12. Breaking Down the Customer

1. Segment: Union Site Leaders

2. Interviews:

• An elementary school teacher
• A High School Teacher
• A High School Teacher Union President

3. The issues that I have been speaking about with teachers is something that they are experiencing all of the time.  They are not seeing the proper support from the government, they are not receiving due compensation which is why we are experiencing a depleting field, and the general respect for their position is deteriorating.  These may seem like very loosely related ideas, but in reality, all of them are contenders for why we are experiencing the shortage.  Because of the depth of these issues in education, all of the interviewees are experiencing the problems almost at all times.  For the elementary teacher, she is struggling with adopting new curriculum that was implemented this year.  Because it is not succinct with the textbooks they are using, it has made planning for the year and getting things accomplished much harder.  For the high school teacher, last year they experienced not having a planning block because of the lack of teachers for one of the classes they needed.  They were happy to do it, but you could tell there was a lot of stress involved with the decision.  This came after a new policy that would transition the school from a block schedule to a period schedule.  Finally, the union president who sees a number of issues from various sources, a lot of times is not aware of the issues at the elementary level, and when told about them finds that there are many things that need attention.  If I had to say there is any time that is probably most relevant, it would be when changes are passed down from higher sources of government.  One could expect issues to come at these times, but with the frequency, it makes educating (their actual job) very difficult.

4. For the first two interviewees they are in frequent contact with the union president because that is the nature of the union.  However, all of them start looking at state law to see if there is the proper compliance needed on these issues.  There is not any one thing in particular they are putting into Google.  It is mainly a general viewing of the laws.  This is the primary step.  If they are in compliance, they begin contacting elected officials.  Many times this is school board members, the state representative, and the superintendent.

5. Overall, I think that a government liaison would be effective for them which they do have but maybe it is not working effectively at the local level.  Many of their lawyers/government affairs personnel are at the state and national level.  This does not help them with the local issues.  Based on that knowledge, I suggested to them that they should have a consultant to push these issues publicly and do an information campaign for the public.  There is a lot of things they could do and a lot to talk about, but they need to take the appropriate channels.  Much of the public does not care about public school in Citrus County because of the elderly population who do not have students in school.  With that being said, we would need to make the issues relevant to them (i.e. taxes, traditional values being implemented in schools, respect, and traditional roles).

6. This is probably the most self-aware and knowledgable group about the issues.  As well as the most vocal.  Because they are involved in not just their own issues, but other educators as well, they have a pretty great idea about the needs of the schools.  Also, their ability to find the information they need is pretty high because of the resources they have.  Now, their ability to push these issues and drive support is limited because they are not public relations specialists, they are educators.  They cannot deal with the legal aspects of their job, the education aspect, and support aspect plus pushing public issues.