations about more than just even school. Really get to know them and really see them for the assets and the valuable things that they bring into the setting. I think that’s really important. The leaders and the teachers should authentically be a part of the community. The way that state leaders can help with that, first of all, it’s critically important for us to work with partners like educator preparation programs so that we’re ensuring that our teachers and our leaders are being taught and supported in building their knowledge around this concept. It is a constant tension between social–emotional learning and academics. It’s a constant battle between literacy and science. We need to be supporting our prep programs to really be looking at the whole child and all of the things that are important to their development, and specifically being taught how to engage with families, how to engage with community, how to make sure they’re seeing them as assets and bringing them in as true authentic partners in the work that we’re trying to do. And then I think there’s other organizations—like the Principal’s Association, the Superintendent’s Association, the School Board’s Association—that the state needs to be working with together to form these kind of authentic partnerships to get that message out, regardless of the setting that we’re in. When I was at the Department of Public Instruction, we also worked with the Department of Children and Families. It’s so closely related to the work that we are doing. I specifically worked a lot with the early childhood side of the house, but there’s other pieces as well, that we want to make sure we’re developing funding and policies and support for our younger students so they’re prepared to come through our K–12 system. I think the opportunities are endless. We just need to be able to see them and welcome them.
Natalie Walrond: We then moved on to data and storytelling. Maria and Sheila had a lot to share, advising that system leaders tell relatable personal stories that highlight common ground and avoid jargon. Our final theme is about the importance of both data and storytelling for strategic communications. And Sheila, you’ve spoken to this in some of the other parts of the conversation. Just to take a step back, data and storytelling speak to different parts of the brain. The thinking part of our brain, including our prefrontal cortex, uses data for problem-solving. The feeling part of our brain, including our amygdala, influences emotion, memory, and motivation. Critically, this is also the part of brain that makes decisions. This is what people mean when they talk about “go with your gut.” Further, storytelling is critical to how we learn. Stories support perspective-taking and meaning-making of data and light up the part of the brain that controls memory. Here’s my question for you both. What kinds of stories have you seen resonate across the political spectrum? And I wonder in particular, if you have examples related to some of the topics we’re talking about, social and emotional well-being, mental and behavioral health, those pieces?
Sheila Briggs: Yeah, I think the more personal it is, the more it resonates with all people. When we see someone that’s struggling with or dealing with something that we can relate to, it becomes about fellow people and not about Democrats and Republicans. When we expect that all people want what’s best for our kids, we start out on a common ground. We might have to do some discussion around the best way to get there, but we all want what’s best for all kids.
Maria Echaveste: I couldn’t agree more. I think one thing that can help with the storytelling is to recognize that no one is just one thing. That our society sometimes tries to put us in, “Oh, you are a Latina; this is your experience,” until I tell you, “I’m a sci-fi reader and was once a marathon runner.” No one is just one thing. So that if we can find ways to make technical and policy issues relatable and make that human connection. Sometimes, we have to get offline and go talk to real, live humans more. That becomes evident much more quickly when you do that. I could not agree with you more. I have to say, Sheila, I have had the good fortune because of prior jobs to have actually traveled a lot of this country and been in places, everything from Southern New Mexico to Wisconsin and just all over. And I just firmly believe—I’ve seen—people actually want the same thing. They really do. I love it. Thank you.
Natalie Walrond: Okay, it’s time for you to share your parting wisdom. The next question I ask is, what are some “dos” or “do-nots” for state system leaders regarding communicating around issues of equity and well-being?
Maria Echaveste: I think the fundamental “do” is keeping students, children, the core value that you’re a system leader that believes all children can learn, and that you understand that children are unique and have different issues and different challenges and different experiences. Our challenge as a system leader is to adopt and address. Because if you believe all children can learn, a lot flows from that. If you don’t believe that, then we’ve got issues. That’s the first “do.” You believe all children can learn. Let’s go figure out how to do that. I guess the “don’t” would be don’t succumb to the polarization, as hard as it is, the politicization. Find ways to keep your eye on that ball of moving your system, your children forward and not let the negativity dissuade you from the hard work. I’m deeply concerned about the exhaustion so many of our teachers and our system leaders feel, and want to give them a virtual hug and say, “You are doing what society needs you to do. Let’s find ways to support you.” Because our society will not survive without an educated population.
Sheila Briggs: Absolutely, agree with all of that. I would say my big “do” is to make it about the kids. As Maria said, use simple language. We all want all students to succeed, and some students need something different than others. I think everyone can understand that. Tell stories about that. Connect with people about that. I think the “don’t” that I would emphasize is don’t forget to listen to the folks that you’re trying to serve. At Education First, we call it, “listening to the people most proximate to any problem you’re trying to solve.” We really want to include and inspire and listen to the families, the community members. If you do that right, you’re going to inspire people to be a part of a community that’s working to lift everyone up, and that’s what we want.
Natalie Walrond: Love it. Okay, final question. What’s your best guidance for state system leaders about strategic communications?
Sheila Briggs: I think just carrying on with some of the themes that came up. I think telling stories is always a good method. People can relate to that, as Maria said. You want folks to be able to connect with you in a way and know that you understand them and that you understand their child. I think in education, we tend to use a lot of education jargon, and we try and convince people with lots of language and lots of data and lots of research. It doesn’t mean that those things aren’t important, but I think we need to be able to appeal to people’s emotions in a way that helps them feel what you are trying to do and deeply connect with that. And I think a couple other things. One, it’s really important to see that communication is a two-way street, so it’s important to listen. If you’re not listening to the people that you’re trying to serve, I think that’s a mistake. We want to make sure we’re doing our due diligence in listening to our stakeholders. And then realize that sometimes we need to find a better messenger for what we’re trying to communicate. Sometimes, it’s not state leaders saying, “This is the thing.” Sometimes, it’s a teacher that’s sharing information. Sometimes, it’s a police officer that is well known and respected and is sharing information about safety that we want to people to be able to hear. Sometimes, we get the voices of students, and they can portray a message. I think that’s really important. I think that’s important as well as working to build a level of coherence over time in the message. We know the data around needing to be able to repeat our message multiple times before it sometimes is able to break through in a way that others can hear and internalize that.
Maria Echaveste: There’s not much more I can add to that, except that what happens too often—and I experience this— where you’ve got system leaders or legislators, they’re so focused on the policy that they’re using, as Sheila said, a shorthand. And yes, ultimately laws need to have to be written, and as a lawyer, the lawyers have to get involved. But fundamentally, if you do any research on how people make decisions, it comes through the emotions. We use emotions and values. That necessity of making and ensuring that parents, community stakeholders feel respected and heard. And I think that’s what happened when we get these big policy issues or pronouncements from on high. There hasn’t been sufficient attention about how it’s going to be heard once it’s out there. It’s about values, and really, don’t use acronyms and shorthand. There’s a reason folks tend to do policy work. It’s really hard work to talk to families and parents. It’s what I call the retail work of engagement. You have to talk to people, and that is hard work.
Natalie Walrond: Sheila and Maria, I want to thank you so much for joining me for this conversation and for sharing your wisdom, your expertise, and your experience so generously in this audiocast. Our panelists gave us a trove of guidance grounded in practical examples and proven strategies. At the root of everything they shared is that strategic communications and times of social conflict must be rooted in deeply held values of equity, engaging with all interest holders, building relational trust, and striving to find common ground. Thank you for listening. Please refer to other valuable resources on strategic communications in our Linktree. This audiocast was prepared by the Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety at WestEd through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Education under grant SS424B18004. Its content does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the funder, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. government.