De lapp ethics acsa cel institute workshop

1. Dealing with challenging ethical situations
as a classified educational leader
© Copyright 2014 by Communication Resources for Schools

2. My teacher’s a porn star!
Scenario:

Eighth grade boys at the middle school come to a
principal with the allegation that their female science
teacher has appeared in adult videos on the Internet

The principal immediately calls the district office for
advice on how to handle it

Should this be grounds for discipline or dismissal?

Are you facing an ethical situation?

3. My teacher’s a porn star!
Scenario (continued):

Principal confronts the teacher and she denies it

Principal sends home a letter to parents saying this is
an unfounded rumor

That afternoon some other teachers bring in a video
clip on their iPad showing the teacher in the sex act

District places the teacher on paid administrative leave
and begins to investigate

Is her private life grounds for taking action?

4. Other Possible Scenarios

Firing a Principal but not being able to say why

School Board Member’s sexual relations with staff

Child abuse allegation that wasn’t reported properly

Administrators or teachers cheating as they score
state performance tests

Failure by the superintendent and/or CBO to disclose
an accounting error

Volunteer leader embezzling PTA funds

5. What was your toughest
ethical dilemma?

6. Doing the right thing

7. Navigating Rough Seas

In sailing, the deeper the keel,
the more stable the track

The keel in your district is your
communication capacity and
culture

How you practice ethical
leadership in communicating is
the rudder

To be a good rudder you need
to use your moral compass

8. Be a Communication Compass






As a key support professional, your role is to help the
leadership team to ethically answer tough questions

9. “Ethics” ‐ What comes to mind?
HONESTY
INTEGRITY
DUTIFUL
MORAL
JUST
FAIR
CHARACTER
LAW ABIDING
RIGHT & WRONG

10. What is “Ethics”?

It isn’t morality; it’s about behaviors and choices
 Not just a checklist of applied Do’s & Don’ts
 Morality is defined by religion, world view, and philosophy so
it can vary by cultural, social, and geographic variables

It is a set of values, actions, beliefs and motivations
 What we ought to do, when we should do it, and why
 Who we ought to do it for

Ethics is a process of engagement with other people that relies
on communication to reach synergy on what “ought” to be done
in a given situation

11. Let’s test drive our own ethics

Have you ever driven faster than
the posted speed limit?

It was illegal, but was it
acceptable and/or ethical?

What conditions/factors in your
mind made it OK to speed?

Did you rationalize your behavior
in the context of others’ actions?
Occasionally
Usually
Always
If you said anything but “never”
are you an unethical person?

Never
Have you ever gotten mad
at someone for driving too
slow even though they’re
going the speed limit?

12. Ethics aren’t absolute

There will be shades of gray in each
situation due to varying facts/perceptions

You need to be comfortable with being
uncomfortable

Resist relying on advice from color‐blind
advisors who see things as black & white

People with opinions need to be held
accountable for the implications and
repercussions of their advice

Some people think their beliefs are absolute
truths. But it is how we engage and
dialogue about different viewpoints that
define an ethical process of decision‐making
Self‐righteous
viewpoints are a
poor foundation
for ethical
decision‐making

13. Finding your ethical center
CODES OF CONDUCT
MANDATED REPORTING
FOIA

You need to navigate
through laws, policies
and common sense
REGULATIONS

WHISTLEBLOWER
FERPA
COURT
CASES
The trick is balancing
PUBLIC RECORDS ACT
CONFIDENTIALITY BOARD
what you must do with
CONSCIENCE POLICIES
what seems to be most:
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
 Effective
Use mentors and advisors
 Appropriate
to help with your decisions
 Expected
WWJD? (What Would Jim Do?)
 Least Damaging

14. Practice “Practical Wisdom”

 Can you guide your team toward well‐reasoned decisions?


 The precise “right time” when action and deliberation meet
 You can miss the mark when –
• Premature action without enough deliberation occurs
• Over‐processed decisions without action misses the
moment of truth

15. Intense Ethical Dilemmas (IED)

IEDs occur at the intersection
of what you value/believe
with what the law/policy says
you must do

At the convergence you have
to make decisions

Those decisions rarely offer
enough time for reflection

How and what you decide can
cause explosive effects
Principles
Practices
Policies

16. Avoiding the “Hurt Locker”

Financial misconduct & errors

Sexual misconduct & harassment

Contracting oversight & bidding

Cheating, lying, & plagiarism

Breach of confidentiality

Conflicts of interest

Pressure groups, pundits and pests (oh my)

Personal life overshadowing professional life
This is the minefield
where most of your
ethical IEDs lurk

17. PR Rule #1: Do A Good Job!
=
+

18. We All Seek Ethical Rubrics
Boy Scout Law

No other Gods

Is it the TRUTH?

