Today, I learned a something I can’t believe nobody told me before.

I cover 26 public school corporations. (That’s what they call districts in Indiana.) There’s about 40,000 students among them. But while I do cover all those districts, I tend to stick mostly to the three districts in this county (admittedly, they account for more than half of the student population). So, I don’t get out to the “region” districts very frequently. Consequently, my contacts there are, shall we say, lacking.

When stories pop up that require me to find “real people” from those areas (i.e. impact sources, which we are all but mandated to include in EVERYTHING), it’s not always easy. Here, I usually know parent council members or a parent or two at the school or at least the principal well enough that he or she can help point me in the right direction, or I can always stop by a school at dismissal to grab someone. But, at schools an hour or more away from here, especially on stacked days like today where long-shot phone trees don’t work, this isn’t really an option. I struggle with it.

Last Friday, one of the five stories I wrote (Fridays are always my busiest day) was about a consolidation study being conducted in one of the counties. I talked to the people actually involved, and I talked to the group chosen to do the study (which will begin next year). I made a feeble attempt to find a “real person” through a contact or two, but by 7:30 p.m. after starting around 9 a.m., I ran out of time and motivation. My story was solid except impact sources.

My editor had the reporter on Saturday, who had a lighter schedule than typical, make some calls and write into my story with parents. Whatever. He easily found three parents. I reasoned that he’s older, wiser and better connected than I am (having worked at the paper almost 30 years, all of those are true statements), so it was easier for him to make those calls and find those people.

Turns out, I could have found them just as easily. I just didn’t know where to look.

Today, a state report was released that recommends schools do basically exactly what the study I wrote about is considering. I got pegged, rightly, to do a schools reaction piece to complement the news of the report.

I needed “real people” to comment, and though often I find myself grasping at straws for the usefulness of those sources in stories, this was one instance where there was no question that was a needed voice. But how to find them?

I mentioned to my editor I had the local professor who advised the commission and school officials, but I needed some parents. He made the off comment that the way the reporter found people on Saturday was looking for unique names on honor rolls and finding it in the phone book.

My reaction: “OMG are you serious?! Why didn’t I think of that?” That was non-verbal of course, because I felt like an idiot for not having thought of that before. Genius.

I mean, we run honor rolls for 26 school corporations, dozens of schools, etc. on the Communities page. We archive them all. Many have hundreds of names of students. Names that are tied to parents, who therefore obviously have a vested interest in the schools, who therefore might have something intelligent to say about the schools when topics requiring that opinion arise.

So this afternoon, it took a few attempts to call someone who answered. But all told, it took less than 15 minutes to find a “real person” who rounded out tomorrow’s story well. Way less effort was needed than I’d usually have to give. Duh!

It was “ding, ding, ding” in my brain. I can’t believe it’s been almost a year and nobody ever gave me this advice tip before.

I’m sure there are other old-hat tricks that nobody has thought to share with the rookie, but man, this just makes so much sense I really was dumb founded I didn’t think of it myself. So, anyone reading this with their own brilliant reporting tips, by all means, share the wealth.

For your amusement because it made me smile a little on a down day:

Courtesy of What The Duck, a very funny strip about life as a photographer.

“All progress depends on the unreasonable man. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.”
— George Bernard Shaw

“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”
— Jack Kerouac

(Stolen from Rachel, who apparently stole it from Google?)

Today I think was the first time I really knew my education reporting here had made an impact. Not just in an, “I appreciated your story,” or “You did a nice job covering that issue,” or even “Thank you for bringing X to light, too many people don’t know about it,” way. No, it made an institutional difference. And yet, when the man I was talking to told me, he apologized thinking I wouldn’t want to hear.

I’m working on a story about parental involvement in one local school corporation. This year they have made this a huge priority. I keep hearing it, left, right, center. Parents, principals, etc. They’re even paying to send teams from three of the schools to a parent leadership academy to develop more parent-focused programs for the schools. In short, the district is making, if not strides, an honest to God effort, and the teams are getting ready to begin implementing what they’ve been studying/planning this coming semester.

Insert me. I’m following up on this academy group. I talked to a few administrators, a counselor and a few parents. Another parent called me back tonight. I asked him how he got involved and why. His reply?

“You probably don’t want to hear this, but honestly it was all the bad press (the school) and (the school district) were getting in the J&C. I kept reading it and thought it was giving a bad impression about the schools. So I wanted to get more people involved. So I approached (the superintendent) and asked what I could do. …”

I could have chosen to take it the way I take many complaints about how negative the paper is regarding that school. I could point to the dozens of stories I alone have written this year about positive things happening there. I could point to the stories that are perceived as negative and, at the least, show they are balanced and fair. I could tell him, I can’t control the news that comes out of the school — if you have low graduation rates or high incidence of violence, you should be held accountable.

