Charlotte school officials attempt to muzzle media | Hour 2

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is herd Live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. Alrighty, so we finally got a proof of life of the Charlotte Mecklenburg School superintendent yesterday. She appeared before local media with some instructions. We were told yesterday. Local media outlets were told that there that CMS was going to be holding this back to school press briefing and you know, the top brass the administrators would be there to talk about how they're so so ready for the beginning of the school year, and that the superintendent would be back after her two month suspension with pay for reasons that we don't really know, and you will not be allowed to ask her any questions about the suspension. This is only about the start of the school year. This is only about how oh so prepared we are for the start of the school year. This is a good story, reporters, so shut up about that suspension. The reminder, the reporters did not suspend Superintendent Crystal Hill. They didn't do that. The Charlot Mecklenburg Board of Education did that, and there were a couple of board members that were at the press briefing yesterday. Okay, But nobody wanted to talk about that because we don't want to distract from the opening of the school year. And that's what this press briefing is all about. How oh so prepared we are. So I am not usually in the business of offering free PR advice because like I charge usually about thirty to forty thousand dollars for my advice. But I'm going to give CMS a donation here of my PR crisis management expertise. Okay, and here it is. If you don't want media asking about the suspension of the superintendent, don't make the first availability of the suspended superintendent upon her return. Don't make it this event. Just don't. You shouldn't have had her there or see, because I'm all about presenting options here, right, you could have I'm just bitballing here. But you could have also done a media availability before yesterday. You could have had Superintendent Crystal Hill appear before the press with a couple of board members I mean, obviously the ones that did not want to fire her. I'm assuming you bring those folks and you put them in front of the media, and you let the media. Ask all the questions, and you let them go. You let the reporters go until they have nothing left to ask, until you call out for any more questions and nobody has any more questions, and then you're like, okay, thank you very much. And then after that you can say, look, we held a press briefing on this matter. We let everybody ask every single question they had. It's time for us to move on. See, you don't get to play the move on card if you haven't actually addressed the issue from which you wish to move on. That's the rule. Okay, I don't make the rules. I'm just telling you the reporters are not going to stop asking the questions because you just tell them stop asking the questions. So my idea yesterday when I heard this ridiculous demand from the staffers at CMS that reporters should not ask any questions about the suspension. We want the focus of this event to be on the first day of school. What I would have. Done when you show up in the room, and if you've never been to a press briefing, usually how it goes is all the reporters are assembled, and you're in the room and you're milling about, You're chit chatting with your colleagues and such, and there may be a staffer there, but they don't bring in all the brass until they're ready to start the event. Right, So you basically have the room, all the reporters. You have the room, and I would go to all of my colleagues and I would say, look, we all have questions about the suspension. If if I ask a question, I run the risk of being blackballed. Right, And then, like my media outlet WBT, for example, Right, if I was the reporter Brett Jensen from BT, he was there. If I'm the only one to ask a question that was off limits, I could end up being blackballed. Right. However, if all of us only ask questions about the suspension, they can't blackball everybody. They cannot blackball every single news operation. So everybody needs to only ask about the suspension. And here's the thing. You don't even need to ask any questions about the start of school because they're going to do their little opening statements they always do that. They sit at the front, they show some power points, right, they talk about the buses, they talk about the vacancy rates, and they talk about hiring and whatever. How great it's going to be. We are roso prepared. They're going to give you all the sound bites and video clips that you need. You don't have to ask them any follow up questions about the thing that they want to talk about because they already talked about it. So what you can do is when they open it up for Q and A, everybody ask about the thing that CMS said don't ask about. That is an act of defiance against CMS by the media, and that is the proper role of the media is to ask these questions, particularly when the government says don't ask these questions. So how did it turn out? Well? As you might expect, it did not go. Very well because reporters did, in fact ask questions about the thing that the CMS told them not to ask about. So good job local media for asking these questions, because you should have. You absolutely should have because of the app salute fumbling way that CMS has been handling this entire episode. So every story now in the local media is headlined as such. Here's WCNCTV questions linger as CMS superintendent doctor Crystal Hill returns from leave without explanation, WSOC as CMS students return, questions remain about Crystal Hill's suspension and return. Queen City News reinstated CMS superintendent doctor Crystal Hill makes first public appearance after weeks long probe. Right, everything now is framed through the scandal. You so, CMS, in its attempt to orchestrate the coverage ended up with the coverage being the exact thing they did not want it focused on. End bonus. You got a school board member scurrying down a hole as if like fleeing outside of a courthouse. But you got the gaggle of press all around her asking questions, trying to get some answers from her, trying to get some sound bites, and she's like scurrying around like all discombobulated, trying not to answer questions, giving silly responses. It reminded me of k Hagen, the late Senator k Hagen in her reelection bid when she came. She was under a cloud of scandal because she had blown off a whole bunch of committee meetings about the rise of ISIS. And she makes her announcement for reelection, and then she scurries out into the parking lot and the press followed her, and that was her announcement. Like it like it was a terrible announcement. All right. For over a year now you've heard me talking about Create a Video. 