Trustworthy

No graven images

Is it FAIR to all concerned?

Loyal

Don’t take name in vain


Helpful

Remember the Sabbath
Will it build GOODWILL and
BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?

Friendly

Honor Mom & Dad
Will it be BENEFICIAL to all
concerned?

Courteous

Kind

Obedient

Cheerful

Thrifty

Brave

Clean

Reverent

Don’t kill anyone

Don’t commit adultery

Don’t steal

Don’t lie about people

Don’t covet what isn’t
yours

Be a Good Scout
Do Your Best &
Be Prepared!
Mottos to live by!

19. Ethical Codes of Conduct
They function as expressions of shared ideals and identity
De Dicto
De Re
• As school systems, are we consistent and
uniform in what we preach?
• As professionals, do we all practice what we
preach?

20. It’s not going to be easy

 “With great power comes great
responsibility “ (Spiderman)

 Are your prepared to make ethical
judgments?
 Many would say it isn’t an ethical
debate if it isn’t complex!
If you want a
place at the table
you better be
ready to play!

21. Avoiding Conflicts of Interest

 Pay Raises or Perks
 Bribes or Gifts
 Discounts or Tickets

 Promotions or Evaluations
 Access to the boss; friendship


22. Avoiding Office Pressure
 Taking Sides in Conflicts
 Politics & Campaigns
 Scheduling the Boss
 Philanthropy requests
 Plagiarism & Cover Ups
 Withholding Information
 Nepotism & Favoritism
 Sexual Harassment
By taking an action
will you be under
someone’s thumb
or under their boot?

23. Tips for Approaching
Ethics‐Testing Situations
Ethical challenges rarely occur
without a sense of immediacy. By
definition they are crises (but some
can grow over time like a cancer!)

24. A crisis is a test
 Your response in a high
profile incident or
situation can be your
finest hour or your
worst nightmare
 It becomes a teachable
moment about the
ethical character of you
and your schools
The Chinese character
for “crisis” is a blend of
the characters Wei for
Danger, and Ji for
Crucial Point

25. Stay out of Ethical Debt

He started making questionable
decisions to get off the war front
by assuming a fallen comrade’s
identity

Each lie got him into a deeper
ethical hole

He also became accustomed to
his “reframed perspective” on
what was and what wasn’t real
and ethical
Organizations and
people often let things
slide to a point that they
lose traction and slip.
Getting into ethical debt
can be a tough hole to
climb out of

26. People will judge you on –

Quality of the process

Fair and just

Confidence in methods

Clear standards

Accuracy of fact base

Precedence involved

Timeliness of actions

Over‐riding impacts

Faith in the deciders

Sense of resolution

Alternatives discussed

Equitable outcome

27. Who is affected?
Know who will be impacted by your ethical decision

An implied or expressed promise/contract you made? (Fidelity)

Making up for a wrong you committed? (Reparation)

Appreciating something someone did for you? (Gratitude)

Balancing merits of each “claimant” in the situation? (Justice)

Helping someone who needs and deserves help? (Beneficence)

Avoid harming anyone unnecessarily? (Non‐injury)

28. Finding the “golden mean”

What are the best‐ and worse‐case scenarios if you choose this
alternative?

Will anyone be harmed if this alternative is chosen, and how will they
be harmed?

Would honoring any ideal/value (personal, professional, religious, or
other) invalidate the chosen alternative or call it into question?

Are there any rules or principles (legal, professional, organizational, or
other) that automatically invalidate this alternative?

29. Deciding with Integrity

Would this decision be a rule or policy you would follow in
similar situations in the future?

Does the alternative show a basic respect for the integrity and
dignity of those affected by your actions? (Ethic of Care)

Have you or will you be using any person as a means to an end
without consideration for his/her basic integrity?

Is the intent of this action free from vested interests or ulterior
motives?

Does this action promote character development in yourself,
and your profession, district and community? (Virtue Ethics)

30. Question #1: Are we unbiased ?

 How can we disengage our world, philosophical or religious
views from our management decisions?
 You have to in order to avoid pre‐judging situations, motives
and facts
 That doesn’t mean your personal values and beliefs aren’t
very relevant to the decision, it means they cannot start out
as the basic architecture of the decision

31. The Schadenfreude Trap

This German term means:
“Taking pleasure in the suffering of another”

Let the courts dole out the justice; just do you job well

Communicate morally and ethically, but not
moralistically or judgmentally

People can regret a situation without admitting to
what they’ve done

Indignation or revulsion over accusations can lead to a
rush to judgment or to punish without due process

32. De‐Personalize the Situation

De‐Personalize your assessment
 This removes your natural bias that may
cloud your judgment about how to respond
 Good people can do bad things
 Familiarity can lead to cutting them slack
 Try to look at the situation objectively not
subjectively at first

 Your actions involve actual human beings
that contribute to the overall reputation and
effectiveness of your schools. Be charitable.

