No Child Left Alive and the C. J. Huff Administration's obsession with PR

During the same month that my novel, No Child Left Alive, was published in paperback format (and about three weeks after the Joplin R-8 Board of Education terminated my teaching position, the board approved a Comprehensive Improvement Plan for the district with 20 percent of that plan dedicated to improving the school district's public image. The plan, of course, was created by the C. J. Huff Administration.  A screenshot of that portion of the plan is included in this post.

The first part of the post is an excerpt from No Child Left Alive featuring the new superintendent of the fictional Franklin Heights Unified School District, Dr. Carlton Dunn, showing what his priorities are:


As the head of the Franklin Heights Unified School District’s technology department hunched over his computer, Carlton Dunn looked over his shoulder, peering intently at the screen.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“I like the profile shot.”

Dunn nodded. “I do, too. Let’s go with it.”

“Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to go with a picture of the high school or maybe a cougar. That is our school mascot. People are familiar with it.”

“No, no,” Dunn said, his voice ringing with certainty. “The people in this school district need to be reassured that I am in charge.”

“I know I’m reassured,” the tech chief said, though Dunn did not pick up on the trace of sarcasm in his voice.

“Good. That’s the way everyone else will feel, too. Go ahead and put it on line.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. It is high time that we spread the word online about all of the good things that are going on here.”

“Well, start spreading the news. We’re on Facebook.”

Dunn admired the page. “I’ll send out an e-mail to the staff. Everyone will ‘like’ us on Facebook and we will offer a bonus to the staff member who successfully invites the most people to our page. I will have our new public relations coordinator start typing up positive information to put on the page every day. Isn’t it exciting?”

“Oh, yeah. No doubt about it. When did we get a public relations coordinator?”

“I hired her today. She was a steal for $80,000 a year.”

“The taxpayers are lucky to have you in charge of their money.”

“Of course they are and this way we can be sure that they know that. Now tell me one more thing- When you get our Twitter account set up, will we able to have my picture on it, too?”

And now to prove that truth is stranger than fiction:

The improvement plan includes five areas in which the district plans to improve between now and 2017. The media plan is the fourth standard and is reprinted below directly from the board documents found on the district website.