But I didn’t.

Instead, it dawned on me this man, having gotten sick of reading about negative things in the schools, took it upon himself to improve the schools. And the district has joined him to devote significant resources (that parent academy isn’t cheap, to say nothing of the cost of staff time to implement the programs they’re developing) to see its students have a better chance at success.

Holy crap, I thought. In a roundabout way, I did that. It feels good to make an impact, even if it’s not in the way I intended.

“I’d rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate.”
— George Burns

We have a weekly rotation of about eight newsroom staff members writing “The View From Here.” It’s a column that runs in our Relate section every Wednesday with a photo of the columnist. The topic is whatever your heart desires, as long as you write 12-15 inches about it.

This week was my week. Since I am horrid at thinking of topics (and what I do think about I write here) and because I quite literally remembered about an hour before it was due last week, I decided to write about not going home for Christmas.

I wrote it quickly and barely gave it a second thought. In fact, because I took a sick day Monday, I actually forgot it was slated to run today. So when I was at a board meeting and one of the principals told me he loved my story, I was confused. “The one on Monday’s schools page?” I inquired, since it was about his school. “No, the one about Christmas away from home.”

Oh. That one.

At least a dozen people — at least! — at the board meeting alone came up to me and commented on it. From principals to board members to parents and city council members I’ve never even met before. Even my landlord commented on it when I saw him this evening. It was kind of funny.

I wrote the column, you know, about what it’s like to be away from home for my first Christmas, about all the traditions I’ll miss but how some of my friends here are in the same boat, and we’ll help each other through. I guess I never really thought about how universal it is to go through that. I was worried they’d all think I was being cliché. But apparently, a lot of people found it interesting.

Anyway, it was kind of cool (and annoying when I was trying to grab people after the meeting to get their input on the proposals and they wanted to talk about me!) to be recognized and to know so many people read my story. Even though I know they read my other stories, and several people did comment on other stories I’ve written recently, I think this was probably the one that the most people went out of their ways to comment on. Even the publisher said he almost felt sorry for me having to work Christmas. But I guess it’s something most people at some point get to experience.

My past Views have also gotten a lot of feedback. And I’ve heard numerous people in the community say they love the stories where reporters talk about their life because it makes us more human, more than just a name. I know some of the reporters don’t participate in the columns because “putting your opinion out there in any form can only compromise your coverage.” Pshaw, I say. I don’t write about things that have to do with my beat. Problem solved. Then again, my opinion is practically an open book. Or blog as the case may be.

So, for your reading pleasure, here’s today’s “View From Here”:

Not everyone will be heading home this Christmas

By MERANDA WATLING
mwatling@journalandcourier.com

On Christmas morning, I will wake up and do something I’ve never done before on that day: I’ll go to work.

I won’t spend Christmas Eve with my family at one of my siblings homes, dining on my mom’s turkey and fighting over who gets to break the turkey wishbone while It’s a Wonderful Life is ignored in the background.

Come Christmas day, I won’t wake up entirely too early to tell my nephews to go back to bed or that they can open just one present before breakfast.

That afternoon, I won’t be there while my siblings and cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandma and grandpa pass gossip and gifts around my grandparent’s living room. I won’t taste a single one of my grandma’s oh-so-thin and perfectly iced sugar cookies this year, nor will I drink a Shirley Temple with my grandpa, the way he prepared them since I was a little girl.

But though I’ll miss the family traditions, I actually volunteered to work Christmas day. Newspapers don’t take holidays, so I knew I couldn’t swing both Christmas andThanksgiving off my first year on the job in this industry.

So I went home for Thanksgiving, which is my favorite holiday. Our annual gathering at the family farm is a holiday tradition I cherish above all.

On Thanksgiving, every extended family member up through my great uncles who can make it home from out of town comes — rain, shine, blizzard, whatever.

This year wasn’t quite the same because I was driving straight to the farm — six hours to Akron, Ohio, from Lafayette after working the night before. But I made it home. The commute, coupled the fact that I hadn’t been home since summer made it even more special to see everyone.

I knew as I grew up, I wouldn’t make it home for every birthday and holiday or get to keep every tradition I hold dear in my memories.

I also know someday I will have my own family, and I’ll want to share these traditions with them. But more than that, I’ll make new ones.

Though there are a lot of things I won’t be doing this year, I’m trying to focus on those that I will. A gift exchange and Christmas cookies are in my future — just not with my family this year.

I’m not the only person I know spending Christmas away from home. So we’ve decided to band together.

We might not have a genuine dining table among us, and we may be novices at cooking real meals. But we’ll work it out and whip up a respectable Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner. And even if the food sucks, celebrating with friends in the same boat will make up for it.

Watling is the education reporter for the Journal & Courier. She can be reached at mwatling@journalandcourier.com.