33. My teacher’s a porn star!
Scenario (continued):

Principal confronts the teacher and she admits she
was a porn star for six months in 2005 before she went
into teaching

Pornography isn’t illegal

Is it illegal for former porn stars to be teachers?

Do you have a ethical dilemma in keeping her on paid
leave?

34. Question #2: Is it legal?

 Having a legal loophole doesn’t
mean it’s right to use it
 The spirit of the law counts so going
by the book might not be your ideal
standard of ethical due diligence

 You can get forgiveness in the court
of public opinion, but maybe not in
a court of law

35. Under your legal control?
Laws you can’t change
Laws you can change







Ethical decision aren’t achieved simply by
adhering to a bad policy or practice

36. My teacher’s a porn star!
Scenario (continued):

Principal keeps digging and finds out the teacher lied
to him and appeared in 22 adults films over a five‐year
period including some after she first started teaching

She was let go as a probationary teacher in two other
districts because of rumors she was a porn star but
when asked directly if that was a factor she lied to her
current employer

How would you ethically handle demands that she be
immediately fired?

37. Question #3: What do we know?

Be sure you have corroboration from
at least two independent sources

Resist jumping to conclusions or
presuming allegations are true

People can see a set of facts and
come to differing ideas based on how
they screen the facts through their
own values and preconceptions (i.e.‐
Trayvon Martin Shooting)

Don’t try to fill in gaps yourself – let
testimony and data do that for you
Highest priority is to
get as many facts
straight as you can
before even trying to
form a meaningful
response

38. Disconnect Rumor from Fact

Don’t let the group’s decisions get out in
front of a complete investigation
 It’s hard to undo a public statement

Initial facts may be incomplete or even
completely wrong. Avoid premature
projection based on bad data

Did witnesses “see what they wanted to
see?” Selective memory?

Check to make sure what someone tells
you is based on their actual experience
and not on what they heard
Letting a thorough
investigation run
its course is always
a good thing

39. Rumors = Mis‐Translation

LEVELED
 Details get stripped down
 Supporting data eliminated

SHARPENED
 Details are misconstrued out of context to fit a point of
view or the current environment

ASSIMILATED
 So a misinterpretation that fits into preconceptions and
expectations reinforced by faulty examples is spread

40. Practice Rumor Control

Rumors win on quantity and speed

People like to gossip and convince
themselves that spreading the news
is a laudable thing

One person’s mis‐statement ignites a
rumor as it gets re‐transmitted

False facts get compounded until
they embed as “common knowledge”

Witness statements are “bundled”
and give the false impression that
each was a separate observation
Validate
Information
and Sources

41. A Decision Framework





Laws broken or only policies?
Was it intentional or accidental?
Individuals only or group involvement?
Personal lapse or procedural mistake?
Obligation or supererogation?
 I did the limit of my duty vs. “above and beyond”
 Was it ethical to stop at my minimum obligation?
•
Example: Coaches and administrators at Penn State

42. Approaching ethical decisions

Utilitarian Approach
 which action results in the most good and least harm?

Rights‐Based Approach
 which action respects the rights of everyone involved?

Fairness or Justice Approach
 which action treats people fairly?

Common Good Approach
 which action contributes most to the quality of life of the
people affected?

Virtue Approach
 which action embodies the character strengths you value?

43. Balancing the greater good

A trolley breaks loose and is barreling
down on an intersection

Choose any set of potential victims
 The President or Pope
 A play group of little kids
 Your mother or grandmother

You are the conductor and can only
turn one way to avoid hitting someone

What do you do? What is the ethical
decision and why?
Maybe we need
to do a good job
so we avoid the
Runaway Trolleys
altogether!

44. My teacher’s a porn star!
Scenario (continued):

Teacher hires Gloria Allred to represent her and she
stages a high‐profile media assault on the district
alleging morality police have ruined this young
woman’s career because of a decision to pay for
college by being a porn star

As an ethical advisor what land mines do we need to
avoid?

45. Use Measured Communication

Don’t communicate to the few by
communicating with the many

How much information is
enough?
In highly charged
situations polarized
social media will make
the problem worse
and increase pressure.
 Does transparency mean you
Be your own ethical
have to give everything out all at
wire service!

If they didn’t ask the right
question are you obliged to give
the answer anyway?
once?