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She made it unequivocally clear behind the scenes that if she's fired, she'll burn the house down around her. Uh, that's a theory. I don't know if that's true, but obviously the leader of the system would know a lot about skeletons and such. David, I think was up next here, David Pete. I want to know if Crystal Hill is going to give back eight percent of her budget since her students are down eight percent. That's not how that works, David. They get paid regardless of outcomes. And I thought I had Yeah the HELLIAT says, treating the first day of school like the opening ceremony of the Olympics is so old. Yeah, well, I understand why they do it because media drives. Media drove that, and this goes back thirty years. Reporters have to go out and cover the stories right, and so the first day of school is a big story because if you think about it, you got a quarter million students in Charlotte Meckleburg schools roughly, and that means you got a quarter million kids, You got a quarter million parents. Maybe I would say twice as much, but you have single parents in there, so you know, add on another one hundred hundred and fifty thousand whatever, so you're at more than half a million people that are affected by the opening of schools. Then you have the teachers and staff, and you know the court system that follows the school calendar and all of that stuff. So there are a lot of people who need to know that school is starting up again. So media goes and covers the first day of school, and rather than having to do interviews with every single TV station, every single print operation, every radio station, right, rather than do that, they just do one press briefing all at once. So that's how that ends up becoming the event. So here is how the press conference about the start of school began. This is from WCNC. The reporter here is Chavn Riley. During that press briefing here in South Charlotte, we were hoping to get more information about that investigation and to Superintendent doctor Crystal Hill. But doctor Hill nor board members had much to say. I want to acknowledge the events of the past several weeks. To ignore it or to pretend that it didn't happen would not be authentic, and that's simply not who I am. However, I want to point out that today is not the time or the place to have that discussion. We're hearing from CMS Superintendent doctor Crystal Hill for the first time since the CMS board reinstated her. Doctor. Heel was placed on leave June seventeenth, about a month after the board hired an outside law firm for an investigation and to administrative and operational oversight. All right, So note what the superintendent said there. I want to acknowledge the events of the last several weeks. To ignore it or pretend it didn't happen would not be authentic and that's not who I am. But I'm not going to speak about it. So you're going to ignore it. So you're acknowledging that this thing happened. And that's the extent of your acknowledgment. Yeah, you know, some people did some things like that's the like, that's essentially what she's saying. Yes, this thing happened, but shut up about it. See I'm not ignoring it. I just said I know it happened. I'm just not going to talk about it right now. Which again, you could have set up a press conference prior to this event, and then this event would not have been tainted by your lack of acknowledgment or comments about what happened. All Right, let's pick up the rest of this report. Board members aren't saying much about why doctor Hill was placed on leave. Neither is doctor Hill. I'm curious to know if you're not answering questions today, when will you be able to answer questions about the investigation? And why can't you answer questions about the most important thing happening right now with the school district? But we're not? Why is that though it's been several weeks and still no answers parents that they do want answer? Steve, I'll take it. Thank you. I completely appreciate and understand your frustration. I will let you know that today we really wanted the focus to be on the opening of school, and there will be an opportunity for more information to be shared at a later time. After school district leaders highlighted this. But when she doesn't say when, I know you're frustrated, But we really want to focus on this other thing, not the big story. We want to focus on this other story again, this is your fault. CMS. The reason why the reporters are focusing on this story is because you have refused to give them information about the story that you wish to not focus on. Steps they're taking to prepare students to head back to class. Reporters ask doctor Heal what she would say to parents who may not be confident in the district's ability to execute the initiatives after school board leaders called her leadership into question. I feel confident in all of the initiatives that we've talked about today. Our success speaks for itself. Some as school board members from Main Title Lipt. We asked board member Cynthia Stone if she voted for doctor Hill to return and if she thinks the investigation was appropriate. Okay, we're gonna pause it there because this was the Purp walker. It's not really a walk. It was more of a scurrying, the purp scurry. This this is look again, free piece of advice. Okay. It never looks good for you when you are running away from a swarm of reporters who are asking legitimate questions