After Price was introduced, she asked that the Principal leave the room. (This is a reg-flag-risk-management concern.) Most of the teachers remained for the presentation, but did not intervene when the lecture became inappropriate.
The news reports that Price was born with physical handicaps, but had gone on to achieve a doctoral degree despite her physical obstacles. Perhaps this was the basis for her motivational speech that steered way off topic? The news does not report what her main intent was on that day.
Superintendent Mike Bergman stated, "Somehow she got some story that she heard students were having sex on campus and went into a speech about sexual type things. There was no motivational speech at all."
Students were asked to keep the contents of the speech secret. However, the school district has been flooded with angry parent phone calls since the event.
The school sent a letter home with students informing parents of what had happened, but that letter was not sent home until several infuriated parents addressed the issue at a school board meeting. The letter said the controversy would be a topic for discussion at the next regular school board meeting.
In the meantime, the school has tightened its policies on presentations to students, and now requires the Principal to be present for all presentations. Teachers were also given more leeway to interrupt presentations deemed inappropriate.
ISM Consultants left us with these thoughts after reviewing this story:
"Mitigating potential risks of this type really starts with providing a firm grounding and common understanding among all employees of the mission, culture, and values of the school—i.e., what we're trying to accomplish, how we're trying to accomplish it, and what behavior is expected or prohibited here among faculty, staff, and employees. It is vital for the Head—with the Board's full support—to transmit these values and expectations to all employees, not only during a once-a-year orientation speech, but on a daily basis by what they do and say and what they don't do and don't say. And it is best for this to be backed up by a well-articulated Code of Conduct for all school employees and volunteers, including Board members."
