Crisis communications lessons from Sandy Hook

On Board Online • November 5, 2018

By Barbara Bradley
Deputy Director of Online Communications and Project Planning

"Superintendent, I want you to sit down."

That's how Janet Robinson heard about the Dec. 14, 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Robinson was then superintendent of Newtown (Conn.) Public Schools.

The task of informing her fell to law enforcement. Normally, the school's principal, Dawn Hochsprung, would inform her of a school crisis. But Hochsprung was one of the first of 26 people, including 20 students, who were killed by a 20-year-old man armed with his mother's Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle (earlier that day, he had killed his mother and later took his own life).

Robinson shared a first-person account of her actions during the fateful day's events and the days and weeks beyond as part of Communicating Under Pressure, the 10th Annual Pre-Convention Communications Workshop, on Oct. 25 in New York City.

"We can't take the grief away but we can control the response," she said. She offered these communication and management lessons learned from her experiences:

• Make sure your school district has notification "systems and backup systems and backup systems" in place. Under normal circumstances district staff would have notified her, but in this instance she didn't learn of the tragedy until the police told her. "Nobody planned for the principal and the staff to be dead," she said.
• Correct wrong information, whether it's from the media or from the school district, said Robinson who was the chief spokesperson during the tragedy. Thousands of media from all over the world descended on Newtown in the aftermath of the tragedy. Robinson worked with the town selectperson (similar to mayor) and cleared information with the police before disseminating it. If the initial information she gave was wrong, she prefaced the new information with "What we have now learned is ." She also developed relationships with the media, which helped.
• Communicate with parents, Robinson said. She described the scene at a nearby fire station where Sandy Hook parents awaited the release of their children. "It became increasingly apparent that we had more parents than children," she said, holding herself together as she described the scene to rapt attendees. It was hard to keep track of the children without access to the elementary school building. Ultimately a staff member was led into the building to find recently-taken school pictures, which were used to identify the students.
• Have a plan in place for dealing with help and donations. Newtown received thousands of items, including teddy bears and tickets to events, said Robinson. "We were not prepared for the avalanche of help," adding that 20 volunteers a day opened letters and packages for weeks.
• Be ready for conspiracy theorists. Robinson revealed that she was attacked by conspiracy theorists who disputed the tragedy that day. "The hardest thing is dealing with your own anger," she said.

Robinson noted that the chair of the district school board was extremely helpful and made himself available during the tragedy. The school board kept its focus on the healing process; it did not take a position on gun rights.

Days after the tragedy, Robinson re-opened the schools to return district students to their routines. "My priority was those children," she said, adding that students told her they were ready to return.