I am writing here, mainly just to process what I've been thinking about lately. Today's topic is PR and the relationship to fallability and humility. Not long ago, there were two incidents in my town which were thought to be child abductions at school bus stops. One was not, and another was a "concerning" incident but likely not a true abduction attempt. All the same, they prompted the usual flurry of frantic parents and resulting strategic & safety communication from the school and civic authorities.
For me, this reopened old wounds. Last year, three times in one month, my children's school bus left without them. This was during a time of flux for us. Chris was taking odd jobs, and the kids' pick up & child care schedules varied. But this is not a unique scenario, we followed all existing protocols, and still mistakes happened. Somebody goofed up, and the kids were left at the school with no official supervision. Fortunately, it is a small, tight-knit school. The kids were noticed quickly, I was contacted by another parent, and my children were kept safe until I could get there. All the same, as a mother I can't easily forget all the ways this could've gone so very, very badly. What if the kids had tried to walk home and gotten lost? What if they were noticed by someone with evil motivations (scared, unsupervised kids are easy to spot) rather than the trusted family friend who caught them? What if they had gotten hurt, while in this limbo? Remember, the kids fell outside the safety net. The school had "dismissed" them, but had not transported them, creating a kind of procedural no-man's land where they were at school, and yet not. No one was accountable.
My kids were safe by luck, by familiarity within the school community, by good fortune, etc. But they were not officially safe. Something went very wrong, from the school's perspective. And this brings me to my issue... what really chafes me, what makes me toss and turn at night, and makes me see red, is not that this mistake happened. It was a complicated time, and while that doesn't excuse the serious mistake, I am human and so can understand that others are human, too. I can accept that a mistake happened. The grudge I've been unable to release is that I was never contacted by any school personnel, ever. The parent who took my kids home called me. The teachers didn't. The receptionist didn't. The principal, whom I called that first evening (pretty irate, I must say), didn't call me back until late the next day, at which point she left a message which I promptly returned but then she didn't call back again. The same thing happened three times, remember, and each time there were school personnel around who saw it, but none ever contacted me.
I would think that, if ever there was a call you are sure to make, "we misplaced your children but they're ok" would be that call. I do understand that noone ever wants to be vulnerable. I get that it may seem poor strategy to call and cop to a grievous error, unbidden. True, it may set you up for a lawsuit. But here's the thing... the actions set you up for the consequences, not the admission of them. I mean, seriously, what are the odds that I would not learn you forgot my children? These things do come out. By not being forthright, by not having a person with some power and responsibility call me and admit it, the result is that I do not trust the school. I do not trust that institution. Not because a mistake could happen, but because my children could be put in serious harm and I can't trust that anyone would tell me so that I can handle it, so that I can be there for scared kids in the way I needed to be.
I don't know what I want. I don't know what will make me trust the school, or if I ever will. Frankly, that bridge may be out for good. I see that procedural changes are happening, and I applaud them, but trust? Trust isn't always rational. What I want, more than anything, is to emphasize that structures in charge of children need to be willing to eat crow if they've messed up. They need to take that risk and admit it. Because the alternative is a lack of trust, without which we cannot be of one community.
No comments:
Post a Comment