and you're like, I don't want to talk about this. Ah, Like, not a good look. It does not inspire confidence. From the text line, m John says Pete, I am pleasantly surprised to see the Charlotte media actually pushed back against anybody in the quote establishment. Usually they will not challenge authority, except, of course, breaking Brett Jensen. Yeah, I mean I knew Brett was. Gonna ask the questions that that they told them not to. I like, if I had to place bets on that one, that would have been totally Oh yeah, Brett's gonna ask questions. Steve believes that CMS is setting Crystal Hill up for failure. Corey says, the point is, who the heck is she to say now is not the time to ask these questions? That would be like the convicted killer saying now is not. The time to arrest me. DC points out, so between the one hundred thousand dollars price tag for the investigation cost and the approximately sixty thousand dollars in pay she received while suspended, it cost CMS Schools well taxpayers one hundred and sixty grand to come up with the We're gonna keep a close eye on her response, Yeah, signed. DC, thankfully not in Charlotte. Yeah, there's one hundred and sixty thousand dollars price tag to this CMS board decision to do what they did. We deserve an explanation. What were you looking at? Management practices such as give me some examples. You can't just hide behind personnel matters. Here, you just burned one hundred and sixty thousand dollars of our money. Okay, so one of the board members, well, the one that was chased down the hallway, Cynthia Stone, did not go well for board member Stone. It's kind of hard to hear some of this audio, but I will translate. Best school board members remain tight lipped. We asked board members Cynthia Stone if she voted for doctor Hill to return, and if she thinks the investigation was appropriate. If, for example, the CEO of Kroger had an. Experience with what like this, do you think the grocery stores would close or open? Okay? So this is Cynthia Stone offering up a true brainbuster of an analogy. If let's just say the CEO of Kroger grocery stores. I don't know why she picked Kroger, but Kroger had an experience like this, Do you think the grocery stores would close or open? Yeah? They I'm thinking they would probably not be returning to their office. Like the suspension usually does not result in them being brought back on board because shareholders would have no confidence and our breaking. Brett Jensen noticed the problem with the brainbuster of an analogy here. That happened, of course, and that's what we're gonna do. But stocks would but stocks would plummet if that happened. Stocks would go through the. Toilet and then they come right back up on. It. So so. Brett says, yeah, the stock would plummet. He's exactly right. You suspend your board, your your CEO, you don't give any real explanation as to why, and then after two months you're like, oh, yeah, we're going to bring them back and like what what Wait, wait a minute, why we can't say yeah, people would have no confidence. Then the stocks would plumb it and then this board members like, but they'd come back up. No, they wouldn't. What are you talking about? The stocks don't just rebound. Oh good, they're they're back. The scandal ridden CEO that was suspended by the board for reasons they can't tell us is now back on, back in charge. And we can't tell you why. We can't exonerate her, we can't say anything. The stocks don't. Rebound from that. Chavon Riley from w C and C follows up then caring about. All right, so you can hear she's like, I gotta go on the tour. I gotta go, I gotta I want. To see the tour, because like she's never been on a tour of a school or something. And Sheravon Riley's like, why can't you be transparent about what happened? There are nine school board members, why can't you talk to mean while you can hear one of the staffers. We have to go, we have to go, trying to like shuffle everybody away from her, but the swarm is just following her, like you know, the pee weee soccer league for four year olds, just like swarming around the soccer ball as it moves around the field. That's what this looked like through the hallways. Board members, Why can't you talk? I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go. I got a tour. I gotta go on this tour. I don't know where I'm going. Where am I going? Oh? Through this door? And then they like they like stuffed her in some like office and closed the door so the media couldn't get to her. It was just terrible, terrible optics way to make it not about the first day of school. CMS you failed, Okay from a COMMS perspective. If your intent was to only make this about the first day of school and how oh so prepared you were, this is an f I know you guys don't give those out anymore in school, but like that in my day, this would be a failure. You do not graduate, no diploma. The CMS school Board's next meeting scheduled for Tuesday, which is also the first day of school, and I'm sure they won't talk about it at the school board either. I'm sure they'll tell everybody. We're not going to talk about this this issue either at our school board meeting. Now. There was also a report at WSOCTV by Joe Bruno. I have his report. There's some other audio from this hallway exchange as well. From the text line, Miguel says, Pete, who is this superwoman running the education department to tell us when we can or can't or the press or public can't ask questions. Charlotte taxpayers are sleeping at the wheel with this little tight lips gang running the city. Remember a couple of settlements that went out the past chief of police, president, chief of Police's husband. Little explanation, what's going on? Where is the new mayor he's also speechless like Viylyile Wiles. Yeah helloo, Yeah, Well, I think Mike has the answer. It's cheaper to keep her. I think that's probably what the CMS board does not want to say. They don't want to say that, Yeah, they found some stuff. It's very troubling, but it doesn't rise to like firing for cause. But they're not comfortable with her because of whatever management practice is, whatever that means that she's been engaged in, and so they