Social Media
Filling in the Gaps
BY JOE SANFELIPPO/School Administrator, November 2021

I WAS WALKING DOWN the elementary wing of our school and saw a little girl standing in front of the kindergarten door. She was pounding on the door with every ounce of strength in her body. She was crying uncontrollably and screaming at the top of her lungs. 

I had been taught to make the most impact on students at a young age by having the conversations at their level, physically and emotionally.

I knelt to get face to face with the student and asked her one question. She looked right at me and without hesitation stuck up her middle finger directly at me.
Some of you just gasped. Others laughed. Others wondered what kind of family she came from. But how many of you thought, “What question did you ask?” That was the right response because the question I asked was “Which finger got slammed in the door?”

When people don’t know all the answers, they fill in the story gaps based on their experience. Often that experience in schools or with their superintendent was something less than positive. Therefore, the gaps tend to be filled with cynicism.

Raising Social Capital

Telling the story of your district is truly paramount and develops social capital for the schools if something goes wrong, which it will. The same concept holds true for leaders. When people in and out of your school fill in the gaps based on what they think you do as a leader, the amount of social capital you have developed has a tremendous impact on how those gaps are filled.

One of the easiest ways to build social capital is to be seen and heard in spaces across the school. Here are a few of the ways superintendents can build their social capital.

»Post. Simply find time to post. The only way to get proficient in a platform is to use the platform, whether Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. Play a role in whatever platform works for your school. With the district hashtag, post about the great things happening. When I first started doing posting, I worried about the time that went into it. What I found was that the more time I spent on the front end of a situation building social capital the less I had to spend on the back end of a situation because there was more trust in the message.

»Propel. Create something that involves the school community but from the office of the superintendent. Post about awards, art displays, student lunches with the superintendent and student shadowing experiences. Select an elementary student as the superintendent of the day. Maintain a superintendent podcast. All these activities can drive social capital gains. Platforms such as Podbean and Anchor make it easier to get the voices of your students and your own to the world in a quick turnaround.

»Place. A call home to tell parents their child is a great kid is good. A call home to tell the parents you were in a 3rd-grade classroom and watched their sophomore son Aidan reading a story to a young student and noticed the 3rd grader look into his eyes like he was a god is better because it taps into the emotion of the moment, places you in the classroom and ensures the parents realize you know their child’s name.

Shared Goodwill

Years ago, we had a huge storm that raged through our village, damaging property and causing power outages. The school, however, did not lose power. After three hours without power to homes and with no end in sight, we placed a message on our district’s Facebook page letting the community know if they feared losing refrigerated food, they were free to put it in a labeled bag and bring it to the school kitchen. When power resumed, they could retrieve the food.

During the first 30 minutes, we received countless messages from people thanking us. In the entire time the power was out, we received three bags of food. Community members didn’t need to bring their food, they just needed to know they could. That is social capital. That is the story that fills in the gaps. That is the story that gets shared when things don’t always go your way.

JOE SANFELIPPO is superintendent of the Fall Creek School District in Fall Creek, Wis. Twitter: @Joe_Sanfelippo