46. Be Pre‐emptive & Proactive
 Break your own bad news
 Frame the issues
 Create and stick to Talking Points
 Create and enforce Non‐Talking
Points
It’s best to be
 Keep track of fast‐breaking
the one who
developments
flips the switch
 Get a sense for when you are out
to illuminate
the issue
of the loop

47. Pass the “smell test”

If it smells they will pick up
the scent eventually
 Internet bloodhounds and
internal conspiracy theorists will
stay on the trail

If your explanation isn’t
straightforward and plausible
then it probably isn’t
believable to most people
 “It’s complicated” doesn’t always
explain away a decision
Keep your ear to the
ground, nose in the air
and eye on the ball. If it
feels suspicious then it
should raise your
internal alarms

48. Trust your instincts

Look in the mirror to see if your
actions and decisions are a good
reflection of/on you

Let your conscience be your
guide, but it may try to trick you
 Watch for shifting situational ethics
 Don’t get bullied or cowed
 Group think can stampede the herd
 It’s hard to disagree with friends
 Revenge is a poor rationale for taking action
Seek out advisors
who’ll tell you what
you need to hear,
not what you want
to hear

49. Cover ups don’t stay covered

 It goes to your credibility
and core values
 It has lingering effects that
last far longer
 It raises concern about
collateral issues
 It damages reputations
A smoke screen
will only delay the
inevitable. Better
to clear the air
from the outset

50. Mind everyone’s business

“It’s not what I am inside …
it’s what I do that defines me!”
(from the movie Batman Begins)
You are what you actually do,
not what you say you do

Talk about ethics as a team before the crisis

Factor ethical considerations into decision‐making; be the
ethical voice in the process

Model ethical behavior from the top‐down; lead by example

51. Communicate good choices
 Your job is to ask the right
questions and question the
right answers
 Your reasons for doing
something should be a
reflection of defensible
prioritizing of values
 How you communicate that
decision means everything
There may be no
escaping from
having to choose
between two bad
alternatives

52. Does the sentence fit the crime?
Conviction is the verdict or ruling you make.
Sentence is the penalty you exact.

Have you exercised ethical decision‐
making and appropriate actions in
reaching your conclusions on both?

Does the penalty meet an ethically
defensible standard for satisfaction?

If it looks like these two aren’t in sync
stakeholders will protest that you’re too
harsh or too lenient

53. My teacher’s a porn star!
Scenario (continued):

The district investigation reveals she is guilty of three infractions
of standards for credentialed teachers in state codes:
 She lied to her employer about something that impacted her teaching
ability/career
 Courts ruled that judges, police and teachers are held as moral examplars
and their private conduct does impact their ability to maintain a position
of authority and respect by the public
 Her reputation will interfere with her ongoing capacity to do her job; it
will be a permanent recurring distraction

Should the porn star teacher be fired immediately before her
appeals process ends? Does her termination fit the crime?

54. Brace for reactions
 Unintended consequences
 Denial
 Push back
 Retaliation
 Re‐Direction making you the problem
 Displacement to shift attention

55. Document decision‐making
Keep a diary

Of your thoughts, facts, findings,
observations, conversations,
contacts, and recollections

A written record is far superior to
your faulty memory a year from
now when you’re under oath

It also clarifies thinking because it
helps you be precise and choose
the right words

You can learn from it as you de‐
brief
Write a letter
explaining your action
to your harshest critic.
Can it stand up to the
ethical test?

56. When to blow the whistle

Be prepared to be punished for
your honesty

Think ahead to set your limits
so you’ll know when you
reached them

Watch for ethical cancer signs
 Bunker Time & Private Meetings
 Rolling Deadlines & Stalling
 Failure to Launch Communication
 Blindsides & Editing Text
At a certain point
you’ll have to
decide: Can I
continue to be a
party to this?

57. Diagnosing our Porn Star IED

Making this a fight over morality as opposed to conduct

Letting personal views dictate public actions

Making too many decisions on too little information

Reacting to the media, pressure groups and high profile lawyers

Exacting revenge that did not respect her due process rights

Losing sight of the long‐term impact on schools and students

Making this a legalistic debate devoid of common sense

Not maintaining a consistent reasonable message throughout

58. Some final thoughts

Having a well‐grounded sense of
ethics isn’t intrinsic – it’s acquired
through trial and error

Have WWJD moments when you
read the newspaper (ie – John
Edwards trial, BP oil spill, Penn State)

Use a lifeline – Phone a Friend

Try not to get caught off guard;
watch your ethical weather vane
What are the
key concepts
you’ve carried
away?

59. For further information
Tom DeLapp, President
Communication Resources for Schools
2351 Sunset Blvd, Suite 170, #504
Rocklin, California 95765
Phone: (916) 315‐1409
Cell & Text: (916) 765‐1759
Email: tomdelapp@aol.com
Web Site: www.tomdelapp.com
Blog: www.tomdelapp.blogspot.com
Follow on Facebook, Linked In and Twitter @tomdelapp