can't cut her loose without having to pay out the rest of her salary and maybe some penalty or whatever, and so they're going to just ride out the rest of the contract. I suspect that that may be what's going on, but we are just left to speculate because nobody tells us nothing. All right. Next up Joe Bruno at WSOC TV his report. Well do you think, well, do you think the investigation was appropriate? And a doctor hills she's got quite the record. What's your answer? And you can answer that question. Because I've alaven answered. Do you think doctor Hillstone a nice job? CMS board member Cynthia Stone wanted nothing to do with my questions, despite being one of the nine people who played a role into calling and to question Superintendent Crystal Hills leadership, Stone and the rest of the Board's one hundred thousand dollars investigation ended with Hill being back on the job. Despite the district summer of scandal. Hill says schools are ready to open the doors to tens of thousands of students. All right, let me pause it there. The point that Bruno is making is a good one. The board is the reason why this story exists. They're the ones who took this action. They didn't have to suspend her. They didn't have to pay for an investigation with a law firm at a cost of one hundred k. Right, they could have gone about doing the investigation. They could have done that in closed session. They could have hired a law firm. They could have did their probe. Right, they could have done that and left her on the job. But they suspended her. And once you. Make that, no, once you do that, that is now public information, and the natural question is why. And then you are just saying we can't say. And now you're like, Okay, she's coming back, so is she cleared? There's still this cloud And so Bruno's question is completely appropriate, Like are you confident in Superintendent Hill, because you obviously were not confident enough to hire an outside law firm and suspend her for two months. See, here's my question. If I had the opportunity to ask doctor Hill at that press conference, you know what I would ask, how did you. Spend your two month vacation? What did you do? Did you go anywhere? Was it a staycation? What'd you do? Seriously, how did you spend your two months of not working? Oh, you can't answer that. That's like, that's not that's not personnel matter. It's a personal matter. Maybe, But that's what I would have asked. All right, So here's Superintendent Hill saying, we are also ready for the school year. We are aligned, we are a team, and we are ready to go. Because of the investigation, this team has questions surrounding its head. Coach Hill promised to answer questions soon, but did not say when. I completely appreciate and understand your frustration. I would let you know that today we really wanted the focus to be on the opening of school, and there will be an opportunity for more information to be shared at a later time. At times, district staff tried to block reporters from asking questions about Hill's suspension, but Hill told them to stand down. I'll just state that feel very confident about my leadership and the leadership of our team. While Hill is confident in her staff, it remains to be seen if Hill's bosses, the CMS board members have confidence in her. Is she doing a nice job? Did you vote for her return? Why won't you say whether the school board superintendent the superintendent is doing a nice job. It's not a hard question, y'all make your own decisions. You're on the standboard, you are. Do you think she's doing a nice job as superintendent? Joe Bruno Channel nine Eyewitness News, Okay, I'd like I've probably given away now over one hundred thousand dollars in free pr advice. Here's another piece. You need to find some. Closet and you need to stuff Cynthia Stone into it, all right. Do not let her be in the public eye at an event like this. Bruno's report points out that a majority of the board did not show up for this press conference. And I don't know if that's normal nowadays or not. I remember when I would cover these events, you know, for a decade, it was always just the CMS staff. Every now and again you would get a board member there, but usually not, so I don't know if things have changed over the last twenty years, and maybe CMS board members started attending the back to school press conferences, I don't know, but the fact that very few board members were there, I don't know how many. It seems like everybody just went after Cynthia Stone in the hallway, so I'm not sure if there was another board member there except her. But you need to tell Cynthia Stone thanks but no thanks, or you need to mail the you know, the RSVP someplace else, like to oh, sorry we sent it to the wrong address or something, Oh I mistyped your email address for some reason. She is not helping when when they're asking her, when the reporters are asking her, is she doing a nice job? Did you vote for her return? Why won't you say if she's doing a nice job. It's not a hard question. And her response is y'all make your own decisions. And the reaction from the reporters was you're on the school board. That's a completely appropriate response. I don't know who said it. It may have been Joe Bruno, but you're the board member. Again, you've you suspended her, right, you hired the law firm, you brought her back, and you're not saying anything. You won't say e And whether you voted to bring her back or not, you won't say if you're confident to her in her or not. You're not even willing to say she's doing a good job. You're her boss, you're the school board, you are our elected representatives, and we are asking you this question because you are in the position of power. It's not up to the media to make their own decisions here. You made the decisions why, and they don't want to say why for some reason, which now just leaves all of us to speculate. And I don't think that's very helpful for the school district or actually for Crystal Hill or the board members. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to the Pete Callaner show dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening. And don't break anything while I'm gone.