Something interesting

So, something interesting happened while I was observing last week: In the middle of class, the principal walked in accompanied by a Fox 13 news crew. They were there to do a story on AVID and wanted to interview students. My initial thoughts were that it was good that an urban school was getting some good press. I liked that AVID was being positively recognized, because I've observed enough to see that it is a good program that truly helps students reach for higher education. But, the crew was causing distractions and after it had been there for nearly an hour, it occurred to me that, good press or not, this might not be worth it. After speaking with the teacher I was observing, I found out that this was not the first time that this has happened. Apparently this was something that happened on several occasions. This got me thinking a little bit about the cost/benefit factor to PR stunts such as this. Does the school benefit from such interviews enough to merit wasting a class period? I'm not so sure it does. I can understand why it seems appealing. If a principal can get some good press for the school I think it's worth participating in these things, but with the limited amount of time teachers have with students and the end of the closing fast, I don't think that a case could be made for interrupting the classroom for it. On top of that, with the way the media is today, you never really know the kind of spin they will put on the story. For all you know, the headline is "teacher wastes valuable time to let students participate in irrelevant interviews". I know that seems a bit paranoid and I'm sure that is not the case here. I'm just saying that if it were my school, I think I might reserve these kinds of PR stunts for after school when students are not trying to focus.